Jimmy Redman

I'm hoping it goes the way of the Cenarana, in that he used that a couple times for the coolness and then put it back in the vault for emergencies. Also, the first Code Red was on PPV so I think this was a chance to show it off to a wider audience.

"Well I bloody well pinned ya didn't I??" is the most Aussie thing I've ever heard. That was a fun little segment.

If we can use this to make a wider point about the WWF philosophy of booking long term babyface champs...to be honest, I prefer it to the opposite of having a perennial heel champ with babyfaces chasing, and I've figured out why. This may sound a little girly...but it's just a nicer way to live. Living with a long-term heel champ is living with perpetual disappointment, as the babyface challenger gets screwed or simply loses month after month. Sure you get small victories like non-title wins, countouts or DQs, and the babyface beating everyone up in the end, but still they're hollow victories. It all builds up to a babyface finally knocking him off, and sometimes that pays everything off, but sometimes it doesn't, certainly not in a way that makes months of disappointment worth it. The current Rollins reign and Authority storyline is a good example, in that it's a bad example. The Authority never fucking dies, they always have the last laugh, and so every month with each defense you know going into the title match that Rollins is going to retain via bullshit. It's so hard to invest in the program because you know The Authority always wins, and it's so hard to invest in the matches because you know they won't end until a million people run in and the face gets screwed. Which makes you feel like you've wasted your time, unless it's done super dooper well. It's just a very depressing way to be a fan. Compare that with a face champ, where you get the feel-good babyface victory most of the time, unless there's some bullshit to set up a rematch or he's losing the belt. You can send the fans home happy every month without constantly running cheap finishes. You don't feel like title matches are bullshit. And when the heel DOES win, especially via bullshit, it doesn't feel routine and you can generate heat on the heel and the finish. I dunno. At least in terms of a mainstream US promotion, I feel like this is the safer and more customer-satisfying way to go, and I think the Vinces realised this too. One problem I have with Hunter compared to his predecessors is that between his own run as a town-killing heel champ and now his proxy in Rollins, he seems to favour heel champs constantly screwing people, and I really don't like that as a long-term direction for WWE.

I think what you just said pretty much sums up Cena as a worker. To be cute about it, Cena basically works matches using the motto "Never Give Up". I think I said much the same thing the other day, but with Cena the battle is mental as much as physical, and the physical pain of being worked over or taking moves is answered by the mental decision to continue and never quit. Never Give Up...he literally works to his character to the nth degree. I think above all that's what I like about it. If he was anyone else and his whole character wasn't based on that phrase it would seem like much more of a leap to be such a hammy, overdramatic worker. But it kind of fits perfectly because his whole character, his whole being is encapsulated by this sense of determination. That's just Cena, and like you said he's a pretty unique case in wrestling. And just the same, I get why someone would find it all too much, not buy into it, or just not like it. Fair play. For matches that are more physical than internal, like I said before check out the Cesaro match, Raw 17/2/14. They Rey match OJ just watched is a really good TV title bout with a minimum of overkill or bullshit. Bryan at Summerslam 2013. For something manlier there's the JBL bloodbath I Quit match - I can't remember how much pondering there is, and I'm pretty sure Cena spends most of the match selling for JBL, but he bleeds a gusher, it's a fun brawl and he comes off a lot more manlier than circumspect. EDIT: Just rewatched Cena/JBL since I couldn't really remember specifics, and HOLY SHIT. What a war. They spend like a minute wrestling, and then go outside and beat the utter shit out of each other forever. Cena LEAKS blood, makes an amazing comeback and by the end looks like the craziest motherfucker alive. JBL destroys him, using anything on hand to choke Cena with, blasting him in the head over and over again, and just generally being a bastard. When you consider that Cena had never really had a great match before this, and everyone on earth was questioning his in-ring ability once he won the title, you can see how much of a revelation this was for Cena the worker.

I get that as a criticism of TLC-era stunt show matches, but not of the Hardyz as a whole given they've had plenty of good regular matches and have shown themselves to be a really good working babyface team in that context, with good double team moves, excellent selling from both guys, and having that intangible connection with the crowd and knowing how to turn it up.

You're going to have to explain that to me.

Not what I meant at all, although a fair few of your issues with him so far (pregnant pauses, overdramatics, multiple finishers) seem to stem from the style rather than Cena himself.

