GOTNW

I tried to start a best of Cena project on a local board a few years ago and it was almost done.......almost. I think Cena's career has really had three phases-before his main event run, his proto main event run (2005-2007) and THE run. As such I will divide the matches we accumulated as well as add a couple of those that happened afterwards which I think are deserving and some that I had seen acclaimed but didn't necessarily enjoy myself. Dates are DD/MM/YY. Pre 2005: John Cena vs Chris Benoit-Smackdown 17.4.2003. John Cena vs The Undertaker-Smackdown 7.8.2003. John Cena vs Zach Gowen-Smackdown 14.8.2003. John Cena vs Rey Mysterio-Smackdown 6.11.2003. John Cena vs Brock Lesnar - Backlash 2003. John Cena vs The Undertaker-WWE Vengeance 2003. John Cena vs Jesus-Armageddon 2004. John Cena vs Booker T-Summerslam 2004. The Gowen and Jesus matches are squashes-but very entertaining ones. These will give you an idea of how early Cena worked. 2005-2007 John Cena vs Kurt Angle-No Way Out 2005. John Cena vs JBL-Judgment Day Day 2005. John Cena vs Chris Jericho-Summerslam 2005. John Cena vs Edge-New Year's Revolution 2006. John Cena vs Triple H vs Edge-WWE Backlash 2006. John Cena vs RVD - One Night Stand 2006. John Cena vs Sabu-Vengeance 2006. John Cena vs Edge-Summerslam 2006. John Cena vs Edge - Unforgiven 2006. John Cena vs Umaga-New Year's Revolution 2007. John Cena vs Umaga-Royal Rumble 2007. John Cena vs Shawn Michaels-Wrestlemania 23 Cena vs Michaels vs Edge vs Orton - Backlash 2007. John Cena vs The Great Khali-Judgment Day 2007. John Cena vs The Great Khali-One Night Stand 2007. John Cena vs Bobby Lashley - Great American Bash 2007. John Cena vs Randy Orton-Summerslam 2007 John Cena vs Chris Jericho-Raw 22.8.2005. John Cena vs Sabu-WWE vs ECW Head to Head 7.6.2006. John Cena vs Rob Van Dam vs Edge-WWE Raw 3.7.2006. John Cena vs Chris Benoit-Raw 19.3.2007. John Cena vs Shawn Michaels-Raw 23.4.2007. I rewatched the RVD match and it didn't do nothing for me. Without any emotional investment it is just an subpar match. The Edge matches are, uhm........Edge matches and I don't think very highly of them. Don't get the hype for the Khali matches but they didn't suck so that's something. Now, true ace Cena, 2008-onwards: John Cena vs Batista-SummerSlam 2008. John Cena vs Chris Jericho-Survivor Series 2008. John Cena vs Chris Jericho-Armageddon 2008. John Cena vs Edge vs Big Show-Wrestlemania 25 John Cena vs Edge-Backlash 2009 John Cena vs Batista-Wrestlemania 26 John Cena vs The Miz vs John Morrison-Extreme Rules 2011. John Cena vs CM Punk-Money In The Bank 2011. John Cena vs CM Punk-SummerSlam 2011. John Cena vs Alberto Del Rio- Vengeance 2011. John Cena & The Rock vs. The Miz & R-Truth: Survivor Series 2011. John Cena vs The Rock-Wrestlemania 28 John Cena vs Brock Lesnar - Extreme Rules 2012. John Cena vs CM Punk-Night Of Champions 2012. John Cena vs Dolph Ziggler-TLC 2012. John Cena vs Mark Henry-MITB 2013. John Cena vs Daniel Bryan-Summerslam 2013. John Cena vs Alberto Del Rio-Hell In A Cell 2013. John Cena vs Alberto Del Rio-Survivor Series 2013. John Cena vs Bray Wyatt-Wrestlemania 30. John Cena vs Brock Lesnar-Summerslam 2014. John Cena vs Brock Lesnar-Night Of Champions 2014. John Cena vs CM Punk-Raw 23.11.2009. John Cena vs Chris Jericho-Raw 02.08.2010 John Cena vs CM Punk-Raw 12.11.2012. John Cena vs CM Punk-Raw 25.2.2013. John Cena vs Luke Harper-Smackdown 21.3.2014. John Cena vs Seth Rollins-Smackdown 27.12.2013. You will instantly find obvious omissions-this isn't even everything I wanted to list. I'll edit more matches in this post as I remember them. Recommendations would be appreciated.

