John Cena vs. Brock Lesnar

[MLB]

The clear cut 1-A and 1-B of their generation. Both possess many, many outstanding moments and matches on their resumes. Many considered their 2012 match a MOTD candidate. Brock was probably the bigger draw of the two by the numbers, Cena being the consistent ace of the promotion for 20 years. I'd say Cena is more famous than Brock, it's close. Cena is the better promo, although I've been very entertained by Brock's most recent babyface return without Heyman on the mic, it has definitely added another layer to his legacy and historical ranking.

Ultimately, I opted for Cena but I'd like to hear some other opinions.   

[DMJ]

I went with Cena...though, if the question was, Who do you like to watch more? I'd have said Brock.

But the question was who had the better career and John Cena gets my vote just because of the breadth and the duration and the more diverse body of work. 

From 2002 to present is a full 20 years (though his status as the "ace" doesn't really start until 05' and ends sometime between 2015-2017) and there's really no one else that took on the range of opponents that he did in that time. Cena might be the only guy in WWE history to have had every "dream match" (I guess Randy did too, but Randy's inconsistency means that many of his dream matches fell far short of great). Cena has good-to-great-to-all-time-classics against such varied wrestlers as HHH, HBK, Kevin Owens, CM Punk, Daniel Bryan, Edge, Jericho, Brock, AJ Styles, Umaga, RVD...and then you have oddball matches that were better than they had any right to be against Great Khali and JBL and even Big Show. Hell, those matches against Bray Wyatt from 2014 ended up proving to be among the top 5 matches Bray ever had (*the Firefly Funhouse "match" was crazy and bizarre and I dug that too, but I'm not calling it a match). Cena could be very corny at times, overact, and have cartoonish matches that didn't quite work - a TLC match against Wade Barrett I saw recently comes to mind and the series against Rusev - but if you listen to the crowds, they were generally very into those matches. John Cena could give you a truly brutal, bloody, violent hardcore match or he could give you an "extreme match" that was PG and broken furniture and still leave the crowd feeling like they got what they paid for. 

Lesnar is more of a wild card, which makes him more interesting to watch. I think Lesnar has now and has always had an aura that Cena doesn't. But let's not kid ourselves - Brock has some major clunkers on his resume, was not always motivated to give the crowd a show, and while many top guys have a formula, Lesnar's formula could lead to some really disappointing matches. 

I'm very far from a "Cena is the GOAT" guy, but I do think Cena has a real claim to having the best WWE career ever in terms of sheer quantity and quality of work at a high level. I'm not sure who else would even be in the running. Taker's lows are too low. Austin's WWE run was too short. Ditto for The Rock. Same for Danielson. Brock and Randy were inconsistent, which means their quantity of great matches doesn't touch Cena's. I guess one could argue Shawn or Bret because of their years in tags plus their singles runs, but I think Cena still bests them in terms of quantity. Triple H, Jericho, and Edge are a no from me, dog. Roman has had an all-time great run over the past 2-3 years and has a spattering of great matches before it, but Cena beats him with longevity and variety. If we could include NWA/WCW/Impact runs, you obviously have to think Flair and Mysterio and Angle - but this is WWE only and Mysterio was not always booked at a super high level and had injuries that sidelined him multiple times. Again, not to say that I prefer to watch Cena over many of those guys, but its kind of undeniable what he accomplished.

[MLB]

Most excellent analysis, @DMJ. Covered a lot of ground, I forgot about the Rusev series.

Speaking of "dream matches" WWE seemed acutely aware of time running out for Cena as a regular and ran through a bunch of them before his semi-retirement: a RAW match against Balor, a Smackdown! match against Nakamura (Nak nearly killed him with a backdrop), and a match vs. Roman on a short build for a B-show (No Mercy 2017 - I can't believe it's been 5 years already!).

Another quick point is that both Cena and Brock have shown a willingness to get squashed on a grand stage (Cena vs. Brock at SummerFest, vs. Undertaker at Mania and Brock vs. Goldberg at Survivor Series). They both have main evented WrestleMania 5 times each. 

It's crazy to think how Brock squashed The Rock, squashed Hogan, squashed Cena and ended the streak. Wow, this isn't an easy call. I'll always remember Brock totally annihilating Jeff Hardy with a steel chair shot upon his debut. As @DMJ stated, Lesnar's probably more fun to watch.

I wrote up this poll while at work, so I'll elaborate more as votes and replies come in.

[MLB]

Alright, I'll stop making these landslide polls. 

