GWE 2026 Reaction Thread

[cad]

The elephant in the room with Cena, and I don't quite understand why it more or less goes ignored, is that he worked a style and played a role that demanded a genuine connection with the audience, and he just never had it. In a workrate driven style, you can still sit back and enjoy the action even if the crowd doesn't back the right wrestler. WWE main events are designed to build to huge pops based on how much the fans care about this guy. Take that away and the match loses a lot of its effect. Does anyone call Slaughter-Sheik a MOTDC with a dead crowd? Does anyone call it a MOTDC if the sound were missing? I suppose you could say that from a nuts and bolts standpoint Cena does the things that you want from an ace babyface, but without the intended reaction he might as well be, as they say, wrestling in a vacuum.

It's not entirely his fault that they gave him the gimmicks of wannabe rapper and wannabe marine. I have no idea why anyone would cheer for either of those things, or why WWE thought that they would. On the other hand, wrestlers have gotten some pretty loony stuff over, just by having an authenticity that Cena always seemed to lack. Mick Foley as the crippled pianist, Matt Borne as the sadistic clown. I mean, going back to Slaughter, no one had any trouble buying him as a soldier. Okay, you know, once you reach the point where you're praising Sgt. Slaughter for stolen valor, it's probably time to pack it in.

[Boss Rock]

14 minutes ago, cad said:

The elephant in the room with Cena, and I don't quite understand why it more or less goes ignored, is that he worked a style and played a role that demanded a genuine connection with the audience, and he just never had it. In a workrate driven style, you can still sit back and enjoy the action even if the crowd doesn't back the right wrestler. WWE main events are designed to build to huge pops based on how much the fans care about this guy. Take that away and the match loses a lot of its effect. Does anyone call Slaughter-Sheik a MOTDC with a dead crowd? Does anyone call it a MOTDC if the sound were missing? I suppose you could say that from a nuts and bolts standpoint Cena does the things that you want from an ace babyface, but without the intended reaction he might as well be, as they say, wrestling in a vacuum.

It's not entirely his fault that they gave him the gimmicks of wannabe rapper and wannabe marine. I have no idea why anyone would cheer for either of those things, or why WWE thought that they would. On the other hand, wrestlers have gotten some pretty loony stuff over, just by having an authenticity that Cena always seemed to lack. Mick Foley as the crippled pianist, Matt Borne as the sadistic clown. I mean, going back to Slaughter, no one had any trouble buying him as a soldier. Okay, you know, once you reach the point where you're praising Sgt. Slaughter for stolen valor, it's probably time to pack it in.

You can argue a lot of things about Cena but I don't agree at all that he lacked a connection with the crowd.

[cad]

Then why are so many of them booing him in every match?

[Boss Rock]

3 minutes ago, cad said:

Then why are so many of them booing him in every match?

He's polarizing sure but there's usually an equally loud fanbase cheering for him. Not to mention the last few years of his career the crowd was almost entirely behind him and the "Cena sucks" largely just became a crowd tradition similar to the "You suck" chants for Kurt. There were certainly times the crowd was 100% against him (RVD in Hammerstein, Punk in Chicago), but that was usually not the case.

12 minutes ago, Boss Rock said:

It's not entirely his fault that they gave him the gimmicks of wannabe rapper and wannabe marine. I have no idea why anyone would cheer for either of those things, or why WWE thought that they would.

To be fair, the rapper gimmick is initially how he got over with the fans in the first place. I only had Cena at 81 so I don't really consider myself a major fan. His execution was sloppy and he had a lot of bad matches. But the idea that he never had a connection with the crowd and that they only booed him is not true.

[cad]

I never said that all he got was boos. My standard for a crowd connection for a babyface that the promotion is building itself around is a lot higher than "half the fans like him, I guess." This is a man playing the same role as Bruno, Hogan, Austin and Rock, for crying out loud. When those guys did spots in their matches that called for a pop, they got their pop. And it wasn't counteracted by half of the audience booing.

[Mantaur Rodeo Clown]

2 hours ago, cad said:

 On the other hand, wrestlers have gotten some pretty loony stuff over, just by having an authenticity that Cena always seemed to lack.

