John Cena

[Jimmy Redman]

Well...

 

For the pre-2005 period, I'd definitely include his debut vs Angle on Smackdown (12/6/02) and their match at No Mercy 2003. I know it's Angle, but his debut is actually a really fun babyface debut that puts him over really well (and shows Cena in his 2002 tights & armdrags mode, which I get a kick out of). In fact anything Cena did in 2002 as a babyface he looked surprisingly good in. There's a six-man tag with Edge and Rey vs Angle, Benoit & Eddie in I think August, and he also has a few other tag matches from the period.

 

The No Mercy match gets worse with every viewing for me because Kurt Angle, but it was still a pretty good match and the first significant "workrate" match Cena had (in reputation rather than reality I mean).

 

There's another Undertaker match from Smackdown, June 2004 that was really good too.

 

I want to revisit the entire Booker T series, because I am a masochist. But also because I saw glimpses of them on Vintage Collection ages ago and they looked much better than I would have thought.

 

For the 2005-07 period, Cena vs Umaga vs Khali on Raw, 4/7/07 is a no-brainer. Just balls of fun, although if you don't like the Khali matches then proceed with caution. I also absolutely love Cena vs K-Fed.

 

2008 onwards I can think of a few TV matches.

 

Cena vs Shawn - Raw 12/1/09

Cena vs Big Show - Smackdown 27/2/09

Cena vs Jack Swagger - Raw April 2009

Cena vs Triple H - Raw 19/10/09

Cena vs Dolph Ziggler - Raw 20/12/10

Cena vs Dolph & Vickie - Smackdown 21/12/10

Cena vs Rey - Raw 25/7/11

Cena vs Big Show - Raw July 2012

Cena vs Alberto - Raw 24/12/12 (the Christmas match)

Cena vs Cesaro - Raw whenever this was 2014

[NintendoLogic]

The thing about Cena is that to a large extent, he's a system quarterback. He works within the confines of the WWE formula, which is virtually idiot-proof. I complain all the time about how it handcuffs guys, but it also makes it so that pretty much any decently talented wrestler can consistently have good matches and even oxygen thieves like Miz are usually watchable. I'm not saying that he's entirely the product of a formula or road agents laying things out for him, but I do think he benefits to a degree from resume inflation.

[Timbo Slice]

So then where do guys have more elasticity in a style and are having great matches? To my knowledge, agents are a big part of the finishes more than anything else, and guys who have been around a while are trusted to call the match themselves when they're out there.

[Matt D]

The thing about Cena is that to a large extent, he's a system quarterback. He works within the confines of the WWE formula, which is virtually idiot-proof. I complain all the time about how it handcuffs guys, but it also makes it so that pretty much any decently talented wrestler can consistently have good matches and even oxygen thieves like Miz are usually watchable. I'm not saying that he's entirely the product of a formula or road agents laying things out for him, but I do think he benefits to a degree from resume inflation.

 

This is a blatant trap to have me explain how Arn Anderson's work as a Road Agent moves him up the GOAT list. I'm not falling for it.

[Jimmy Redman]

The thing about the formula is the same thing that has already been pointed out about exposure/having all the footage available. It goes both ways.

 

The WWE formula may be conducive to having baseline good matches (not sure everyone would agree with that, but let's say). It can also be said to be limiting in how far above "good" matches can get. The WWE formula may be idiot-proof, but it is also repetitive and cookie cutter, and the overabundance of WWE wrestling per week makes it even harder to stand out.

 

Look at a guy like Randy Orton (who we should have a thread about now that I think of it). Think of how he's perceived most of the time, as a guy who is boring, stale, and has the same matches over and over ad nauseum. A guy who has "good" matches but not "great" ones. The formula may protect him from having too many actively bad matches, but it also works against him in terms of superlative matches.

 

That would be my argument against that as a criticism of Cena. I think he does have a long list of "good" matches that it is unfair to compare to guys from other eras or companies, and you can call it "resume inflation" if you want (that's assuming that a long list of merely "good" matches without further analysis is worth something in these discussions) but I think that's far more an available footage argument than the idea that the WWE style is inherently better in and of itself.

