Skip to main content

John Cena's Hardest-fought Victories - WWE Top 10



I feel like we're being trolled a little bit here, but the #1 was indeed a hell of a match.  I feel like Umaga should have been higher.  And isn't there a pretty obvious omission from 2012?  Or is that omitted due to blood, I wonder?

Comments

  1. We do have jobbers; they just have names and are former champions now.
    Look at rusev: he moved up the card by beating most of the jobbers like kofi, rtruth, Ryder, etc.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Let us not forget that they got rid of jobbers for a reason. There is a fine art to using enhancement talent and I don't think the wrestlers and creative understand it.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Dolph always makes me cringe in stuff like this.

    ReplyDelete
  4. CJ Parker would make a perfect jobber for Raw.

    ReplyDelete
  5. And the crowd goes mild!

    ReplyDelete
  6. The term for them used to be JTTS, for Jobber to the stars.

    ReplyDelete
  7. They don't even necessarily need to have traditional jobbers, but use the barely used undercard guys in the same role.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I think it's omitted because Cena having already beaten Brock kind of undermines the whole "can Cena beat Brock?" storyline.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Outstanding list. Cena rises above hate and overcomes the odds.

    ReplyDelete
  10. I think Summerslam pretty much omitted that loss. Not officially but in spirit.

    ReplyDelete
  11. That is the problem. If WWE brings it back, we'll most likely be subject to Heath Slater squashes. The squash matches should be saved for guys who getting the Goldberg push, guys with cool explosive offense or guys that are over and can draw heat.

    ReplyDelete
  12. The Umaga one they should show is the Rumble but that involves choking

    ReplyDelete
  13. Extant1979 - Ghetto SuperstarSeptember 21, 2014 at 9:12 AM

    I think I read on one of the newz sitez that that stuff was going to be released in November.

    ReplyDelete
  14. I agree, they highlighted the wrong Umaga match. I mean, Umaga was such a monster that Cena had to beat him in a Last Man Standing match by choking him out with the RING ROPE. And Scott's correct that Umaga should've been higher on the list.

    ReplyDelete
  15. I don't know how they got the list to just 10.

    ReplyDelete
  16. They should utilize halves of tag teams for these purposes. So maybe you don't believe Jimmy Uso has a chance against Orton or someone, but its because he's a "tag team specialist" and not accustomed to singles wrestling. They should also let uppercarders get easy wins over lower carders. Ita not gonna make Reigns look bad to get an easy win over Ryback, or to let Wyatt squash Ryder once in a while.

    ReplyDelete
  17. I know this has become a popular idea in recent months, but they'd have to be careful with this. On a one hour show like NXT, the show just flies by and a jobber match keeps the show moving while showcasing a wrestler. On a 3 hour Raw, they wouldn't be offensive if used sparingly. But I could see it becoming a part of the stale formula: "20-minute promo, squash match, replay of promo, Bella segment..."


    I guess I'm saying it is a fine idea, but my trust in WWE to pull off any idea is at an all-time low.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Little bit of audio editing there, striking out the part where Michael Cole labels Cena's finisher on Angle as the F.U.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Easily google'able questions like this being sent to a wrestling reviewer boggle my mind.

    ReplyDelete
  20. I liked the old RAW - War Zone split. It felt like two different shows. Perhaps if Raw were treated like three different shows rather than one insane three-hour stream of consciousness it would be better.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Well they've been this occasionally on Main Event and Superstarts with Ryder and Gabriel and but yea they should be doing more of it.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Silicon Valley.


    Haven't watched a Raw or SD since Bryan got boned out of the title the second time and I knew that off the top of my head. Not sure what that says.

    ReplyDelete
  23. I unfortunately know exactly where it's going to be, because it's going to royally f*ck up traffic for me and my wife for work (we work at different companies, each about 1 mile from the stadium)

    ReplyDelete
  24. You can't take that weekend off?

