Scott,
Long time listener, first time caller.
Right now the raging debate on message boards (at least the debates NOT centered on Daniel Bryan or Brock Lesnar) seems to focus on just how super or un-super Cena was during his run as the man. Most of the defense of Cena seems to center around his position being similar/identical to that of Rock's or Stone Cold's. The Pro-Cena people argue that while they were top faces, both Rock and Stone Cold did not have to job (cleanly) and that Cena is just fulfilling the character arc set down by Hogan or Rock. Also they argue that Anti-Cena people are butt hurt. That salient point comes up a lot.
I know you have said that Stone Cold Jobbed plenty, but putting wins and losses aside, I would argue that the reason most people got so very sick of John Cena has more to do with a lack of good feuds. A good feud does not just show up in the win column, it also reveals a new side of the players involved. HHH vs Rock showed that HHH was a politicking bastard, above nothing in his pursuit of the title, and it showed that Rock was willing to take obscene punishment and humiliation to achieve his goal. Corporate Rock vs Mick Foley provided sympathy for the stubborn Foley and showed that the Rock's God Given magnetism could be used for evil as well as good. It also allowed the Rock to reveal that he was still nursing his ego from "Die Rocky, Die." If you look at the Austin from Austin v McMahon and compare it to the Austin from the two man power trip, it's two different people. One is a red neck SOB who's proud of his shit kicking life, and the other is a paranoid coward who's only sense of worth comes from the titles he carries to the ring (Austin's acting during two man power trip was Method Acting on par with some of the greats).
So that long winded intro brings me to my question: In the time I stopped watching WWE (2005-2011) did John Cena have any memorable feuds that revealed new facets to his character? And by new facets I don't mean his ability to rise above the hate, or his ability to become less visible. This is not to start a war, I'm genuinely curious as I see nothing interesting about Cena, and would really like to know if I'm missing something.
Other than that...uh...Daniel Bryan, Brock Lesnar, Purple Monkey Dishwasher.
Brian
You're definitely not missing much with Cena's run in terms of memorable feuds. The Orton stuff was good and suitably epic for a while, but got run into the ground, and then dug up and run into the ground all over again until you just never wanted to see them even touch each other again. They had mad chemistry in 08/09, though, and probably could have done well as a Megapowers type tag team if it was 1986. The initial Edge feud was pretty great, too, especially when he got sucker-punched after winning the Elimination Chamber and actually looked vulnerable for 5 seconds. Then he won the belt back right away. However, Lita was SMOKING HOT during that period, so there's that.
Aside from that, most of Cena's big stuff isn't really "feuds" per se, but "Cena is the champion and this guy is the challenger and Cena overcomes the odds to triumph" which is fine because it makes the champion seem like a big deal, but it's really boring from a storyline perspective.
I still say the Edge feud was the best thing that's ever happened during his career. Following the zenith of anti-Cena remarks that began around the 05-06 era, you just couldn't get them to cheer him on against anyone. Of course, it doesn't help if you're pairing him against guys who are already over and popular like Kurt Angle or Shawn Michaels, but against someone like Orton, it was just bizarre, as he really hadn't gotten popular again. It just seemed like they were cheering him on because he WASN'T Cena; same with Triple H, i.e. WM22.
ReplyDeleteEdge, however, seemed like the one instance where they actually got it right. A majority of fans already hated the guy for stealing their beloved Matt Hardy's girlfriend (man, how different would that dynamic look today?), so they certainly wanted to see him get his. Couple that with Cena on the rise to top babyface, and the whole thing just seemed to click on a new level. Add in the fact that they just had insanely good chemistry together, and you had a feud that could've relaunched the company in terms of popularity if booked right. Too bad the DX/McMahons feud had to hog up all the screen time while all this was going on.
2006 was a great year for Cena. Cena/Edge, both in January and over the summer, was pretty awesome. The RVD feud was fun & who knows where it could've gone if RVD didnt get caught with pot. The Triple H match at WrestleMania wasn't really a feud, per se, but it made for a helluva atmosphere.
