Jimmy Redman

Ever seen a Cena match? Wow, that sounded a lot more dickish than I intended. But there are still screaming children crowds. Cena and the Hardyz come immediately to mind, although you'd technically have to include women in that group as well I guess.

I would guess because it was a popular team, and then when people saw the end result of what they did with both guys (well, Austin) afterwards, they felt it wasn't worth splitting up a popular team.

Yeah Brooke Tessmacher was the third EE girl.

That is what I mean. They make these polls that seem actually designed to get people to click on the "wrong answer" - "Who's name do you want to click on? Your favourite wrestler, a movie star or a boxer?" - just so Dave/Bryan can get the results and sit there and berate their paying fanbase for being stupid. Like, obviously Floyd is a bigger star than Daniel Bryan. Anyone can see that, and I'd wager that a lot of the people who clicked on Bryan's name would admit that as well. Why even make a poll that has such a clear and obvious rational answer? The only reason seems to be to mock people.

House show business is down because Cena is gone. I can't even fathom blaming that on anyone else's drawing power or lack thereof. People can't expect anyone in current WWE to become a draw overnight. Cena left literally the minute that Bryan was placed on top, and he is expected to hold or even increase business straight away? This run kind of came out of nowhere, yes he was building momentum and getting over but he was still in tag team title feuds right up until July. A month later he's the #1 face in the company and there's no Cena. If you look at WWE's pushing of stars in the last half-decade or so, look at the reluctance the audience has in trusting big pushes now that they've been burned so many times, nobody can be surprised that Bryan hasn't turned into a draw yet. They need, above all else, patience, patience in keeping with Bryan, continuing to build him up and trusting the audience to finally thaw out and trust them back. They seem to have it so far by going all the way with Bryan vs the World, but let's just hope there's no ratings-panic after the Summerslam number, which I think they should realise has little to do with Bryan's long-term worth, and more to do with the devaluing of Brock and having a weird face-face dynamic that almost never draws.

There's something really weird psychologically about continually running polls for the sole purpose of being able to lambast people afterwards for being so stupid as to pick the wrong option in a poll.

Main Event matches I'd recommend: Sheamus vs Dolph, 9/1 Usos vs Rhodes Scholars, 23/1 Alberto vs Dolph, 14/2 Cesaro vs Kofi, 1/5 Cesaro vs Orton, 8/5 Sheamus vs Barrett, 29/5 Cesaro vs Sheamus, 5/6 Cesaro vs Dolph, 10/7 Shield vs Henry/Usos, 7/8 Cesaro vs Kofi, 11/9

For some recent examples, I thought JR and King were immense calling two of my favourite matches, Cena vs Umaga ("And even a monster's gotta breathe!") and Team Austin vs Team Bischoff from 2003 (with the Shawn Michaels miracle comeback that turns then-heel King around to start cheering for him by the time it's over).

I don't think it is all that odd that WWE would have no plans for the Women's Champion for any length of time, really. 2/3 Falls was mid October, and the first Mickie match was in December, so we're talking maybe a month or six weeks without a feud. Between that, Cyber Sunday had some Divas Halloween Costume Contest Swimsuit Battle Royal thing (Victoria as the sumo), and then Survivor Series was an elimination match which I THINK Mickie may have won to earn a title shot. There's no real obvious gap in the schedule where it seems Beth and Candice should have had another match. Beth and Candice began all the way back at Summerslam when Beth won a battle royal, and 2/3 Falls was their third title match, so they'd already been going for months. 2/3 Falls was supposed to be the end I am pretty sure. They were building Beth up as pretty dominant, so two straight falls makes sense on that level as well.

Actually when it happened I remember reading that it was supposed to go down as 2-0. Just obviously without Candice almost dying.

Please do share. Bob Backlund and Pedro Morales defeated The Wild Samoans (Afa and Sika) in a two out of three falls match, 2-0 at Showdown at Shea on August 9th 1980. Horsemen-Blonds in 1993 and Benoit-Angle at Insurrextion 2001 come to mind as well. Didn't MVP vs Benoit finish 2-0 as well? Yep. Also Beth vs Candice in 2007.

I was at that show, and yeah it was pretty damn fun. The only other thing of note I remember from it was the striking comparison between Kozlov, who was God awful in his squash of Kofi, and Mark Henry, who was so awesome in his squash of Noble that he basically turned the crowd by the end of it. Jesus Christ Kozlov was awful in 2008.

Randy Orton receives a car as a gift.