    ReplyDelete
  25. What about when Cena beat everyone else in the same storyline?

    ReplyDelete
  26. I think it's the next week. Something about a guy and black gloves?

    ReplyDelete
  27. I seriously do not know how anyone affords that shit.

    ReplyDelete
  28. The look on Cena's bloodied face at the end of that match is awesome. Really sells how much the match took out of him. Although, as Scott suggests of the Lesnar match, maybe blood was the reason for the Last Man Standing match with Umaga being omitted in favour of the one on the list.

    ReplyDelete
  29. Perhaps Barry Horowitz, George South and the Mulkeys can go down to Orlando and train the next generation of flabby, unimpressive enhancement talent.

    ReplyDelete
  30. They used jobbers to get Ryback over, and it worked until his series of high-profile PPV losses.

    ReplyDelete
  31. I love the idea of well-used squashes, jobbers, enhancement talent...but I worry that in the "internet age"...we know too much for them to work.

    Before we knew absolutely everything about everyone on the roster, it didn't bother me to see someone who hadn't been promoted very much take on someone that I either really liked or really hated...because, I figured, Iron Mike Sharp probably won a lot of matches...he just never seemed to win on television. The announcers would call the match and you were still invested in seeing if the guy you liked was going to win...or if the guy you hated was going to cheat in some way that the ref would somehow miss and get away with it.

    Now...if a guy isn't on the WWE.com list of Superstars or if we don't see him every week...we'd know that he's either going to be a brand new getting a push or a guy about to lay down while Cole, King and JBL ignore the match to shill an app or a Bella segment or 9.99. It just wouldn't be effective unless/until the audience gets retrained (not to mention finding an announce team willing to actually call "meaningless" matches despite the constant yabbering and pimping in their ears...)

    It's interesting to watch the early Raw episodes on the Network...to see how they used enhancement talent, to see who they used (hello Kanyon! hello Jeff Hardy!)...and to see the evolution of that "old school" style into the "everything is a PPV-type match" style that is supposedly what we've got today (when, really, what's happened is that now PPVs, or whatever we're supposed to call them, now feel like "everything is just a Raw episode").


    The change from wrestling to entertainment, I fear, has meant the death of the enhancement talent concept. "What's entertaining about watching we don't know or care about getting beaten up?" seems to be the mindset. (Well...it's better than watching someone we thought we were supposed to care about getting beaten up without much thought or care, as if we were stupid to care about them...)

    BUT...as a tool to get storylines and "superstars" over? I'm for it! Is Kenny "The Sodbuster" Jay still with us?

    ReplyDelete
  32. Gunther the Nasty LoserSeptember 21, 2014 at 10:47 AM

    "But for example, but we get squash matches on NXT all the time and it's fine."

    But then we get the Ascension who probably won't translate well on the big stage.

    ReplyDelete
  33. "​I could barely even tell you where Wrestlemania is going to be this year.​"
    I mean, do you know or not?

    ReplyDelete
  34. Actually back then, for me jobber matches were just "someone I don't know got beaten up". And it wasn't very exciting. BUT it wasn't about the jobber, it was only about the star which used this squashes to get over. And even if he was a lower card guy like Jim Duggan or Rick Martel or so, he was still above the "jobbers". And it made the PPVs more exciting, because you wantet so see the stars vs the stars.


    And even back then I wantet so see the stars vs the stars and not actually the jobber matches but we've had no choice until Nitro came.

    ReplyDelete
  35. There used to be three levels of jobbers. You had your "Jobbers to the stars" like Koko B. Ware. These guys had gimmicks and some name value and occasionally even beat lesser jobbers. A lot of former stars became JTTS (Jimmy Snuka, Tito Santana, etc,,,). Then you had the 2nd level: Full time enhancement talent. Guys like Barry Horowitz, Steve Lambordi, etc...These were guys that never won, but seemingly worked full time for WWF and almost could have been considered TV stars. Then the 3rd level: Local Indy guys that just got squashed when WWF came to there town.