ReplyDeleteThe only other Cena feud that stands out was the Batista one around WM 26, but that was all driven by Batista's awesome heel character.
Yeah, but Cena got booed at the SummerSlam in his hometown. It did work better than most Cena feuds since, as you said, people REALLY didn't like Edge in 2006. In a good way.
ReplyDeleteIt probably wasn't long enough to be memorable but I thought Cena-Batista was excellent and I give 150% of the credit to Big Dave hitting a level of dickhead heel I didn't think he could pull off.
ReplyDeleteIn the ring they had some terrific chemistry too.
The biggest problem with Cena's feuds hasn't necessarily been the wrestling or even what's happening DURING the feud, it's the fact that nothing ever changes.
ReplyDeleteCena-Edge was great, but nothing really changed.
Cena-RVD was a good mini-feud with absolutely the right result, but nothing really changed.
Cena-Orton was great (at first), but nothing really changed.
Cena-Batista was 8 different kinds of awesome in the buildup and people really wanted to see Batista get his, but again nothing really changed.
Cena-Barrett/Nexus was pretty good, but even when Cena got "fired" nothing really changed. He didn't even miss a week of TV.
Cena-Punk was the best TV story in quite some time, they teased something changing but again nothing really changed.
Cena-Rock was a solid 14-15 months of anticipation paid off by a good wrestling match that made them a lot of money. It teased character depth and change but yet again, nothing really changed.
It's truly a shame what they've done with Cena's character. He's done good work throughout his career and had a lot of memorable matches with many different opponents. Just nothing really ever changed. On the bright side, things are going in the right direction. They're at least teasing change now whereas during the neverending Orton feud and then the Batista feud you knew there was absolutely no way in hell anything was changing. At least now they tease that something might happen but it still isn't going to. Baby steps I guess.
This might spawn a thread of its own, but how will history remember Cena?
ReplyDeleteGranted, it's probably way too early to tell (for example, Hogan pre- and post-nWo would yield completely different answers), but it's still food for thought.
I just watched hte Edge DVD last night and it made me realize how great the Edge/Cena feud really was. Specifically, the fire Cena had at that time. There seemed like legitimate hatred in their feud....I couldn't imagine Cena throwing, say, Miz into a river.
ReplyDeleteBy far, my favourite Cena feud.
ReplyDeleteMy problem with Cena is the same problem I had with Hulk Hogan before the nWo turn; no character growth at all. He's a fine wrestler (though he works to the level of who he's taking on), can put on a great match with the right guy, has had some great feuds... but he always ends up in exactly the same position he was after it's all said and done.
ReplyDeleteThe original poster said "lack of good feuds", but what he really meant was "lack of good storytelling". If you're going to present a product on a weekly basis, with no "summer break" to keep the characters fresh and compelling, you have to create characters that change in subtle yet distinct ways. Look at some of the more compelling characters going right now, and you can trace a line from one point to the next, looking at all of the motivations that got them to where they are. Trace a line from Cena, and you start noticing that the motivations seemed to just reset him back to the same character. There's no depth there, and while that's fine for kids and merchandising (Superman proves that), the story and character suffers from having this unchangeable, unmovable man sitting right in the middle of things.
This isn't about "going heel". This is about finding something, ANYTHING, that will make John Cena change his motivations. They had the storyline thread RIGHT THERE with the loss to the Rock, but they did exactly what I was worried they'd do; had John Cena come out and essentially say "Eh, shit happens, oh look, Brock Lesnar!" I like John Cena the man, like John Cena the wrestler, but I dislike John Cena the character. That's what they really have to change and freshen up.
I believe the color of his t-shirt, and sometimes even his shorts, changed. That's something.