Well, many people if you read the show threads. I for one loved them and went into much detail as to why on my blog after the PPVs. I'd link specifics but I'm about to pass out. For what it's worth, I can completely understand them not resonating with someone who isn't aware of or not interested in or unable to buy into the wider context. If you're just watching it as a stand alone PPV match, I can see how it's just finisher spam. But in terms of Cena's US Title run, in fact his whole career arc and raison d'être, I thought they had an extraordinary richness and impeccable psychology. They really work for me on that level, the level where I can use them to write 1500 word theses on Cena's character and motivation.

Apart from the obvious Triple X cage matches, for those who haven't seen it yet, I highly recommend their match vs Team Canada from Final Resolution 2005. It's one of those times TNA nodded in the direction of Southern Tag even with TNA-style moves, and I remember it as a rollicking good time for all the family.

I don't think it was a serious fear of an extension as much as a comment on the difficulties some people will have multitasking between now and then.

Ha I was just thinking the same thing, looking at new posts and realising that GWE talk has died since this idea began.

December 2009, if I recall correctly.

I've seen the Bucks do a handspring backrake with an actual rake. How can you not love them?

I just watched the Cesaro match (Raw 17/2/14) and it's pretty rad. All I remembered from it was the cool spots, but it is actually a lot more paced and well built than I thought. I would actually put it on top of the JVK pile, because it leans more physical than dramatic by Cena standards, there's no finisher spam or overwrought Acting...and there ARE a lot of cool spots. http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1cswxz_john-cena-vs-cesaro-on-raw-full-match_sport

Yeah basically that. That's basically my whole problem with Hunter. He COULD be good, well good a lot more often than he is, if he got out of his own way. But fundamentally, he has these ideas about how he should be portrayed, how he portrays himself, and how to work matches, that expose him as not as good as he thinks he is, because he doesn't realise that he can't be the toughest man on earth all the time. The Brock feud is a perfect example of that. Back in 2012, Brock had come in as a total wrecking machine, a whole other level of beast who kicked the shit out of Cena to no consequence apart from the fluke loss. THAT was how they should always portray Brock, as The Other, as completely different, as a guy that people simply try to withstand. Then the Hunter feud began, and they start having every other feud ever, with segments on Raw ending in Hunter bundling Brock out of the ring and standing tall, shit that Brock had no business doing because it made him look like every other heel. And same with the matches, Brock did a little of the Brock stuff, but there was also a lot of back-and-forth and Hunter basically working even with him, which is fucking ridiculous. Cena was The Man and perennial WWE Champ and Brock annihilated him, but Hunter can't comprehend showing that kind of vulnerability, so he works Even Stevens with the same guy in his next match. Not to mention, at this point in time Hunter was already the COO on TV and wasn't even wrestling at this point apart from the yearly Taker match. He was the fucking Authority Figure on TV and he STILL books himself to be as tough as Brock Lesnar! It was fucked, and it showed that Hunter can't portray himself as anything other than The Almighty Huntor, which too often affects the quality of his work.

I think I said as much when we made the HHH thread. It really, really doesn't make him look good.

Kevin Owens vs the NXT Announce Crew is amazing. Right now he's straddling a dangerous line where he's so good at it, but also enough of a dick at the same time. If he was any more entertaining in the role he'd just be babyfacing himself (even more), but when he's doing it he's enough of an asshole that I love listening to it, but still want someone to shut him up at the end of it. Also, two minutes of Devitt sheepishly talking about Lego has done more to make me like him than his entire career up to this point combined. I thought Balor sold well during the main. Did he have any major matches with Bernard? The idea now intrigues me seeing him sell for Rhyno, and knowing that they were good friends. I've only ever seen him in Juniors matches and he frustrates me a lot in that context.

Not appreciably, no. There was a point at which Cena Hate seemed to cross the bridge from visceral hatred and wishing he was gone forever, to a less threatening kind of crowd participation deal, where people are happy to go and boo Cena because it's cool to hate Cena, that's just what you do in a crowd. At some point the people who hated him realised that booing him out of the building wasn't going to get him out of the building, he wasn't going anywhere. However, I'm not really sure off-hand when that point was, if we can even pinpoint it to a particular period of time where the switch flipped. It was probably much more gradual than that. When he came back at the Rumble, everyone in MSG was so shocked and they popped HARD for it, before realising that they'd been caught and soon went back to booing him. But you can see the sense there that the most smarky crowd they could run at that point in time had a certain level of appreciation for him as a big deal, if nothing else. Whereas in that 2005-06 period, dudes seemed to genuinely hate him beyond belief, and booed the shit out of him in the hopes of ending the Cena experiment and getting him the fuck off TV.