    WWE's problem now is they they only have a handful of top stars, and everybody else is a JTTS. Even if they're high on someone, but feel the asinine need to humble them or just don't have anything for them creatively, they become de facto JTTS. WWE creative wrongly thinks that they can just turn a switch and magically make these guys a star when they need them, but years of having them defined down makes that near impossible.


    Long story short; I'm pro jobber. At the very least WWE needs to have select JTTS and start protecting more than just 5-6 guys at a time.

    ReplyDelete
  36. Right...but, back...earlier than that...we didn't know who we didn't know. :)


    ...and we're unlikely to be able to go back to that.

    (...AND GET OFF MY LAWN, YOU CRAZY KIDS WITH YOUR DOO-HICKEYS AND YOUR WHATZITS!)

    ReplyDelete
  37. I think the best way for the weekly shows is to have short star vs star appetizer matches and good storylines.

    In 98, when Russo booked something like Austin vs Rock on RAW it wasn't the same match like you've gotten on PPV.

    Today, if they book Cena vs Orton it IS the same match on RAW as if you would get on PPV.

    And that's the problem. But you want long wrestling matches? Just watch the PPVs! That is what they are for.

    Yes, Jobber squashes got the stars over and made the ppvs more interesting, but they still sucked, even in 94.

    And if you don't want jobber matches on RAW and if you don't want the same matches as on PPV, you have two options: Make the roster much bigger, so that the bookers can make different matches on the weekly shows (like in WCW) or have a better booker who makes the matches on the weekly shows different compared to the PPV matches.

    And if you want to get someone so desperately over than you can still put some squashes in there.

    The problem that nobody is really over and the shows are stale are IMO not because of 50:50 booking and the lack of talents, but the lack of good booking and story telling. The WWF roster of 1998 was even more bad than today. You only had Taker, Austin, Kane and Mankind and no option to bring back Batista, Jericho, RVD, Lesnar, Triple H etc.. You had the midcarders with Rock, Hunter Jarret and Owen and no NXT where you can bring new guys in anytime you want. The roster was limited as hell, especially compared to WCW where you had all the big names, BUT the shows were still entertaining even if you saw D'Lo Brown vs Godfather it was more interesting than today Cesaro vs Seth Rollins or so, even if the matches were short and not as good as today, but wrestling was never about quality, but more about do I want to see that? And do I want to see jobber matches? No. Even back in 1992...

    ReplyDelete
  38. But we knew who are the stars and we knew who were the jobbers, because the stars had flashy funky outfits and good wrestling names, while the jobbers had "normal" names and no gimmick - just liks most of the new guys from today. ;)

    ReplyDelete
  39. Protecting 5-6 guys would be an improvement.

    ReplyDelete
  40. The squash matches were really fantastic for getting guys movesets and finishing moves over. Razor Ramon was the best at this.

    ReplyDelete
  41. Totally. You also never get to see a guy just completely DOMINATE his opponent for a win. Even when Rusev beats someone like Zack Ryder, you'll get the sequence where Zack gets a little offense in before Rusev hits a kick out of nowhere and then the finisher. Real jobber matches let you see a top star actually lay down a beating and hit a bunch of moves in a row, without having to give a hope spot.

    ReplyDelete
  42. CruelConnectionNumber2September 21, 2014 at 11:51 AM

    General public ticket sales are always in November.

    ReplyDelete
  43. Many wrestling fans were not even born when WWF had jobbers, would they accept jobbers? Would most fans used to not having jobbers for 20 years accept it? WWE going back to 80's formula would best for TNA

    ReplyDelete
  44. CruelConnectionNumber2September 21, 2014 at 11:52 AM

    What a great opening title bout.