ReplyDeleteCena/Edge was definitely the most memorable, but it suffered by being split up halfway through by the HHH business for Mania. Either way, it worked for what it should have been. The thing that really made it work was that it was great timing for Edge: he'd been on the build for all those years and worked his way up the card, and the Money in the Bank thing was a legitimate shock when it was done for the first time, if only because they never really made it clear that that's what they were doing with it. It just felt like a perfect gradual step to make Edge into a legit main eventer, rather than being forced & rushed or too little too late. After that feud Edge always seemed like he belonged at the top, especially when he went to Smackdown and was basically their top star.
ReplyDeleteYeah for me Cena/Batista was easily the best of his feuds with Edge coming in a very close second.
ReplyDeleteCena/HHH/HBK wasn't terrible either
It sort of did relaunch the company, as they experienced a mini-boom during that period. A year later Cena/Shawn did the highest buyrate of any Wrestlemania, and ratings were on an upward trend for most of that time. The thing is, it only lasted like a year to a year and a half. By late '07/early '08, things were back on a downward spiral.
ReplyDeleteThat "All I see is dollar signs/Kissin' babies and huggin' fat girls" promo is legendary, I think.
ReplyDeleteYep. He treats everything so ho-hum, which is why it's a) hard to root for him and b) difficult to become emotionally invested in his feuds.
ReplyDeleteHence, I took exceptional glee seeing him busted open this past Monday.
And don't forget One Night Stand where Edge speared Cena out of the title and got huge pops while only 40 minutes earlier he got the biggest heat during the tt match with Foley.
ReplyDeleteI've made this point before but history will treat John Cena very well. You're already seeing a glimpse of it now. Fans watching his career highlights through YouTube and wondering, "why all the hate?".
ReplyDeleteWWE is spinning the whole "large segment of the audience turned on him" as being innovative and almost intentional, kinda like the 97 Bret Hart situation. They've given up on getting those fans behind Cena now, but they're acting like it's always been that way, when it's a recent development. They spent years before that trying to get their entire audience behind him.
I think the WWE's strategy is going to work. They're going to paint Cena's character as being groundbreaking and compelling, and if this blog is any indication, it's going to work. There was a poster a few days ago lamenting that it was nearly impossible to have a character the ENTIRE audience (men, women, and children) could get behind. Ignoring almost EVERY top babyface the WWE ever had. From Hogan to Orton.
Cena vs CM Punk could have been as good as Cena vs Edge, but somehow they stopped it and never went back.
ReplyDeleteAnd I would like to see Cena acting a Heel like Hollywood Hogan back in the nWo. I mean, he always says that he is he is, but wrestling is also always about acting and why not play a heel role for some months, have a big stable around him and try other baby faces to beat him?! He could even have the WWE title for several months and it still would be something much better than Cena face vs random heel part 10000.
I was just thinking last weekend about how Christianity is so popular because the Easter story is the story of Jesus turning into the ultimate babyface. This guy, Jesus, is rebelling against the corrupt, heel authority, but Jesus is doing it while being all nice and all, "aw, shucks." However, his paranoia increases, because he's sure someone from his stable is going to sell him out. Someone does, and then Jesus is the recipient of the ultimate heel beat down while a bloodthirsty mod cheers on. But Jesus makes the ultimate babyface comeback by literally coming back from the dead.
ReplyDeleteAnd then I thought how Cena's problem is he's just never, ever in danger from his heels, so his "aw, shucks," personality is just grating because he's not that way in the face of adversity, he's that way because nothing bad ever happens to Cena. I clearly remember the feud where Earthquake crushed Hogan's chest and he was hospitalized because kids at my school were rabid to see Hogan come back and beat up Earthquake. A more recent example is how Morishima was an unstoppable killing machine in ROH...so much so, Danielson was turned face in his battle to take Morishima out. But that's Cena's problem, he never shows any vulnerability. Hell, even Jesus put the Romans over before making his comeback.
Awesome. I'm still cracking up at "ultimate heel beatdown"
DeleteDidn't Cena/HBK/HHH have one of the worst builds for a title match ever at Survivor Series?