The thing about calling is that you can clearly see Cena calling pretty much every spot in the vast majority of his matches, good and bad alike. He's the one calling every spot, every cut off, even things like how long to stay in the STF and when to reach out. Whether he has Arn helping him with some or half or most of it beforehand, unless Arn gives him a match spot-for-spot backstage and he memorises it Savage/DDP style, there's an agency there that is hard to deny. The thing about the WM VI thing is that we kind of know as an accepted fact that Patterson worked on it. Same with how we know that he worked on the Rumble layouts. We don't really 'know' in the same way which Cena matches he had a hand in. The Cena/Punks are a good shout, but again I don't think we can be reasonably sure to the same degree. So it's hard to judge how much Arn helps Cena or not when we can't exactly sit down and compare an Arn match to a non-Arn match. We don't know what they are. I agree that it is an interesting aspect, and I wish we did know more about it. But at the same time, since we don't, I find it hard to judge it fairly.

Except MITB 6, where practically all 10 guys had new gear.

If they had the luxury of doing it, Cena would be perfect. But alas. There really is nobody else who fits, is there? Anyone else is the wrong guy (Punk) or just isn't on that level.

I remember the minute that I tapped once and for all in taking his opinion seriously on Cena (and most other things) was after the great Cena/Show match from Smackdown 2009. Show just beat the sh*t out of him forever and Cena sold like a million bucks, barely even getting a comeback in. He made Show look like a legit monster in a way few others have. So you read the Observer report on the show and it's something close to "Cena was first-day-of-wrestling-school bad for most of this match, and Big Show couldn't carry him." Now, Cena can absolutely be awkward or clumsy, but there was none of that, there was literally nothing physically wrong with his performance here. Nor did he do anything else wrong that would make him say that. So what it boils down to is that Dave called Cena "first-day-of-wrestling-school bad" because he was selling too much. For a giant. When you start getting down on a guy for selling for a giant, something has seriously been lost in translation.

I think Dave is one of those people who will rate a lot of Cena matches highly, but then give the bulk of the credit for them to his opponents. And for the interest of Matt D, Dave is definitely on board the Arn Anderson train.

Exactly, which is why every time Bryan wins the belt, Hunter is going to find some way to take it off him, because he doesn't want Bryan holding it, and this storyline is all about how impossible it is to hold the belt if the boss doesn't want you to. So Bryan winning the belt as an end game only works if the threat of Hunter screwing him over the next night is eliminated. Hence, defeating Hunter (in some way) is the real big boss, even though for the story to complete he also has to win the title. But this time, he gets to keep it, because he defeated Hunter in some way.

Another great 'old man Andre' performance is actually at Survivor Series 1987. His pre-match promo is awesome, and during the match he is gigantic douche trolling Hogan and it rules. I think years ago I had the same "it's sad he can barely move" mindset, but since I started watching 80s stuff a lot closer I think I have enjoyed every old man Andre performance I've seen.

Others that haven't been mentioned yet, Sheamus vs Cesaro, Main Event 5/6 & Smackdown 14/6 Alberto vs Dolph, Payback & Main Event 14/2 John Cena vs Mark Henry, Money in the Bank Alberto vs Swagger, Smackdown 19/4 Cesaro vs Kofi, Raw 15/4 & Main Event 1/5 Sheamus vs Barrett, Main Event 29/5 Cesaro vs Zayn I, NXT 12/6 (airdate) Cesaro vs Neville, NXT 18/4 Also, every Shield match ever. I mean that quite literally, but if you want a selection, I'd say, vs Cena/Sheamus/Ryback, Elimination Chamber vs Kofi/Bryan/Kane, Raw 20/5 vs Team Hell No, Raw 27/5 vs Kofi/Orton/Sheamus, Smackdown 24/5 vs Cena/Bryan/Kane, Raw 29/4 There's also the two Gail Kim vs Taryn Terrell matches, Slammiversary and the 13/7 Ladder Match.

Funny, I love Heyman as a manager and general TV personality, but watching stuff from 2001 I am struck by how little I enjoyed JR and Heyman together, and how generally annoying I found him. He is antagonistic to the point of distraction, not in a good way, for me.

What about Rey Mysterio?

I love the Rockers/Rougeaus match so much that I almost can't fathom anyone not being able to enjoy it. It is about the most fun to have watching pro wrestling.

I'd love for someone to come up with a reasonable argument for "Cena has been carried in a lot of his best matches." Its a talking point I've never seen argued by someone intelligently (not a knock at you TL) and yet it is this sort of accepted wisdom about Cena. It's sort of the kneejerk, first line of defense from those who don't like him. "Cena has this good thing here." "Yeah, but...he was carried!" It's like a cheat way of admitting that Cena has been in tonnes of great matches, without having to give him any credit for them whatsoever.