John Cena

[WingedEagle]

What's a workrate match?

[Jimmy Redman]

Is it really the style or is it Cena though?

 

He's the closest thing I've seen to wrestler-as-Hamlet.

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

[JerryvonKramer]

Hamlet as a protagonist has a lot of "interiority", he never just does anything he pauses, reflects, second guesses himself and thinks everything through to the point where he spends more time thinking than acting. I should get a quick plug in for my new book here where I discuss Hamlet's propensity for analysis paralysis in some detail, in all good book stores in about four weeks!

 

But anyway, Cena comes closest to being that. Compare Cena to a babyface like Magnum TA, who simply has none of that "thoughtful" inner struggle stuff going on. He's just a man who knows what needs to be done.

 

To make another analogy, Cena is like a Marvel comics hero, all that inner turmoil going on, all that pensiveness and angst.

 

For me, I don't know if that's really what I want from a babyface. You can have a babyface like Dusty or Bruno who is just so charismatic and salt of the earth, you have to root for him. You can have a babyface like Hogan who is so larger than life thwt he's like a super action hero. You can have babyfaces like Magnum TA or Steve Austin who kick ass and take names. You can have good looking babyfaces like Jack Brisco. Ricky Steamboat and Rick Martel who girls scream for but who are also tremendous in-ring workers and can illicit sympathy and support from the men too through their selling and excitement through their fiery comebacks. You can have stoical babyfaces like Misawa. There are lots of different types of faces.

 

But with Cena it feels like the most important issues are all internal. He's remarkably caught up in himself. There's another face who is a bit like that too ... Shawn Michaels, some of whose character work I hate with a passion. But Michaels in some sense can compensate for that with some natural charisma and by working heel when he needs to. Cena, it seems though takes that self-indulgent side of Michaels and pushes it to a new level.

 

I'm not talking about promos here, I'm taking about stuff that goes on within the body of the match. It's not just the pregnant pause, but all the facial expressions and quizzical looks and moments of doubt, and moments of thinking and moments of looking at the crowd and all that shit.

 

I can see someone coming out and saying, "but yeah, all that stuff is great" and fine if you like that. For me, I'm not sure what it's brining to the wrestling match. I feel like it buries the opponent by making them smaller than whatever the internal issue is. Or in simpler terms, it's just not very good psychology. And one thing that has shocked me watching this stuff is that Cena was doing it back in 2006 and 2007, it's not a new thing with him he's ALWAYS done it. I'm assessing workers for GWE.

 

Cena gives me a dilemma. Because as much as I'm not really on board with the interiority stuff, him and his particular dynamic with the crowd is ... Quite unique and interesting in wrestling history. I can't think of another worker who is anything like Cena. He also has some really good matches and despite being persistently irritating to me, I found myself rooting for him at the end of the matches with Brock and Umaga which are both great babyface performances. I dunno, I'm gonna watch more.

[ohtani's jacket]

What's a workrate match?

 

A match where the work they do is more important than the narrative presented. Or, in some cases, where there is no narrative present.

[Jimmy Redman]

Hamlet as a protagonist has a lot of "interiority", he never just does anything he pauses, reflects, second guesses himself and thinks everything through to the point where he spends more time thinking than acting. I should get a quick plug in for my new book here where I discuss Hamlet's propensity for analysis paralysis in some detail, in all good book stores in about four weeks!

 

But anyway, Cena comes closest to being that. Compare Cena to a babyface like Magnum TA, who simply has none of that "thoughtful" inner struggle stuff going on. He's just a man who knows what needs to be done.

 

To make another analogy, Cena is like a Marvel comics hero, all that inner turmoil going on, all that pensiveness and angst.

 

For me, I don't know if that's really what I want from a babyface. You can have a babyface like Dusty or Bruno who is just so charismatic and salt of the earth, you have to root for him. You can have a babyface like Hogan who is so larger than life thwt he's like a super action hero. You can have babyfaces like Magnum TA or Steve Austin who kick ass and take names. You can have good looking babyfaces like Jack Brisco. Ricky Steamboat and Rick Martel who girls scream for but who are also tremendous in-ring workers and can illicit sympathy and support from the men too through their selling and excitement through their fiery comebacks. You can have stoical babyfaces like Misawa. There are lots of different types of faces.

 

But with Cena it feels like the most important issues are all internal. He's remarkably caught up in himself. There's another face who is a bit like that too ... Shawn Michaels, some of whose character work I hate with a passion. But Michaels in some sense can compensate for that with some natural charisma and by working heel when he needs to. Cena, it seems though takes that self-indulgent side of Michaels and pushes it to a new level.

 

I'm not talking about promos here, I'm taking about stuff that goes on within the body of the match. It's not just the pregnant pause, but all the facial expressions and quizzical looks and moments of doubt, and moments of thinking and moments of looking at the crowd and all that shit.