    ReplyDelete
  45. CruelConnectionNumber2September 21, 2014 at 11:54 AM

    The Flair/Sting/Horsemen angle makes zero sense. Cool payoff, but it would be RIDICULED today. It'd be like Ambrose coming back and then helping Rollins and Kane take down Reigns.

    ReplyDelete
  46. CruelConnectionNumber2September 21, 2014 at 11:58 AM

    These are lazy 24/7 editions without the graphic.

    ReplyDelete
  47. If you don't feel like watching the video, here is the list:


    1. Cena/Edge, TLC Unforgiven 2006
    2. Cena/Rock, WrestleMania 29
    3. Cena/HHH, WrestleMania 22
    4. Cena/Michaels WrestleMania 23
    5. Cena/Batista I Quit, after WrestleMania 26 (I wanna say Over the Edge)
    6. Cena/Brey Wyatt WrestleMania 30
    7. Vena/Angle No Way Out 2006
    8. Cena/Punk Raw 2013.
    9. Team WWE v. Nexus Summerslam 2010
    10 v. Umaga at NYR 2007.

    ReplyDelete
  48. Cena/Umaga at the Royal Rumble is a hell of a fight and probably should have been #1. I am AMAZED they didn't list the Rock match as #1. That match is atrocious.

    ReplyDelete
  49. Not really. You can never sell John Cena as an underdog. Never.

    ReplyDelete
  50. I think Sting taking his time to show up can be taken as why Flair eventually turned on him. IE Flair was actually legit turning over a new leaf but Sting kept second guessing him, so Flair said "fuck it", decided to reform the Horsemen and reconciled with Anderson/Pillman.

    And to be fair, it does have two big plot points for the show going forward:

    1. Sting actually DOES beat the ever loving shit out of Flair to get his revenge as far as following through on his threat (IIRC at that year's WW3 PPV or Starcade)


    2. It kind of explains WHY Sting in turn becomes so dumb as dirt with Luger, trusting him and shit even after he turns heel at Halloween Havoc, in that Sting kind of realizes that he decides to make up for not trusting Flair by way of doubling down his support for Luger. Which makes Luger's eventual betrayal of Sting during the NWO storyline so bad that Sting goes goth for over a year

    ReplyDelete
  51. It wouldn't matter if they gave an indie guy TV exposure, because I'm positive they wouldn't let them use whatever name they usually wrestle under.

    ReplyDelete
  52. Well the story was that Flair and Arn were actually mad at each other hence why they had matches and fought each other. Then they made up to reform the Horsemen and fuck Sting over.

    ReplyDelete
  53. Interesting Luger was the one that pointed it out to Sting. Wonder if Sting could have become an even bigger star than he was if he had a better mind for the business.

    ReplyDelete
  54. Barett's face n the "stf" is hilarious.

    ReplyDelete
  55. Seriously, that crowd at Wrestlemania 29 could not have given less of a shit with that Cena win.

    ReplyDelete
  56. Yep. It mad eplenty of sense, especially if you'd followed the Flair/Sting rivalry over the years. The one force powerful enough to reform the Horsemen was their mutual hatred of Sting.

    ReplyDelete
  57. "Yep Mode" ABeyAnce1©September 21, 2014 at 1:22 PM

    They let Matt Cross wrestle as Matt Crosss.

    ReplyDelete
  58. "Yep Mode" ABeyAnce1©September 21, 2014 at 1:24 PM

    He was the last to do that.

    ReplyDelete
  59. "Yep Mode" ABeyAnce1©September 21, 2014 at 1:27 PM

    Man, it was always fun to see PWO guys on WWE programming, even if they were booked to lose, it was still great to see them get national exposure.

    ReplyDelete
  60. A squash match format worked back in the day when most wrestling companies followed suit and viewers had a handful of channels on a basic cable system.

    While I agree that wrestling would do well to bring back squash matches, it's basically trying to put the proverbial toothpaste back in the tube. Fans have been conditioned to accept nothing less than a loaded star-vs-star show everytime out. Plus, with the onset of digital cable / satellite TV and the proliferation of MMA, pro wrestling as a whole can quickly go the way of roller derby if enough people decide there are far more things out there worthy of their time and money than watching a bunch of squash matches.