[Exposer]

The best big match worker in US history. Has to make my list based on that. Great at selling, timing, working a crowd, great characterization, etc.

[Jmare007]

I wouldn't call Cena great at selling. He can be great but he's very spotty with it.

[Exposer]

I wouldn't call Cena great at selling. He can be great but he's very spotty with it.

I think he's more great, than not. Yeah, he's had his matches where the "Super Cena" moniker has overreached leaving selling behind, but I don't think it's as bad as some think. I'd say the Sandow match a year ago is a great example of that. However, I've seen plenty of great Cena selling performances against Show, Henry, Khali, Umaga, and the Elimination Chamber match in 06. He's ignored selling before, but more often than not I think he's pretty great at it.

[El McKell]

His selling is great and I disagree with exposer that the Sandow match last year was a 'super cena' situation, I personally thought that was a great match and it's one of the rare times I've actively rooted for someone to win a match simply based the bell to bell action. To me the only really egregious matches with Cena overcoming out of nowhere after taking all the offence are the I Quit match with Miz in 2011 and the otherwise awesome Lesnar match in 2012.

 

Anyway John Cena is a great worker despite being sometimes sloppy and delivering punches to the gut that look like crap. He'll probably be in my top 50

[Jmare007]

Haven't seen the match since it happened but I remember his match against Michaels at Mania 23 as a case of him not being that good at selling.

 

Normally, I'm not bothered by his Super Cena comeback but I was pissed at how he structured the Summerslam match against Nexus. Dude was DDT'd on concrete, then got up FU'd people and won

 

 

That said. The more I think about Cena, the more stupid I find my initial statement of him being a "60-50" kinda guy. He's gonna end up being high on my list.

[WingedEagle]

Cena's someone who will likely end up deceptively good under this evaluation. If breaking down wrestlers, I don't know what you would say he excels at. Other than having a long, long, long list of great matches. No getting around that.

[MJH]

I guess I'll be the low mark on Cena (or certainly lower than most though he's making the list). He's a triumph of industry - including the WWE system, which absolutely includes the cameras - rather than talent, and I'm not sure I'd call any of his matches "great", but when you're on top for ten years and I'm having as tough a time thinking of any match of his worse than "solid" in that time frame, and he excels in some areas as much as he sucks in others, you can't pass over him.

[W2BTD]

The thing about Cena is that to a large extent, he's a system quarterback. He works within the confines of the WWE formula, which is virtually idiot-proof. I complain all the time about how it handcuffs guys, but it also makes it so that pretty much any decently talented wrestler can consistently have good matches and even oxygen thieves like Miz are usually watchable. I'm not saying that he's entirely the product of a formula or road agents laying things out for him, but I do think he benefits to a degree from resume inflation.

 

This is a great post.

 

You know that phrase you sometimes hear, "He's so overrated, he's underrated"?

 

Cena is the opposite. He's so underrated by people who hate him, that he ends up getting too much praise from people who like him, and now he's overrated.

 

I am by no means a Cena hater. He's a nice little WWE style wrestler with a nice resume of really good matches, and few really great ones. What I find odd about this thread & the general love for Cena around here, is that Cena is bad at things that many who praise him on this site value strongly (bad punches & strikes, awful looking low impact offense), and does things that routinely get ripped when it comes to other wrestlers (finisher spamming, endless finisher kickouts, video game closing stretches, etc). It seems Cena gets a pass for this stuff from some people.

 

I like Cena. I usually like his matches, but he's also a guy who has a file folder full of absolute shit, the likes of which true all time greats do not. He's a guy who has great matches with high level workers and when he has great chemistry with somebody (CM Punk instantly comes to mind, as does Bryan), but he's also a guy who has trouble carrying bad opponents (the awful Bray Wyatt matches until the gimmick match with the shortcuts...I think LMS at Payback, which was great). He has mediocre matches against mediocre opponents (The Rock, Randy Orton, Big Show). Cena is basically the poster child for working to the level of your opponent.

