Word. Despite the live crowds loving to hate Cena (hell, I love to hate Cena too), he's one of the only big draws out there that can reliably pick up a mic and move a crowd. Dude routinely gets booed on sight but will have the crowd thawed out in 2 mins of by-numbers mic work... nobody else out there seems capable of it.
Punk had the same gift, but he was never going to stick around for as long as WWE need the "face of the company" to stick around for. There is still nobody that's going to fill that Make-A-Wish slot like Cena has. They've had to mid-card him to give new talent a chance, but he's still CLEARLY got the most star power out there, even amongst the fans that hate him - they boo louder for him than they do the real heels.
The E really need someone to step up and force themselves in by taking some risks, but I get the impression they're warned off every time... creative clearly hasn't got a fukking clue how to turn a mid-carder into a star, the leap needs to come from the talent themselves.
Take the shackles off Social Media and give them the space to create, sink or swim. Some of them will fukk their careers when it turns out they're racist/homophobic/not funny/into goats, but some will turn themselves into bonafide new legends rather than the imitations of old legends that we're stuck with at the moment.