Editing Openai/6960b960-7b68-8003-8a39-ed41413ff2b8 (section)

=== Assistant: Exactly. ===
Exactly. That’s the core truth — and it’s why Austin resonated on a gut level.

Everyone:
* loses sometimes
* gets overwhelmed
* makes the wrong call
* pays for it

What matters isn’t the undefeated record — it’s getting back up without pretending the fall didn’t hurt.

Austin embodied that:
* He lost matches
* He lost titles
* He got knocked out
* He got screwed
* He bled

And then he stood back up angrier, louder, and still himself.

That’s life.

Cena, by contrast, was often written as if falling wasn’t allowed — or if it happened, it didn’t count. The damage reset. The lesson disappeared. And when someone never really falls, their rise doesn’t feel earned.

People don’t connect to perfection.
They connect to persistence.

That’s why Austin felt like one of us — not because he always won, but because he survived loss without being erased by it.