 

If this were any other site on the internet, i'd be defending him because he'd likely be unfairly ripped by just about everybody. Here he gets the respect he deserves as a worker, but I think we need to pump the brakes a bit and be fair about the flaws.

 

He didn't make my Top 100 five years ago. He'd probably make it now, somewhere in the 80-100 range. The weird thing, is he'd probably be the only guy on my list with tons of matches I don't like very much. But the high end stuff can not be ignored, and with the amount of televised stuff he has (maybe more than anybody), he's bound to have some stinkers.

[ohtani's jacket]

I might abstain on voting for Cena because I only ever watch his most highly pimped stuff.

[Dylan Waco]

I might abstain on voting for Cena because I only ever watch his most highly pimped stuff.

I can't tell if this is a troll post or a serious one

[tim]

I see the sense in that idea. You have a guy like Cena who you know has a bunch of matches people rate very highly, but also a lot of stuff that a lot of people are very critical of. More than almost any other guy, I can see thinking you can't make a competent judgment on Cena just by seeing his best matches. Hypothetically it wouldn't be a problem for me personally because to me someone's best stuff adds positively to them way more than their worst stuff detracts from them.

[ohtani's jacket]

It's not a troll. I haven't watched WWE TV weekly since 2001. It's possible that I've seen less than a dozen John Cena matches.

[Dylan Waco]

Just curious - would you say people who have only seen pimped Satanico matches should abstain from voting for him?

[WingedEagle]

I love that this thread is inching towards a Raw audience reaction to Cena.

[BigBadMick]

 

The thing about Cena is that to a large extent, he's a system quarterback. He works within the confines of the WWE formula, which is virtually idiot-proof. I complain all the time about how it handcuffs guys, but it also makes it so that pretty much any decently talented wrestler can consistently have good matches and even oxygen thieves like Miz are usually watchable. I'm not saying that he's entirely the product of a formula or road agents laying things out for him, but I do think he benefits to a degree from resume inflation.

 

This is a great post.

 

You know that phrase you sometimes hear, "He's so overrated, he's underrated"?

 

Cena is the opposite. He's so underrated by people who hate him, that he ends up getting too much praise from people who like him, and now he's overrated.

 

I am by no means a Cena hater. He's a nice little WWE style wrestler with a nice resume of really good matches, and few really great ones. What I find odd about this thread & the general love for Cena around here, is that Cena is bad at things that many who praise him on this site value strongly (bad punches & strikes, awful looking low impact offense), and does things that routinely get ripped when it comes to other wrestlers (finisher spamming, endless finisher kickouts, video game closing stretches, etc). It seems Cena gets a pass for this stuff from some people.

 

I like Cena. I usually like his matches, but he's also a guy who has a file folder full of absolute shit, the likes of which true all time greats do not. He's a guy who has great matches with high level workers and when he has great chemistry with somebody (CM Punk instantly comes to mind, as does Bryan), but he's also a guy who has trouble carrying bad opponents (the awful Bray Wyatt matches until the gimmick match with the shortcuts...I think LMS at Payback, which was great). He has mediocre matches against mediocre opponents (The Rock, Randy Orton, Big Show). Cena is basically the poster child for working to the level of your opponent.

 

If this were any other site on the internet, i'd be defending him because he'd likely be unfairly ripped by just about everybody. Here he gets the respect he deserves as a worker, but I think we need to pump the brakes a bit and be fair about the flaws.

 

He didn't make my Top 100 five years ago. He'd probably make it now, somewhere in the 80-100 range. The weird thing, is he'd probably be the only guy on my list with tons of matches I don't like very much. But the high end stuff can not be ignored, and with the amount of televised stuff he has (maybe more than anybody), he's bound to have some stinkers.

 

Agree 100% Joe.

 

I also find myself moderating my response to Cena based on how much love/hate he inspires on different sites.

[ohtani's jacket]

Just curious - would you say people who have only seen pimped Satanico matches should abstain from voting for him?

