John Cena

[Bierschwale]

 

I watched his first title win last night. If anyone but a WWE debutante had pulled off his comeback, it'd be called "fighting spirit at its purest".

 

The JBL?

 

For what it's worth that match got squished after Angle/Shawn went long and they ended up with the 10 minutes or so they got, which lead to Cena's super short comeback and win.

 

I thought that it was a very good match, His comeback is great, I'm just imagining the modern response and all of the "he never sells" bullshit getting thrown at it. I can't help but watch for Cena's "flaws" when I watch older stuff and... they just aren't there, generally. I love Cena. He's in my top five heavyweight "dream match wrestlers".

 

I will submit, and Cena is top 30 on my instinct and probably higher in reality. Top ten for US-born without question.

[Eegah]

In the end I rated Cena far too low and I admit it. On my ballot if I were to change two guys ranking itd be him and Daniel Bryan. Both are a result due to a disdain for recency bias.

[KawadaSmile]

What are the odds of him sneaking in the top 10 next time this sort of voting takes place?

[Boss Rock]

He's already in my top 20 (19 to be exact), but I still have a ton of other stuff to watch so that might change.

[MoS]

How much has Cena added since the last time? He has basically been retired for 2 years. However, his rep (and attachment and respect for him) seems to have grown quite a bit since 2016

[Matt D]

Just now, MoS said:

How much has Cena added since the last time? He has basically been retired for 2 years. However, his rep (and attachment and respect for him) seems to have grown quite a bit since 2016

Most transcendent cinematic match?

[MoS]

God I hated that shit and will be petty and push him down one spot just for that. That will show him. 

[Reel]

20 minutes ago, MoS said:

How much has Cena added since the last time? He has basically been retired for 2 years. However, his rep (and attachment and respect for him) seems to have grown quite a bit since 2016

He's had the AJ series, which is all great. I thought the Royal Rumble match might be the best WWE match ever after I watched it. The Roman match had a great promo to set it up from Cena, and the match is pretty good, but I expected a lot more than we got. There's been some other stuff of note, a six-man of a Saudi show I remember being good and some stuff other TV stuff. He's definitely added to his case. 

[Boss Rock]

On 8/2/2017 at 9:19 AM, Boss Rock said:

He's already in my top 20 (19 to be exact), but I still have a ton of other stuff to watch so that might change.

It has in fact, changed haha. Cena will still almost certainly make my ballot because his peaks are undeniable (Umaga, Bryan, Brock 2012) and his 2007, while not an all-timer year, had some pretty impressive carry jobs with Khali and Lashley. But he's been involved in a lot of crap. Some of that was due to not always having a ton to work with, but there are times I felt he really didn't wrestle to his strengths. His 2015 U.S. Title run was a fun novelty but the matches have not aged particularly well. His desire to prove the "You can't wrestle!" crowd wrong saw the rise of "PWG Cena" with tons of big moves that he could never properly pull off because of his sloppy execution and multiple finisher kickouts. Even his series with A.J, which is still very good overall, uses the same tropes. At this point I would be surprised if he cracks my top 50.

[elliott]

I ranked JOhn Cena 60th in 2016 and I feel fine with that. I don't have anything else to add about John Cena. 

[Tetsujin]

I don't like Cena as a worker. His peak stuff (2006-08) is very fun, and his famous three-four big matches are undeniable (although not all of them are as good as most of the other contender's greatest hits), but I hate how dull his formula is when it comes to regular tv matches and house shows. I get WWE calendary has to do with that, but there were wrestlers working the same schedule with a higher floor than him. He's also part of some of the worst matches in recent WWE history due to booking (I'm thinking about the Laurinaitis match or stuff like that, and that's not Cena's fault, but for example you can have Austin working with Vince and make it fun, or Lawler with Andy Kaufman, etc) or the PWG run (which aged very poorly imo, the Reigns match and the SummerSlam AJ match being two of the worst big matches I've ever seen). And his very good big matches, while obviously amazing, seem like they worked because other wrestlers forced Cena to work their way and not his (Punk, Lesnar, Bryan, AJ, you can even add the Firefly Funhouse match, I LOVE that thing).

 

Maaaaaybe there's room for him in the botton of my list, but I don't think he'll make it honestly. But ironically he would be my first pick of wrestlers I wanna hang out with!

[Jmare007]

I soured on "PWG Cena" FAST. When we voted for 2016 that was just starting with the Owens feud being half a year old and then it got worse as time went on. At some point his matches stopped being great-compelling and became funny with the excess and random big moves. Was that awful? Well, no. I wouldn't go that far at all. But it was a disappointing development for a guy I was really high on before 2016.

The Reigns match was such a let down too.

I don't see myself ever being as high on Cena as I was five years ago.

[El Dragon]

3 minutes ago, Jmare007 said:

I soured on "PWG Cena" FAST. When we voted for 2016 that was just starting with the Owens feud being half a year old and then it got worse as time went on. At some point his matches stopped being great-compelling and became funny with the excess and random big moves. Was that awful? Well, no. I wouldn't go that far at all. But it was a disappointing development for a guy I was really high on before 2016.

The Reigns match was such a let down too.

I don't see myself ever being as high on Cena as I was five years ago.