It's generally because Cena is very clearly an autistic man who happened to discover steroids and pro wrestling. There is nothing genuine about him. Even on Total Divas, which showcased Moxley and Danielson having their own wacky personalities, he came off like an emotionless robot. This is a man who proposed to his girlfriend in the middle of a wrestling ring and delivered it with the same cadence as when he announced Osama Bin Laden had been killed. STEPHANIE NICOLE GARCIA-COLACE, I AM COMPROMISING YOUR SINGLE LIFE TO A PERMANENT END.

A blank, automaton meat puppet is exactly what Vince needed, mind you. He was still quite sore in 2004 after Brock had torn up his boipucci and, worried that another star was going to leave him, figured out the best course of action was to push Cena. A man with no creative sensibility, no internal monologue, no grand artistic vision for what wrestling could be, and who could be coached to stardom by agents like Pat Patterson mentoring him. The world's first NPC champion.

He helped transformed people from fans of pro wrestlers, to fans of pro wrestling companies. It became less about his performance as a wrestler, and more of a meta-commentary on what you thought of his booking as a wrestler. He was essentially a prop. An effective one, but a prop nonetheless. You put him in there against Brock and have him get slaughtered as an example of Brock killing the face of the company. You put him in there against the PWG roster and he represents WWE adapting to the new US indie style. You put him in there against CM Punk or RVD and he is a prop representing corporate WWE culture. His performances or character (such as there is one) are unimportant in these cases. He is just a fungible representation of whatever Vince McMahon wanted him to be. 

Suddenly, for Vince it didn't matter if a temperamental star "took his ball and went home" on you, because you'd designed a system to plug in another gormless, blank babyface and have fans pay money to watch them regardless (SUFFERIN SUCCOTASH, BELIEVE THAT.) Do you think Vince was actually upset that fans brought a IF CENA WINS WE RIOT sign to One Night Stand? Do you think that's air you're breathing?

When it comes to the crunch, his performances underdeliver. The less that can be said about him butchering his long-awaited heel turn the better. His faux-epic matches with AJ Styles were tired the moment they went to air. But it was his inability to make Wrestlemania 28 an all-time classic, with all the build, with all the hype, with the amount of work and money poured into making that match a success, speaks volumes about his deficiencies and abilities. He simply couldn't replicate what Hogan and The Rock managed to pull off 10 years earlier. For the 33rd greatest wrestler ever, that was the easiest lay-up there has ever been. And he missed. 

[cad]

Whoa whoa whoa, all I said was that his audience didn't accept him. I'm not signing on for any more than that.

[Mantaur Rodeo Clown]

1 minute ago, cad said:

Whoa whoa whoa, all I said was that his audience didn't accept him. I'm not signing on for any more than that.

kayfabe brother

[MasterJonBurr]

What a shooter. I respect you, bookermantaur!

[Jetlag]

I like Bull just fine, but her beating Chigusa seems kinda bullshit, given she has nowhere the resume of great matches that Chigusa has. Well, they are just one spot apart, so I guess it doesn't matter in this shotgun blast of a list.

[tcg91]

Cena's best matches only happened against great workers. When it was time for Cena to lead (and elevate) a less talented opponent, the matches almost always sucked: Miz, Barrett, Wyatt, Rusev and I could name others. They were all exposed after feuding with Cena, but that was because Cena wasn’t good enough to do for them what Angle and others had done for him.

That Cena vs AJ Styles match from last year is genuinely atrocious.

[ohtani's jacket]

I think we can all agree that Triple H was a better worker than Cena. 

[El McKell]

43 minutes ago, ohtani's jacket said:

I think we can all agree that Triple H was a better worker than Cena. 

All time great engagement bait here.

[NotJayTabb]

Just been looking through the master list out of curiosity as to who has fallen the furthest since 2016, and by a street it's Tetsuhiro Kuroda, who has fallen 634 spots. The surprising part to me isn't the fall, but the fact he was at #187 in the first place, don't remember much Kuroda chat in 2016

[El McKell]

The reason why you're surprised and don't remember Kuroda chat in 2016 is because he received no votes in 2016 & there wasn't any comments in his thread. Grimmas just got the results backwards, Kuroda finished 187 in 2006 and received no votes in 2016.

[Matt D]

Somehow I blame @Jimmy Redman for all this Cena stuff even though she didn’t vote.

[ohtani's jacket]

Not a bad result for Casas. Could have done with being a bit higher, but at least the people who voted for him represented. 

[Tetsujin]

Santito over Casas this time reinforces the theory of huge babyface top guys resonating more with people now.