Just like Jericho/Punk, I thought people loved Lesnar a lot more. Damn(!), 10 to 1 for Cena?! Hookay...point taken. I'm doing a poor job of phrasing the question. I consider UFC as part of Brock's canon/career, it is so close to wrestling. Who voted for Brock? Speak up, make your case. Brock got the title at 25, Cena at 27 years old. Both of them had terrific matches with Bryan.

Brock did take a huge break, however he has started to make up ground during Cena's time in Hollywood.   

This is Brock Lesnar we're talking about, Cena's blowing him out like he's Sid or something. 

[Dav'oh]

3 hours ago, MLB said:

I consider UFC as part of Brock's canon/career, it is so close to wrestling

If we're talking proximity, acting is even closer to pro-wrestling, but we're not counting Cena's Hollywood career. They're secondary careers; I think most would take the poll question as who had the better pro-wrasslin' career. PWO, 'n all.

[MLB]

1 hour ago, Dav'oh said:

If we're talking proximity, acting is even closer to pro-wrestling, but we're not counting Cena's Hollywood career. They're secondary careers; I think most would take the poll question as who had the better pro-wrasslin' career. PWO, 'n all.

That's fair. 

I am confused because in the Punk/Jericho thread, Punk as a draw in UFC was brought up. Brock did over a million buys with UFC. It felt with Punk the choice was about quality "footage", but then Cena crushes Brock because of his quantity and consistency? Which Jericho clearly has over Punk? So what does PWO actually value more? There are some semantics involved here between "better career" and "who is better" and how the question is being interpreted. 

@DMJ did such a good write-up on Cena that it might've influenced the voting. 

[Microstatistics]

Lesnar obliterates Cena when it comes to top-shelf output and inputs/fundamentals. The only case Cena has is performances on random Raw matches, if you value that.

[Reel]

I said this somewhere else, but when you put a poll up in the GWE section, you're going to get a GWE answer. So, Brock's UFC career, star quality, drawing power etc. isn't a consideration. It's based on the footage.

I voted Cena, but this is tough. This really comes down to a peak vs quantity sort of deal, where I think Brock at his best is probably better than Cena, although Brock's absolute best match is probably against Cena, but Cena just has so much more stuff, and I wouldn't say its random Raw matches, but matches on PPV, main events, and featured matches that have a very high floor, many of which have a very high ceiling, but he never really hits that sort of pantheon-level HOLY SHIT level Brock can hit. 

[Mr JMML]

9 hours ago, Microstatistics said:

Lesnar obliterates Cena when it comes to top-shelf output and inputs/fundamentals. The only case Cena has is performances on random Raw matches, if you value that.

Exactly, as a wrestler it has to be Lesnar.

[MLB]

Cena had a fantastic match with Sabu when we're talking about the wide range of his opponents, he really seemed to be able to work with almost anybody. There is worth in being a great tv worker like Cena was. Memorable tv matches with Rey and Cesaro. In some ways, Cena is like Bret where the formula always seemed to bring out the best with his opponent. Cena evoked more crowd emotion and drama in his matches than Brock. In that regard, Cena is like Bruno. Part of that is JC's babyface appeal, whereas Brock is a natural heel bully and more about dominance and violence. It is harder to sympathize with Brock, but his recent "Cowboy" Brock run proved he has impressive babyface upside. VKM made the correct decision to never turn Cena heel.

I liked that Cena kept adding moves like the slingshot stunner and the Cenacanrana to his arsenal, although I think some fans thought it was pandering too much to the indies. His top rope fame asser/leg-drop I thought always looked high risk and awesome. However, Cena was the loudest, most egregious spot caller I've ever heard in a ring for his entire career, which is a point for Lesnar. It's as though Cena wanted to show who was leading the match. Cena had a lot of cornball humor in his promos but that was an element of his good guy charisma.  When he needed to be serious, Cena was a star at getting up in anybody's face and not blinking. 

 

[Tetsujin]

While I hate Brock's lazyness when he simply doesn't wanna work, I'm gonna give this one to him because of his good stuff being as perfect as pro wrestling can be. Cena has a great (although short) peak and when it comes to big matches with better wrestlers throughout his whole career he has always delivered big, but is one of the worst week to week guys to follow in my opinion. Bad punches, bad selling, hilariously and infamous bad calls, most of his formulaic tv matches worked as house shows... His 2006-09 stuff is really good and all of his most famous matches after that are awesome, but that's like such a small part of his career if you think about it...