I already expect there will be people who won't vote for Satanico, and I can think of at least three big lucha fans who don't rate him as highly as I do, so it's not something that would upset me. My picks never do well in this sort of thing.

 

If I were to make my list tomorrow and include Cena, where would I put him? How could I rank him against Satanico who I've seen wrestle in just about every match situation? I'm trying to look at the pros and cons of every worker I vote for and weight those things accordingly, but I don't think I can do that fairly with Cena and a token vote is a waste of space.

 

Having said that, if he's such a lock then maybe I should watch more of him. I don't really see how I can catch up in time though unless I start exclusively watching John Cena matches. I only watch a dozen or so wrestling matches a week so it's a bit of a quandry. I haven't even got properly started on Rey yet.

[W2BTD]

 

Just curious - would you say people who have only seen pimped Satanico matches should abstain from voting for him?

I already expect there will be people who won't vote for Satanico, and I can think of at least three big lucha fans who don't rate him as highly as I do, so it's not something that would upset me. My picks never do well in this sort of thing.

 

If I were to make my list tomorrow and include Cena, where would I put him? How could I rank him against Satanico who I've seen wrestle in just about every match situation? I'm trying to look at the pros and cons of every worker I vote for and weight those things accordingly, but I don't think I can do that fairly with Cena and a token vote is a waste of space.

 

Having said that, if he's such a lock then maybe I should watch more of him. I don't really see how I can catch up in time though unless I start exclusively watching John Cena matches. I only watch a dozen or so wrestling matches a week so it's a bit of a quandry. I haven't even got properly started on Rey yet.

 

 

You can watch five random Cena matches and see something great, something terrible, and all points in between. He's really all over the place, but oddly with that said, he's also a guy where you can get a feel for him by watching very little footage. He sticks to the formula and stays in his lane. He's been doing the same routine for 10 years.

[JerryvonKramer]

I'll be assessing Cena and giving him the full microscope treatment in time. I'll admit though that he's not really a guy I *want* to rank highly. I've also seen performances of his I really dislike such as vs. The Rock, which was a terrible match. And I thought the Wyatt match sucked ass too.

 

He has an uphill battle: he represents a style I dislike, I'm predisposed to dislike him and his stupid fucking spinner belt, and he has worked in an era and promotion of which I am not fond. This triple barrier puts him at severe disadvantage in the Parv rankings. And despite all that I suspect he'll still find a place on the list through volume alone.

 

"greatest big match worker in US history" sounds like bollocks though. Better than all the NWA champions? Better than Savage? I'm strongly disinclined to believe that.

[Jimmy Redman]

It never occured to me that there were people starting from scratch with Cena. This is so exciting!

 

I appreciate the idea of wanting to see a guy in different situations. To that end I'm going to try and come up with a primer that covers as many of those bases as I can.

 

In other words, thank you for giving me an excuse to make another list.

[Exposer]

I'll be assessing Cena and giving him the full microscope treatment in time. I'll admit though that he's not really a guy I *want* to rank highly. I've also seen performances of his I really dislike such as vs. The Rock, which was a terrible match. And I thought the Wyatt match sucked ass too.

 

He has an uphill battle: he represents a style I dislike, I'm predisposed to dislike him and his stupid fucking spinner belt, and he has worked in an era and promotion of which I am not fond. This triple barrier puts him at severe disadvantage in the Parv rankings. And despite all that I suspect he'll still find a place on the list through volume alone.

 

"greatest big match worker in US history" sounds like bollocks though. Better than all the NWA champions? Better than Savage? I'm strongly disinclined to believe that.