I honestly agree with this take. I legit fucking hated everything in the AJ series outside of maybe the first match. They jump to finisher trading kick out shit so early and I was just fucking over the matches at the time and have no need to revisit.

 

So, yeah, weirdly enough I’ve gone from someone who would defend Cena significantly when hating him was common to now someone not nearly as high on him after his “we accept you now” run. I’m apparently a wrestling hipster.

[Matt D]

Honestly, this was my issue with him 5 years ago. Stacey and I discussed it on the PI GWE pod. She made a great case for him there, btw, and completely no-sold me on my late era Cena misgivings.

[Kadaveri]

For what it's worth, there's a huge chunk of wrestling fandom who think "late era Cena" was the best John Cena stuff ever and it's still remembered very fondly. Probably the majority of hardcore fandom outside this website tbh. Cena's 2015 US Title reign with the weekly open challenges has been canonised by WWE probably more than anything Cena has ever done, enough that they've reenacted it with Roman Reigns and AJ Styles when they held midcard belts. It's really for those reasons that I can't hold it against him to any significant degree even though I much prefer 2006-13 Cena. The PWG/movezzz style was very in vogue in that 2015-17 period and the WWE had a bunch of new wrestlers who made names for themselves on the indies wrestling that style. Cena - probably with direction from on top - adapted his style to better fit the circumstances, delivered what the company wanted from him and gave the fans what they wanted to see.

[Matt D]

Yes, I think the word I used was “coward.” I might have just gone with “pandering” instead.

[Jmare007]

3 hours ago, Kadaveri said:

For what it's worth, there's a huge chunk of wrestling fandom who think "late era Cena" was the best John Cena stuff ever and it's still remembered very fondly. Probably the majority of hardcore fandom outside this website tbh. Cena's 2015 US Title reign with the weekly open challenges has been canonised by WWE probably more than anything Cena has ever done, enough that they've reenacted it with Roman Reigns and AJ Styles when they held midcard belts. It's really for those reasons that I can't hold it against him to any significant degree even though I much prefer 2006-13 Cena. The PWG/movezzz style was very in vogue in that 2015-17 period and the WWE had a bunch of new wrestlers who made names for themselves on the indies wrestling that style. Cena - probably with direction from on top - adapted his style to better fit the circumstances, delivered what the company wanted from him and gave the fans what they wanted to see.

I don't think Cena was more over in that period of time than before so it's not like it made him more popular per se. So not sure "gave people what they wanted" applies. Guys like Rollins and Owens lived and breath that style and they basically tanked RAW. I can't not hold it against Cena when he was a guy who actually stood out because of being "big match John" without having to go full indy, for lack of a better word, in the previous years. He adopting it and only having IWC praise to show for it doesn't really move the needle for me.

[Boss Rock]

What are Cena's best matches 2008-2013? I'm mostly in the dark for those years as I wasn't watching.

[Tetsujin]

1 minute ago, Boss Rock said:

What are Cena's best matches 2008-2013? I'm mostly in the dark for those years as I wasn't watching.

The Orton/HHH/Cena Mania match is pretty fun. The Batista SummerSlam match is great. In 2009 you have the high regarded LMS with Edge at Backlash, and more of the Orton saga (the Breaking Point match specially was very good). Then you have some of his most famous matches ever: the Punk matches in summer 2011, the first Lesnar match, Punk at NOC 2012, Punk at February 2013 on RAW, and Bryan at SummerSlam 2013.

[Boss Rock]

Thanks! The Bryan and first Brock match are indeed great.

[elliott]

I always really loved the John Cena vs Rey Jr RAW title match. Great example of Cena in a clean match working the big vs small formula against an all time great and seeing what he can do with it. One of my favorite Rey Jr matches too. 

[Boss Rock]

I saw that one a little while ago. Was really good.

[strobogo]

8 hours ago, Jmare007 said:

I soured on "PWG Cena" FAST. When we voted for 2016 that was just starting with the Owens feud being half a year old and then it got worse as time went on. At some point his matches stopped being great-compelling and became funny with the excess and random big moves. Was that awful? Well, no. I wouldn't go that far at all. But it was a disappointing development for a guy I was really high on before 2016.

The Reigns match was such a let down too.

I don't see myself ever being as high on Cena as I was five years ago.

Hard disagree on the Reigns match. I think that was absolutely Hogan/Warrior tier in the storytelling and scope, and in fact they reference that match among some other big Golden Era matches and Attitude Era stuff in a much, much more subtle and elegant way than the Orton/Edge match in 2020 that just screamed all the references and shot outs directly in your face each time. It's bizarre they did it with three months of build on a random B show and then basically never mentioned again as they never did any kind of send off or mention of Cena wrapping up his full time run, so it didn't feel like the passing of the torch match it should have. 

 

But yeah PWG Cena novelty wore off pretty quickly and I'd actually say the KO feud was the worst set of matches he had during that time doing that style.

[Rah]

There's a TV match with Cesaro in 2013 (2014?) that I really loved. Cesaro was on an absolute tear at that time but Cena held up his end.

[MoS]

I think it would be interesting to look back and debate who was better, PWG Cena or 2002-04 Angle, when he was in his worst, most self-indulgent phase