ReplyDeleteIt is impossible to have a character that an entire audience can get behind though.
ReplyDeleteI can't tell if this is sarcasm or not. If it is, back off that's my territory!
ReplyDeleteIf it isn't, then I present to you Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, Steve Austin, Mick Foley, Randy Orton, HHH, Kurt Angle, Undertaker, CM Punk....
I could go on and on. All babyfaces at or near the top of the company who had the entire audience behind them. And I'd include Rock in there as well. Cena apologists have tried really damn hard to equate a few hostile reactions to Rock (in notoriously smarky cities) to the reaction Cena gets at EVERY show, whether it's Toronto or Anaheim.
John Cena is the EXCEPTION. He has 2 babyface peers (Punk and Orton) who don't have half (or 40%, or 60%, or take your pick it's a lot) the audience booing the shot out of them. And fans today are no more cynical than they were in the late 90s.
Cena (the guy) is, as far as I can tell, a person of almost boundless energy who outworks everyone else on the roster in terms of work schedule, training, and public appearances. The character he plays - and he seems to be in character almost all of the time - is a version of the same guy. Hogan could switch to heel pretty easily, because he is kind of a jerk and could just tap into it; so could Rock and Austin. Cena's earlier heel persona was a delusional rapper, but he was so good at rapping that it didn't seem delusional and ended up backfiring.
ReplyDeleteSeveral posters have advanced good reasons why some people have grown to dislike the character (rarely in real danger, character never grows or changes) but it would seem they all come down to versions of - the guy seems too perfect. Charity work with kids, works a full schedule, no reported attitude problems, married, never heard stories of womanizing (to be fair, I never heard them about Bret Hart until years later, but I digress) - they guy just doesn't seem real. He has this ridiculous physique - is handsome - doesn't seem to have enemies in the business (except maybe Michael Tarver, who is history) - seems good at whatever he turns his attention to, etc., etc. He seems to periodically do everything he can to get younger performers over (Evan Bourne, Zack Ryder), went to bat for CM Punk, and so on. I can see why people hate him.
Check out this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKyh_yxdB18&feature=related
ReplyDeleteIt's Cena and Batista cutting a promo on each other (kissing babies and hugging fat girls!). Cena is the same character two years ago as he is today. The live fans were still very much on his side of the story back then. The booing had started many years ago in the occaisional smarky crowds but it wasn't really universal until CM Punk cut his famous promos and broke the glass ceiling last year. That's why I assert that we're in the Punk era now, regardless of what managment might think.
They didn't "somehow" just stop it. A certain someone with a big nose and high-ranking in the company decided to horn in on the program.
ReplyDeleteThe next time Cena comes to my town, I'm gonna cheer him just to be a rebel!
ReplyDeleteI remember Lance Storm mentioning on his website back in 2006 that both times that Edge won the WWE Title that year, Raw ratings actually went up a certain bit, and they fell back down the same amount as soon as he lost the title.
ReplyDeleteAgreed, for the most part. It was nothing more than that: a mini-boom. It all led up to Wrestlemania 23, one of my personal top 10, but after Backlash the following month, everything was just treading water again. No one really wanted to see Cena/Khali either, you know?
ReplyDeleteIf he's talking about the triple threat match, that would be the one that revolved around Hornswoggle being DX's mascot. I've never understood why they basically did an anti-build for their three biggest stars fighting for the title.
ReplyDeleteThat was an ECW crowd, though. They booed Cena breathing, so it makes sense that they'd pop for that.
ReplyDeleteI liked the Umaga feud a lot, even if it was Hulk Hogan formula 101 (well, except for the job to K-Fed).
ReplyDeleteThat was one of Edge's things for a while. He was calling himself the most watched champion after cashing in on Cena.
ReplyDeleteI think John's first feud with JBL was pretty good. Sure there WM match sucked but the promos were great and the I Quit match was a great blowoff.