This might be true. Might. I struggle to find anything he does insulting. But he doesn't really have a single major quality. And what makes him better than say, Suwama, Morishima, Sugiura, Go Shiozaki, Takaiwa, Kojima or Okabayashi? What is your argument for Sekimoto as a top 20 guy of all professional wrestling ever? What are the matches that he has produced that you are so high on that you would put him on that level?

It may be a "Kobashi match" in terms of layout, length and such but Kobashi was also constantly put in a position to produce those matches while Honda wasn't. If anything it was worked in the vein of NOAH epics-which weren't exclusive to Kobashi.

I like modern puro a lot. Sekimoto just doesn't do it right. He's always felt like a video game wrestler, nothing he does feels organic or particularly significant. The Suwama matches got pimped as MOTYCs and I swear you can find better Yano/Iizuka tags. Dull strike exchanges, no layout, it was a chore to sit through. Before everyone got injured there were probably at least 5 guys I preffered in Strong BJ only.

Misawa deviated from his formula and played a more classic FIP in the 2007 Sano match, which I also consider a lot better than the Morishima-Sasaki match. There was no reason for Misawa to work FIP in a match supposed to get Morishima over as NOAH's new ace, especially in his current condition, and Morishima playing FIP would've been a huge gamble. Competitive title matches are how NOAH operated 90% of the time and Misawa's formula gave Morishima his career match in 2006. They played it safe. It was/is a highly regarded match, more so than Morishima/Sasaki (which I actually slightly prefer myself).

That match was 90% Honda. Which was completely fine. Not getting in the way of someone else's masterful performance is an important quality to have.

Angle is someone I am predisposed to liking. He works fast paced, does a bunch of suplexes and has shown glimpses of quality matwork. I really like his high-end stuff. I am insanely high on his matches vs Austin at SS01 and Undertaker at NWO06. He never bores me in a way that my least favourite wrestlers like Randy Orton do. But I don't get the case for him. There is very little high-end Angle stuff. Other than the matches I mentioned there's a few overrated matches that were only ever hyped because of low mainstream wrestling standards at the time (vs Benoit at the Rumble and vs HBK at Mania), his TNA stuff which ranges from good (if you enjoy the style-which I do) to terrible (as in-I enjoy your style but you are terrible at pro wrestling fuck dude sell, show emotion, do something please just stop doing finishers and cage moonsaults k?). His peak was what, 2001-2003? And his flaws have been overly documented so pointing them out would be redundant however something I haven't seen him get criticized for and that bothers me a lot is his tendendcy to do counter spots which make no sense at all in the context of the match just because they looked cool the first time he did them. I find him entertaining as a reckless spot machine but he's not a better professional wrestler than say, Masao Inoue.

Hello there. I decided to join after months of lurking because of the fact that the focus of the board is on analyzing pro-wres matches and open-minded discussion instead of frivolous nonsense and the only similar board I frequented is now pretty much dead and has/had a narrower span. I'm 17 and from Croatia, got into WWE by accidentally catching it on TV. As soon as my fandom grew and I started youtubeing everything I got into puroresu which fit my stylistic preferences more because I am inclined to like anything with more of a sportive/shooty feel to it as I was a kickboxing/MMA fan primarily before I got into pro-wres. I like contemporary lucha but I have pretty much no clue about its history. My favourite pro wrestling thing is Tenryu punching people in the face.