Well, it depends on one's definition of a "big match." For example, John Cena has been WWE champion a ridiculous amount of times and with that he's defended the title a ridiculous amount of times. I wouldn't call all of those matches "big." The same goes for Ric Flair, who's his biggest challenger for that moniker in my opinion. Yeah, he traveled all over the place, so each match may have been different, but personally I wouldn't call them all "big." I watched Flair-Wahoo Battle of the Belts yesterday and I didn't get the vibe of "big" match at all. It was just a regular touring NWA champ title bout. I did like the match though. I like Randy Savage, but he's also a victim of wrestling Hulk Hogan twenty times on the house show circuit and only one of the Hogan matches ever felt "big" that being the Mania match. To be fair, I think the Warrior match at Mania VII might be the greatest match in company history. It's certainly the best "sports entertainment" match I've ever seen. Even with that, I'm not sure Savage has as many "big" matches as Cena. He's got the Hogan match, Dibiase match (sort of arguable because there's a whole tournament before it), Steamboat match, Warrior match, Flair match, and maybe one of the DDP matches from 97. I like all of those matches, but I would only call the Warrior and Steamboat matches truly great.

 

If we want to make a Flair comparison, there's all of those touring matches against Taylor, Reed, Wahoo, Barry, Jumbo, Jake, etc., from 85. I've admittedly seen only a few of them. If I get to them, which I plan too eventually, I can see which ones feel "big" to me. In other periods of his career we have Harley at Starrcade, the Dusty series, the Garvin series, the Morton series, the Barry series, the War Games matches, the Steamboat series in 89, the Funk series in 89, the Luger series, the Sting series, maybe one of those Tenryu matches, the Savage Mania match, Vader at Starrcade, Hogan series, Starrcade 95, 6 man at Bash 97, and the Michaels match from WWE. Now that's a pretty big list of matches I'd call "big." How many of those do I actually like? A fair number of them, but not all of them. Again, I think he's the other guy in the conversation. However, he has so many title matches, even though from a different time period, that there's many I can eliminate pretty easily from being "big" matches.

 

When we look at Cena, there's the Punk series, the Brock series, the Michaels series, the Edge series, the Umaga series, the Khali series, the Big Show series, the Bray series, the Jericho series, the Del Rio series, the Sheamus series, the JBL series, the RVD match at One Night Stand, the Rock series, the Bryan match at Summerslam, the Orton series, the HHH match at Mania, the Angle series, the Barrett series, the Rey match from Raw, the Miz series, the Lashley match from Bash 07, and the Ziggler series. How many of those do I actually like? Less than those of Flair's, but I also think Flair is a number 1 contender and Cena isn't. How many of those would I call "big" matches? Probably less than the amount Flair has as well. Yet, here's the catch. I probably enjoy Cena's best performances and aura in his "big" matches more than Flair. I think he has this undefinable ability to make a match seem "big" in the built up and during it. Flair had it too, but sometimes the guy across the ring from him did too like Savage, Sting, Vader, Funk, Tenryu, Dusty, etc. Cena got "big" matches out of Khali, RVD, and Jericho. That's more impressive to me. Cena made a lot of his "big" matches "big" on his own. Flair didn't always do that. Is Ric Flair a better wrestler than John Cena? Yes. Does Ric Flair have more "big" matches than John Cena? Yes. Does Ric Flair have better "big" matches than John Cena's? Some of better, some I don't think are. Flair likely has the edge here in the end. Is Ric Flair individually a better "big" match worker than John Cena? Right now, I don't think so. I believe it's close. When this project is over, maybe my opinion will change. It tends to do that if you read my post on opinions changing in wrestling. Currently though, I believe John Cena has the edge here. I believe he has the edge on Savage as well, because Savage doesn't have the volume of "big" matches as he does. Although, I'd say Savage is a top five US "big" match worker even from the small samples he has.

 

There's also the age thing. I hate bringing this up, but I feel like it's a factor in our differences here Parv. I grew up watching John Cena. If you want to question his popularity and his matches being "big" I can offer some defense for that as well. In middle school and high school when Cena was on the rise and eventually took the throne there were a lot of kids and teenagers into wrestling because of him. The hype for the HHH Mania match was huge. People talked about it all the time. The hype for the Khali matches were huge. The Punk hype was huge. I ran into several people who were hyped up for the Brock stuff this year. He's a "big" match type wrestler and has been for several years. I also believe he's one of the best ever at working that style.

 

I will admit I haven't seen all that I can see from a "big match" standpoint. I have a good deal of NWA 70s and 80s to watch.