ReplyDeleteAlso I loved the Cena/Orton feud in 2009. They had that great Summerslam match in 2007 but in 2009 they had a string of really great matches. I thought their Summerslam 09 match was good. I actually liked the restarts in that they were very different and Orton's reactions to "getting away with it" each time were priceless. Their Breaking Point I Quit match was fantastic IMO ****+ Orton did a great job of keeping it compelling despite the slow pace. Their HIAC match was great too from memory, and I thought their Iron Man Match was great too.
The Edge feud was enjoyable specifically the stretch from Summerslam 06 to Unforgiven 06.
His feud with Brock Lesnar, while it didn't produce any good matches, did provide Cena a chance to show off aggression, focus, and evolve his character some.
"Kanye Batista" owned.
ReplyDeleteThey didn't just pop, they cheered "Thank you Edge!"
ReplyDeleteThere's no character development for Cena. He's been the same guy since 2006, and hasn't changed a lick. Guys like Rock and Stone Cold changed characters over the course of six years, but from the looks of Cena, he's going to stay the same for another six years, because he's a delusional nut who seems to think that "you have to be kind of a bad guy to play a bad guy on television."
ReplyDeleteBut hey, Rise Above Hate. Maybe his next shirt can say "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but Boos never hurt me" with him standing there shirtless and saluting.
Wait..So, why is Cena booed again?
ReplyDeleteNothing seems to happen in Cena feuds. Some weeks he gets beat down, some weeks he wins a handicap match, he gives essentially the same promo every week. He either wins the blowoff or he loses through cheating to extend the feud until he does win, after another month of trading beat downs and repetitive promos.
ReplyDeleteI believe that comment was made in response to my point that the face of the company shouldn't divide the audience. To be fair him, he said its *no longer* possible, so he wasn't "ignoring every top babyface ever"
ReplyDeleteWhen we say "entire audience", we don't mean EVERY SINGLE PERSON in it! Some people never liked Hogan, but the vast majority of people did so the audience was largely united.
ReplyDeletecuz thiz iz SPORTZ NTERTAINMENT!!!1!!
ReplyDeleteHe may not have had the character development of other guys, but his 2006 feud with Edge was shit hot. I also think his feuds with HHH were very strong, nothing revolutionary but always felt like two Megastars colliding. Cena/Nexus and Cena/Punk again pretty strong stuff.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you on the Cena/Orton part. I can understand where the staleness and hatred of their sting of matches comes from, but alot of people forget their matches were ***+ and some were the MOTN on some of the PPVs.
ReplyDeletePersonally i'd go with Cena/Edge, Cena/Orton, and Cena/Punk as feuds of Cena's you should check out, one feud I thought was pretty underrated was his feud vs Taker in 03. The angle made sense and it proved he could at that time go with the Elite.
ReplyDeleteAm I the only one who wishes they would of done Cena/Angle in 02 instead of/as well as in 05?
Batista was comedic gold, a walking punchline if you will.
ReplyDelete'Entire audience' means every single person in it. If you mean 'vast majority', just write 'vast majority'.
ReplyDeleteForgive me for not being mechanically precise.
ReplyDeleteCena is a champion at not evolving his character after a loss. The Rock makes him look like a bitch at Survivor Series? Nothing comes of it. He jobs clean to the Rock at Wrestlemania? No change in character. So much wasted potential from a creative standpoint (and I'm not talking about a heel turn either). Wade Barrett and the Nexus stuff had a chance until they blew the main event at SS '10 and nothing again came out of Cena's character after being off TV for a whopping week.
ReplyDeleteAfter two main events (and then a RAW match) and extended time talking to each on RAW for two months, it made sense to have a small break with Punk having an off-feud with Nash while they set up the whole Johnny story. Cena/Punk for five months would have been overkill. They should have circle backed to it after though.
ReplyDeleteSure, but it didn't have to be Nash (or HHH). It could have been someone on the roster who could have benefited more from the angle's heat.
ReplyDelete