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JBL's sudden push annoyed me. It made no sense why this guy who was half of a tag team that didn't really have much kayfabe success when you really think about it (although they were projected as tough guys) could suddenly be the WWE Champion. It cut the balls off SmackDown a lot. The guy can talk, but his matches were fucking dog shit. It never felt like he was being built up as a credible champion, it always felt like he was placeholding for the big face to take it off him -- something which made no contextual sense given the safeguards he had built up.
Why didn't The Cabinet run out and attack Cena at WrestleMania 21? JBL just got his ass handed to him in a 9-minute match because. I know this isn't a popular theory, but if Cena has been screwed out of the title at Mania 21 (but still won), the heat on JBL would have been tremendous, and Cena could have gotten his own moment headlining a PPV like Judgment Day instead of beating JBL in what was essentially a mid-card match. The whole JBL reign and Cena win were actually precursors for a lot of Cena hate, in my honest opinion, despite a lot of critics pinpointing it later. The Jericho feud definitely galvanized it all, but it started with the shoe-horning of 2004/2005 SmackDown.
JBL would have been absolutely phenomenal as a mid-card US Champion heel gimmick at first. He could have decked himself out in the gear he would eventually use during his actual US Title run, and he could have beat Cena for the belt, freeing him up for an organic chase, and JBL could have lost the US Title and challenged Cena later reminding he was the guy who beat him for his US Title, so he'd do it again for the WWE Title.
Carlito could have come in against JBL, they could have brought up the immigrant stuff, and he could have beaten JBL as a babyface that actually mattered. Get those layers going.
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