2008 was a very crowded main event scene, they had a lot of guys who could work on top besides Cena at that point, which allowed them to give him a break with the upper-midcard JBL feud and what not. But Cena never stopped being the #1 guy in the company, certainly in terms of star power, merch, etc. He was still The Man, but they could afford to cycle him out of the title picture a little at that time, whereas starting from about 2009, there seemed to be Cena and nobody else capable of headlining, which made for a million Cena vs Orton matches and things like that. 2009 was when they seemed to lose all their other stars capable of headlining without Cena and just had to go with all Cena, all the time. (It's also worth noting that Cena was out injured in late 2007 and they probably had to plan for getting through WM24 without him until he came back astonishingly early at the Rumble and they shoehorned him into the planned Orton/HHH match. That may explain why he wasn't booked at the forefront as much in early-mid 2008. But if you look at 2007, 2006, and late 2005, Cena was clearly the #1 guy in the company and all their efforts were devoted to putting him over. He held the WWE Title for over 12 months. And the same is true by the end of 2008 as well (he came back from injury at Survivor Series with the huge video package push and won the title straight away) and onwards. His marginally reduced role in 2008 was just a result of a crowded top of the card and a slight lack of direction after being out injured, rather than a sign that his ascendancy happened four years after it did.

I was just about to say exactly that. Going to Raw was really the start of the Cena train. Everything after that - the Bischoff Evil GM feud, the switch from rap Cena to military Cena, going over Hunter at Mania and so on...it was all clear that they were going with him as the #1 guy.

Yeah to reitterate: start with Umaga. Stsrt with 2007. The Shawn TV match has a long finishing stretch, but it is also worked in a more old school way with the opening headlocks and shit, so he may at least find it more recognisable. Issues with the pregnant pauses and stuff I can't really fix because that's just the style. And even within the style Cena is pretty overwrought. The point about Cena selling determination rather than pain is a key one, and helps express the point I was trying to make ages ago about why Cena doesn't do limbwork. For Cena, moves don't physically hurt his body as much as they mentally test his will to go on. 'Never Give Up' is a philosophy that permeates everything to do with Cena. He's a walking avatar for determination.

I love that mid-2011 period actually. In hindsight that was his last hurrah as a great worker for me. I think it started at the June PPV vs Punk, or maybe the week before, and ended when he got injured and written off after Summerslam...anyway this period of 10 weeks or so he was on Raw having the best match of the night every week, just doing the business. Highlights include the Punk match, the Cena match, and that ridiculously fun tag match with Alex Riley. I also love the two three-ways he had on Raw in this time as well, although I know that's not a popular match type for many of you.

So, I can say Good Charlotte is better than The Beatles and there is nothing wrong with that statement? It's my opinion, so it's all cool? Well...yes? I mean I personally would disagree with you, as I imagine a lot of people would. But that doesn't make either of us right or wrong. You're perfectly entitled to think that.

When they contradict facts or logic or reality, sure. But "this wrestling match is better than this wrestling match" doesn't really come under those conditions. It's entertainment and we like what we like, and we value what we value. Individually and subjectively.

This. It's all well and good to say all art is subjective and is in the eye of the beholder. However, going with that leads it possible to say El Gigante is a better wrestler than Ric Flair which is just plain wrong. Obviously it gets more difficult when discussing Jumbo vs Flair, but that doesn't mean there is not a correct answer. Where do you draw the line though? Where is the middle ground between Gigante and Flair where the argument for them goes from being "wrong" to merely "subjective opinion"? Who falls out of the realm of being able to be called objectively good? Who decides where that line is drawn? Is there a meeting? How do they decide? As insane as it sounds, someone having the opinion that Gigante is a great wrestler is not factually incorrect. It's not a question of facts. That's not to say it's a particularly credible or trustworthy or popular or defensible opinion to have, but it's an opinion nonetheless.