[Boss Rock]

Honestly thought Casas had a shot at the top 10. Was my 19. Like Jun, the ultimate longevity candidate. I haven't watched him in a few years, but the guy was having fast-paced workrate matches with guys half his age as recently as the late 2010's. Carried Sam Adonis to a legitimately really good hair match. And the feud with Santito speaks for itself.

[Matt D]

There isn't a wrestler in all of history that makes me not want to look away from the screen more than Negro Casas. The most honest, interesting, engaging reactions in wrestling.

I can't think of a wrestler today who makes me want to look away from the screen more than Kenny Omega when he's making his faces. 

I'm fine with him being here overall. I think he's very good at a number of things and I wouldn't begin to deny his importance to a generation or two. If Hulk Hogan was the guy that made wrestling accessible to the 80s Saturday Morning Cartoon generation, Kenny Omega is the one who did it for the streaming anime generation. And he did it not just through his backstage stuff but through making his work itself extremely accessible. He's one of the least immersive wrestlers I've ever encountered, but the fact that he somehow turns that into a strength is pretty remarkable. It just doesn't do it for me.

So yes, he's certainly not good at all at the thing that Negro Casas is the greatest at, which is something I value as much as almost anything.

[Makai Club #1]

Omega at 29 is interesting. I thought he'd be higher. I had him at 27, so I wasn't far off. I could've gone higher, but I think the AEW run has largely been dissapointing and in someways underwelming. Very few times has he come even a smidge close to his peak run in New Japan. The Bryan match is the only match that comes to mind to the level Kenny should be working at. Honestly, the DDT run was much better and had plenty of better matches than what the AEW run has offered. Obviously, Kenny's case lives with the 2016-2018 peak where he probably couldn't do anything wrong (until the post G1 run to the Dome in 2018). Incredible matches, the best character work he's ever done, great feuds, a star so unique and almost mythic in how everyone saw him. 

Could've been higher. But this is a good spot for him. 

[Tetsujin]

FINALLY, Jesus Christ. This was becoming embarrasing. Omega at #29 is something that is not gonna age well when/if we do GWE 2036, I'm sure. Seeing how he didn't even get that many votes (58%), but more than half his voters put him in the top 25, that's very telling.

In all honesty, I quite enjoy some Kenny from time to time. His execution is mostyl flawless, and the intensity and velocity he brings and gets out of many wrestlers can and have been a strong tool for great matches. But it's his bad tendencies, that plague all his work throughout his whole career, what bothers me a lot. As recently as the MJF match this year, where he couldn't stop pretending to have a mega epic fight with just too much shit going on, too many "cinema" moments with his very bad acting, and obvious cooperation tells to pull their shit off, that's Kenny in a nutshell for me. I admit that when he clicks, damn, does he click. But most of the time, he annoys me more than anything. He's what so many people criticize Shawn Michaels for.

[MoS]

Really surprised Omega ranked lower than Okada. For fans of that style, surely Omega has accomplished more? Especially given his AEW run. I voted for Okada and not Omega but that's because I actually like mid card AEW Okada, which I know is a minority opinion. 

Casas is at least 25 spots too low

[Boss Rock]

Kenny was my 21. I honestly did not expect him to finish this high, but clearly he had more than enough high-end voters. I think he's also garnered more support than say, Ospreay due to his legitimate strengths. Terrific offensive wrestler with pristine execution and a genuinely great bumper. When it comes to high-octane big match settings, you're not going to find many better. Even before his NJPW heavyweight push in 2016 which is what brought him the most attention and exposure, he was really good as the junior ace (though the comedy was a bit too much at times). His run in DDT and brief stint in AJPW also produced a ton of great matches (the Hadoken was stupid, though). Certainly not perfect as his limb selling is spotty and his facials are often too hammy. Not to mention the aforementioned comedy earlier in his career. But even as his body is basically held by duct tape and glue, he's still more than capable of delivering the goods.

[Boss Rock]

3 minutes ago, MoS said:

Really surprised Omega ranked lower than Okada. For fans of that style, surely Omega has accomplished more? Especially given his AEW run. I voted for Okada and not Omega but that's because I actually like mid card AEW Okada, which I know is a minority opinion. 

Casas is at least 25 spots too low

They were separated by 1 for me. I am also a bit surprised given how much more polarizing Okada's thread was. But I also think Omega has certain tendencies that will irk folks more than Okada.

I have also enjoyed AEW Okada.