 

I can see someone coming out and saying, "but yeah, all that stuff is great" and fine if you like that. For me, I'm not sure what it's brining to the wrestling match. I feel like it buries the opponent by making them smaller than whatever the internal issue is. Or in simpler terms, it's just not very good psychology. And one thing that has shocked me watching this stuff is that Cena was doing it back in 2006 and 2007, it's not a new thing with him he's ALWAYS done it. I'm assessing workers for GWE.

 

Cena gives me a dilemma. Because as much as I'm not really on board with the interiority stuff, him and his particular dynamic with the crowd is ... Quite unique and interesting in wrestling history. I can't think of another worker who is anything like Cena. He also has some really good matches and despite being persistently irritating to me, I found myself rooting for him at the end of the matches with Brock and Umaga which are both great babyface performances. I dunno, I'm gonna watch more.

 

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.

[WingedEagle]

 

What's a workrate match?

 

A match where the work they do is more important than the narrative presented. Or, in some cases, where there is no narrative present.

 

 

Not trolling here. At all. But I'm not sure I follow. Are we talking about a narrative as presented in commentary? Where they hit you over the head working a body part? Where there's a clearly identified storyline heading into the match which is played out? Is this generally as a much a subjective determination as whether you dug Cena/Owens, for example?

[jackwebb]

Who was praising those matches?

Meltzer gave both of them 4.5 stars. Both higher than the 4 he gave the Cena and Umaga Last Man Standing match.

[Graham Crackers]

What's a workrate match?

A match with heavy workrate. That means a lot of movement and moves. It's a general sports term I first learned from boxing. Wrestling fans have this hilarious notion that it's something smarks invented.

[ohtani's jacket]

 

 

What's a workrate match?

 

A match where the work they do is more important than the narrative presented. Or, in some cases, where there is no narrative present.

 

 

Not trolling here. At all. But I'm not sure I follow. Are we talking about a narrative as presented in commentary? Where they hit you over the head working a body part? Where there's a clearly identified storyline heading into the match which is played out? Is this generally as a much a subjective determination as whether you dug Cena/Owens, for example?

 

 

The bolded part.

 

The narrative in this case is the angle, including all of the promos and pre-match set-up. All of the stuff that's repeatedly ad nauseam by the commentators at the start of the match. In a narrative driven match, that would have been paid off by having a long heat segment on Cena where he fights through adversity, gets cut off a few times, and makes a comeback. In a workrate driven match, they're trading offence, kicking out of finishers, and coming within a hair's breath on pins. You can wrap a narrative around that, but it's hollow because we see that workrate pattern in just about every match regardless of whether there's heat between the workers. By the same token, you can have a long heat segment in a match where there's no issue between the workers, but that's generally boring.

 

It's subjective in the sense one person can say they didn't build on the narrative and another can write a small treatise about it. It either hits you in the gut or it doesn't. The workers have a choice in how to build off the set-up. In this case, it didn't ring true for me, but it did for some pretty big Cena fans so I wouldn't call it concrete.

[WingedEagle]

Thanks, appreciate the walkthrough of how you approach it. Do you generally find you can get more excited about a match with that kind of narrative or are game to appreciate either style if done well?

[ohtani's jacket]

It really depends. A lot of it has to do with expectations. If I bother to watch the pre-match videos (and to be honest, a lot of the time I don't) then I expect to see a pay off, but if I'm going in cold I guess I would focus on the work. These days I watch most wrestling without the commentary or crowd noise because I want to kill two birds with one stone in regard to listening to a record and watching a match and because the WWE commentary makes the matches worse for me. So, oftentimes the narrative is whatever I pick up for the selling or the match layout. In the case of all that Mysterio I watched, a lot of the times I was enjoying the work for the work's sake instead of paying attention to what the narrative was per se. When it comes to the lead in to a lucha apuesta match or the WAR vs. NJPW feud watching the matches in chronological order definitely creates narrative expectations.

 

The reason I listened to Owens/Cena with sound and watched the matches a couple of times each was because we were told the narrative was solid and also to make sure I wasn't dismissing them out of hand. Obviously, someone who's watching week-to-week is going to have a better understanding of the build than a guy who watched the highlights package, but I still think the narrative ought to be pretty straight forward so that anybody watching can get it. And really it's the way they delivered on the narrative that I didn't like. I don't get why they had a rematch two weeks after the first fight and I don't get why Cena went over. I'm aware of the sales hit on merchandise, but surely that match was begging for Owens to win even if it was by DQ or something. Cena winning killed the issue dead even if Owens pulled a Terry Funk in the post match. I can't imagine Liger beating Sano two weeks after their first bout, or Flair pinning Steamboat two weeks later, or Jumbo getting his win back over Misawa after a fortnight.

[Mr Wrestling X]

I take back everything I said about John Cena...

 

His work from late 2013-2017 (where I think it's been established he had a degree of personal creative control and choice in who he worked with) was stellar.