    Pro wrestling must live with the monster it created during the Monday Night Wars as fans will simply never again accept anything less than star quality matches.

    ReplyDelete
  61. And Rocky King. That guy was a first-rate jobber.

    ReplyDelete
  62. I always love the jibes on "Cena can't wrestle, can't hold a match" etc and I reply, "what, you think UMAGA carried their feud?"

    ReplyDelete
  63. Who has a smaller roster of talent to pull from, NJPW or WWE? Why can't they make 6 man matches the main parts of Raw and SD with the occasional star vs star singles match to liven things up? It's not that hard. The fact that most matches are under 5 minutes is what makes for the added dreck during the 3 hours. They have enough bodies to run 2-3 6 matches as well as some singles stuff. I'm thinking the WWE doesn't want to pay for all of those performers and would prefer to have 1 v 1 instead of 3 v 3.

    ReplyDelete
  64. I didn't like the Sting-Flair angle because that, combined with the Rock's turn during the title tournament at the '98 Survivor Series and the Greater Power reveal, it handwaves almost any use of violence as a way to draw divisions, because it can be easily shrugged off. If Wrestler A gets laid out by Stable X with weapons and multiple finishers, it should make Wrestler A white-hot and desperate for revenge over the course of weeks, if not months. It definitely makes no sense for Wrestler A to turn on Wrestler B three weeks later to join Stable X because "it was all a setup". If you're willing to take chairshots and finishers for the sake of a setup, then what value do they have anymore?

    ReplyDelete
  65. Yeah, but they had to add the extra S on there. Gotta trademark SOMEthing.

    I'd honestly forgotten all about M-Dogg 20 (what a dumb name...) having been on that new Tough Enough. Probably because THEY'VE forgotten all about that new Tough Enough by now as well. WWE picked the blandest guy to win, had him get his ass kicked on Raw once, and then released him shortly afterwards after having done fuck all with the dude. I'd bet you anything that if he HAD gotten a character that made it to TV, he wouldn't have been called "Andy Whatever-His-Last-Name-Was-I'm-Too-Lazy-to-Check."

    ReplyDelete
  66. I wish Hogan had wrestled Benoit in 1995 and pinned him clean with the leg drop.

    ReplyDelete
  67. I dunno, the old-school jobber matches usually had a hope spot or two, usually when the face jobber was taking on a heel. An "upper-tier" jobber like Jim Powers would get a dropkick in, or Bob Cook would land one of his stiff punches, and the heel would then take a moment to regroup outside the ring and get some heat either by whining to the ref or talking to his manager. Then the heel would get back in and proceed to kick the jobber's ass.

    ReplyDelete
  68. Andy didn't even get his ass kicked in a match by another wrestler...Vince slapped him in the face and Austin stunned him. I think that was literally Andy's only appearance on a main show.

    ReplyDelete
  69. Insulting the people you're trying to convert to paying customers is always a good idea, just ask Game Com.

    ReplyDelete
  70. You mean it would be Havok versus Owen Bella if pro wrestling goes back to using jobbers?

    ReplyDelete
  71. for who, Nikkie or Brie?

    ReplyDelete
  72. Oh, we both work normal 9-5, and work from home a lot, but the road the new stadium is on is NOTORIOUSLY crowded/slow (even before the stadium was built). Just the pre-weekend traffic will suck ass.

    ReplyDelete
  73. CruelConnectionNumber2September 22, 2014 at 11:50 AM

    Nah, Flair on the apron watching while Sting kicks his secret friends ass? And then helping Sting punch, kick, and brawl with his secret friends? So they can get a 3 minute attack on Sting which is less than the time Flair spent watching Sting beat up his friends? Zero sense made.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment