I'll Be Home For Christmas - Jillian Hall

Finally... Christmas vacation! It's time to procrastinate and wait till the last minute to do the stuff I've been planning to do.

Why I Don't Like John Cena

I mentioned this in passing in my Wrestlemania preview but here it is. Allow me to explain why I don't like John Cena and want him off my TV and monitor as much as possible.

But first things first. I'm referring to John Cena as a character and on-screen personality. I don't know John Cena as a person and don't pretend to know what goes on backstage or the politics behind everything.

Secondly, if you like John Cena and are a fan of his, then good for you. Don't let me stop you. I understand that stuff like this is subjective. No performer has absolute, one hundred percent crowd approval. I'm not insulting John Cena fans for liking him either. Whatever floats your boat, man.

I've decided to use the match Cena had against Bray Wyatt at Wrestlemania to explain my point. The whole thing, from the build-up to the match, neatly illustrates everything I dislike about the character.

Bray Wyatt, as regular viewers know, has a cult leader gimmick. He's supposed to be a creepy and dangerous monster. John Cena is... Well, to be perfectly honest, I'm not entirely sure what John Cena's gimmick is supposed to be. He's a generic good guy and I'm not writing that to be funny. John Cena is quite flat as a personality. He talks about showing up for work, working hard and caring about the business but you could say the same for many other wrestlers who work just as hard but don't brag about it. Cena can't be the only one who works hard or cares; those are good virtues but are not that special.

He does Make-A-Wish charity and supports the troops but I think it doesn't make sense to use these things to get me to like Cena, as a performer. Wrestling exists in its own universe. While wrestling has been getting "real" lately, there is a level of make-believe to it. Of course, the Undertaker isn't really a zombie. Of course, Kane doesn't really have the power to conjure fire with his mind. So John Cena, the performer, can't be John Cena the person and to combine the two cheapens his charitable acts as a selfish ploy to get us to want to see him. Let me put it this way, the charity a Hollywood actor does doesn't make him any better as an actor. We can admire the generosity of someone like Oprah Winfrey and still think she was terrible in The Butler. So while I respect John Cena personally going out of his way to make sick kids' dreams come true, that doesn't mean I have to automatically clap and cheer his performance as a character. The two things are unrelated.

I also don't think John Cena is funny when he tries to hard to be The Rock. But humor is subjective so I'll leave it at that. If you think he's funny, fine.

When it comes to wrestling ability, I wouldn't go so far as to say John Cena can't wrestle. I know he, at least, knows the basics of wrestling such as how to do suplexes and how to fall on your back without popping an eyeball. But can he wrestle well? Maybe. What bugs me the most is how repetitive his matches have become. When you've seen just one Cena match, you've pretty much seen them all. He usually gets beaten up in the majority of his matches. He tries to pull out a few moves to silence the critics, like an awkward huricanrana, a leg drop from the top ropes or maybe even a monkey flip if he's feeling adventurous. However, he settles into the routine by doinga few shoulder blocks, a spinning side slam, the "five knuckle shuffle", the "attitude adjustment" and/or the STF submission. The "five moves of doom" as the Internet calls it. To be fair, it's not always five and lots of wrestlers have routines. That still doesn't mean it isn't boring to watch every time though.

Another issue I have is Cena's "selling". To "sell", in Wrestling, means to act as if what's happening to you is real or serious. When a wrestler throws a fake punch, the receiver "sells" by acting as if it really hurt. With Cena, he doesn't do a good job at selling. Never mind having the crap beaten out of you 90% of the time then miraculously overcoming the odds and annihilating your opponent in the remaining 10%. What I mean is that after the match, Cena doesn't appear to have been affected by the beating he took. The most egregious example of this was during the match Cena had against Brock Lesnar in 2012 at Extreme Rules. It was a sight to behold. Brock gave Cena such a horrendous beating that it almost made me uncomfortable. Good stuff. Of course, despite receiving 90% of the offense from Brock, Cena won anyway with his 10%. Whatever. What really bugged me about it was that after the match, Cena took the microphone and spoke to the crowd despite receiving the beating of his life. He should have been taken out on a stretcher or something. Anyway, he told the crowd he was hurt and hinted he was so hurt that he could be gone for a while. He appeared the next night with his arm in a sling (and in his wrestling gear, oddly) but don't worry, Cena took care to mention nothing was broken and that his muscles were merely strained. I guess we should be grateful because that's the most selling we're gonna get.

Anyway, about the Wrestlemania match...

The build up to the match actually began in Elimination Chamber, where Wyatt cost Cena his match for no reason, but of course, it would all be explained. Anyway, the feud was that Wyatt thought John Cena was a fake and wanted to expose him as a phony. John Cena responded by calling Bray Wyatt a homeless person with a Hawaiian shirt and fedora. Realizing that mocking the gimmick per se, was not a good idea, Cena went before the crowd the next week and said he was "scared" of Bray Wyatt. So he went from laughing off Wyatt to suddenly being scared of him because he said so. Anyway, to up the stakes to Wrestlemania levels, the match suddenly became all about Cena's "legacy". Bray Wyatt was out to tarnish Cena's legacy. OK. At least we got some awesome vignettes featuring Eminem.

During the match at Wrestlemania, Cena started to go over to the dark side. He made strange faces and I thought he was constipated but I realized it was just bad acting. The moral dilemma arrived. Bray knelt before Cena and dared him to strike him with a steel chair. The psychology of the match dictated that if Cena were to hit Bray with the chair, then he goes over to the dark side.

There are two scenarios that would have made sense:

The first scenario is that Cena strikes Bray with the chair. Cena not only loses via disqualification, but also loses in a moral sense as he proves Bray correct. This is an unlikely scenario but I would have preferred it as it would make Cena's character more interesting as he comes to terms with his act.

This second scenario would have made the most sense. Cena refuses to resort to using the weapon which allows Bray to take advantage and beat John Cena himself. Bray wins in a technical sense but Cena wins a moral victory. Bray gets the right to claim he beat Cena at Wrestlemania  yet Cena stays true to his principles. Everybody wins... sort of.

But nope. What happened was that Cena didn't use the chair on Bray and simply beat him the normal way. Cena won both a technical and moral victory and Bray was less of the monster he used to be as he was beaten physically and mentally.

This is my biggest problem with Cena. It's not his wrestling ability or the way he talks but the fact that nothing ever changes with this guy. He won the match and he's still the same John Cena as he was before. Nothing changed. The reason why people cheer Daniel Bryan is because he really was a talented underdog that people wanted to see succeed. Daniel Bryan won; in other words he "changed". To put it in other terms, Daniel Bryan's character arc concluded. With Cena there's no arc. Cena is the nice guy who won because he's a nice guy and now he gets to keep being a nice guy. Nothing changes. He's still the same as he was for the last eight years. You can't have an underdog story with a guy who's done it all and has been at the top for so long. It doesn't help that this whole feud was already done before! Remember Kane's "embrace the hate" feud with Cena? Same thing. Nothing changes.

To put it simply: John Cena is stale and uninteresting.

That's why I don't like him. He doesn't change. Nothing affects him. If nothing affects a character at all, then how is he relatable? Why should we care when nothing is at stake because nothing changes?

Oh, and don't think I'm one of those guys calling for a "heel turn". Cena doesn't necessarily have to turn into a bad guy. Just make him interesting. Is that too much to ask? Would even the second scenario be that bad? Just make him look vulnerable for at least one second then maybe, I'd relate to him. Think about it; if Cena had lost because he stuck to his principles then that's something sympathetic right there. How many people can relate to suffering because you decided to stay true to yourself and stick to your beliefs? See what I mean? It's way better than, "I win all the time".

Lately, Cena has been cutting promos about being the gatekeeper of the WWE of sorts. He remarks how all the up and coming talents have to go through him. While it's a little arrogant, at least it opens a new dimension for him. But it does have the unfortunate implication that if you can't beat Cena, then you're not ready, brother!

This is all I'll ever write about John Cena. I'm afraid I already exposed myself as a guy who thinks of wrestling (which is fake and gay amirite?) a bit too much. But I just needed to get this off my chest. People who dislike Cena aren't all "haters". Hate is a strong word. I just don't like him. Some of the criticism is fair, don't you think?

I don't "hate" the guy but I just think he fucking sucks.

Raven's Theme (2001)

Cool

Oh my God...

When is Pro Wrestling gonna be cool again?

A Sudden Realization

I just realized that I still watch wrestling. Why? Hell if I know. I'm sick of John Cena (for the past 8 or so years). The WWE don't put on as much good wrestling as they used to. Plus, the WWE has this wierd obsession with social media and always go on and on about "twitter" and "tout". What garbage.

There's still some bits worth watching. "The Shield" are pretty entertaining and are good wrestlers. I'm trying my best not to feel actual shame for watching but the WWE is sure making things difficult, especially when they put on shit like this:

No wonder nobody admits they watch wrestling in public.

The Ryback's Promo

On the episode of WWE Raw last Monday, the wrestler called Ryback cut a promo against John Cena. I thought I'd give my two cents on it.

 

First off, the promo was prerecorded and edited. Ryback probably had a script beforehand which I hope he prepared himself. It was probably done in segments and multiple takes. I'm not saying that's a bad thing. In fact, it's pretty smart to do this as it is less risky than doing it live and slipping up. It's a way of protecting Ryback who I believe is not as good at cutting promos naturally in front of an audience.

As for the stuff he says, he kind of has a point. Whether you agree with him or not, it's not important. What matters is that he has some kind of motivation and he explains it lengthily. I'm sick and tired of heels in wrestling acting evil just because (herp) they're evil. The promo served it's purpose of making Ryback interesting and giving him some kind of reason why he's doing what he's doing. I liked it. It had an old school vibe to it.

It's just a shame that the WWE ruined it by having Cena shit all over it in their confrontation afterwards. Cena even tried to heap the "Boring!" chants HE was getting on Ryback. Man, I hate John Cena. To top it all off, they had Ryback back off when Cena challenged him. What the hell? The man has been booked as an unstopable force of nature for weeks and NOW he pussies out when going up against Cena who he manhandled the week before? Please.

John Cena should go fuck himself.

Cena Ruins Extreme Rules

I watched the WWE's recent PPV, Extreme Rules. The main event was a match between John Cena and Brock Lesnar. John Cena is the face of the WWE and, as I have probably written in the past, has a stale gimmick and move set. Brock Lesnar is a huge, muscular murder machine (a super soldier experiment by Nazis I theorize) who left the WWE for a career in MMA. After winning championships by pounding strangers into paste, He's back and he's even more of a dick than before and, considering that this is a guy who pushed a one-legged Zack Gowen down a staircase, that's saying something.

The other matches were awesome too but I want to write about this one. It was brutal. Barely three minutes in and Cena was already cut open. Brock manhandled Cena to the point that even I began to get those, "Is this real?" feelings. Seriously, I thought that the people's hatred of Cena, including mine, had finally gotten him killed. After an intense match, the likes of which haven't been seen in a while, it looks like Cena is done for.

Then he fucking ruined it.

After being put into a meat grinder for twenty minutes John Cena goes hollywood, hulks up in the end and beats Brock with a few moves in the last minute.

Goddamn it all.

Alright, John Cena "cheated"(technically it wasn't illegal) by using a chain around his fist but that's not the point. We've all seen this shit a million times before. John Cena get's his second wind and overcomes all odds etc. even after such an incredible beating. It didn't make sense for me.

To make matters worse, Cena gave a little speech in the end saying how badly hurt he was. Well, no shit. Hey, here's an idea; how about you get carted out by the medical team to make it look like you got hurt instead of just holding your arm and saying that it hurts? It's called "selling" people and you need to "sell" a beating not only because that's how pro wrestling fucking works but also since that's a must for suspension of disbelief. Cena says he's so badly hurt that he probably won't be around for a while (which was proven false by appearing on RAW the next night) and for people to drive home safely or something. What bullshit.

You know, this is what I really hate about Cena's character. No matter what happens to him, nothing happens to him. He gets steamrolled by Brock and he makes a damn speech and shows up fine the next night. He gets his ass handed to him by the Rock at Wrestlemania and it barely affects his ego or character despite saying how it was so important to him to win. He gets into an ambulance match with Kane which is supposed to be a brutal match where you have to beat your foe senseless to stuff him in an ambulance. NOPE! Cena's all smiles in the end despite getting smashed by the "monster" Kane. Can't Cena sell anything?

Oh yeah, the only thing he sells is merchandise.

Royal Rumble 2011

The Royal Rumble is one of the biggest PPVs in the wrestling calendar scheduled just before Wrestlemania. The main feature of the event is the titular Royal Rumble where thirty men battle it out in one ring. The contestants enter the ring one at a time and can only be eliminated by being thrown over the top rope with both feet touching the ground below. This year is the "biggest rumble evah" with forty men instead of the traditional thirty. Personally, I don't see what good adding ten more jobbers to the list is gonna do but I digress.

Anyway, I missed the first match between Heavyweight Champion Edge and Dolph Ziggler. All I know is that Edge won. That's good enough for me. I still don't think Ziggler deserves to be champ. He's got great skills but no personality. Vicky is doing all the work gathering heat for the guy. Come to think of it, there really is no reason to hate Dolph. He hasn't really done anything. We hate him because of Vicky and all she does is scream a lot.

The second match is The Miz versus Randy Orton. Great. Whatever. The match was OK except for the whole interference bullshit ending where the Nexus inexplicably show up to screw Orton over for no reason. Come on, can't Orton ever lose cleanly? Stop turning him into Cena. The match did make me realize something. I really, really fucking hate The Miz, his annoying butt buddy Alex Riley and announcer Cole. I hope they die in a fire.

The Diva Championship match sucked big time. The crowd was dead and so was I. I almost fell asleep. That's all I gotta say. Dear WWE, please fix the Diva division.

So that's it? No more championship matches? Oh, time to start the rumble then. Yay.

The Rumble is initially interrupted by the Nexus fighting against Smackdown's own gang of idiots, The Corre. Seriously, that's what the group is called. The extra R is for retarded. P.S. their t-shirt sucks too. Anyway, management has order restored and we begin with CM Punk versus US Champion Daniel Bryan. I'm just gonna go over the Rumble real quick since I can't recap every single thing. Here's some highlights: (Numbered according to appearance)

A chant battle happens for both Punk and Bryan but Punk has the bigger crowd reaction. Daniel Bryan is a talented wrestler. Seriously, he should be a contender for the Heavyweight Championship. #5 is William Regal. Damn, he really let himself go.

John Morrison appears at #7. Morrison pulls off his own awesome Royal Rumble moment. Get this, he's pushed out of the ring but grabs onto the audience barricade and clings to it like Spiderman. His feet almost touched the floor. He then balances along the barricade, jumps on the steel steps and goes back in the ring. Sweet.

At #9, Husky Harris appears as the second member of Nexus and proceeds to protect Punk with his enormously fat ass. At #10 Chavo Guerrero slides into the ring. He begins doing the late Eddy Guerrero's "Three Amigos" suplexes. He points at the sky and briefly mimics Eddy's dance. Nice tribute.

Fast forward to # 15 and its David Otunga. There are four Nexus members in the ring now. They threw everyone else out. #16 Tyler Reks comes out and stupidly charges into the ring where four large men wearing the same team colors are visibly waiting for him. God, that was stupid. Michael McGillicutty (#13) or Magilla Gorilla as I prefer to call him, throws Reks out. #17 Kozlov stupidly charges in too and so does #18 R-Truth only to be thrown out. Couldn't they have taken their time a little? #19 The Great Khali appears and manages to throw Husky "Fatty Fat Fat" Harris over but the rest prove too much and Khali goes over the ropes. Look, I know the WWE wants us to see The Nexus as a "force to be reckoned with" but this is getting boring.

Then at #21 something amazing happens. BOOKER T.The crowd goes absolutely apeshit and so do I. Booker hits the scissor kick, then another and then does the "Book End". Wait? Could it be? OH YES! Spin-a-roony! Oh man, this is good...REAL good. This is so good, I know that it won't last if the WWE has anything to do with it. Oh well, Booker T gets tossed off the ring and the disappointment in the crowd was so incredible, I thought they would riot. I wished they did.

Just when I thought it couldn't get any worse, John Cena comes out at #22. He gets into the ring and somehow manages to eliminate everyone but Punk. They fight a bit and knock each other out. Brilliant. #23 rings up and its Hornswoggle the "leprechaun". Really? A midget is in the Royal Rumble? This is now the lowest point in the evening.

Punk beats up Cena and turns his attention to Hornswoggle who he knocks down. He gets incredible heat from the crowd. Hilarious. CM Punk is eliminated. Lame. Eventually, some guy named Tyson Kidd comes out at #24 and I don't think neither I nor the crowd have ever even heard of him. He is so screwed. Cena effortlessly beats him and Hornswoggle pulls off an Attitude Adjustment on Kidd. You read that right. A midget just did a Fireman's Carry Slam on a guy about three times taller than him. How humiliating is that? Cena puts him out of his misery and throws him over. Alas, poor jobber, I hardly knew him. Jobber #25 appears and Cena and the midget do some funny stuff. This is the comedy segment of the Rumble it seems.

Kingston and Swagger come out at #26, #27 respectively and they all fight a bit. At #28 Sheamus (Hell Yeah!) makes his way to the ring. Looks like some faces are gonna be kicked. An interesting bit occurs when Sheamus (who is 100% concentrated Irish) comes face to face with Hornswoggle. Obviously offended by this negative stereotype of Irish culture, Sheamus deals with this affront to his proud heritage by KICKING the midget IN THE FACE. (Edit: My bad, he doesn't kick him but slams his head on the ground VIOLENTLY) I laughed so hard, I couldn't breath. Seriously, I nearly passed out. Hornswoggle goes up on the top rope to try to do a splash but Sheamus KICKS him IN THE FACE. I pissed myself. Hornswoggle is eliminated.

Some guys come out. It's not important. At #31 Ziggler appears? Didn't he just lose his Championship match? Anyway Diesel comes out at #32. The crowd goes crazy for him. They even booed Mysterio for hitting the 619 on the guy. Woah, its weird when people boo Mysterio. Has that ever happened before? Drew McIntyre appears at #33. Drew and Sheamus are both openly Irish and they hit it off pretty awesomely. Drew and Sheamus begin unloading a can of whoop ass on everyone like a...tag team? Holy shit! I hope they team up and revive the Tag Team Division.

#37 Santino shows up. He begins by strategically attacking the largest and most threatening man in the Rumble. He has his face smashed and he rolls off the ring but not over the top rope. I see what you did there WWE...

Alberto Del Rio enters at #38. Even though it's the goddamn Royal Rumble, he enters riding his sweet car and introduced by his personal announcer. You gotta love this guy. He takes his sweet time walking to the ring only to be ambushed by #39 who is...Randy Orton? Didn't he lose his Championship match as well? What the hell?

#40 is Kane. Well that sucks. No more surprises. No Triple H, no Batista, no Jericho. Shit, no Christian? Lame. Anyway stuff happens and Del Rio eliminates Orton. Looks like it's Del Rio for Wrestlemania!

But wait! Santino wasn't officially eliminated! Santino hits the cobra on Del Rio and begins dancing around the ring. I laugh my ass off. It literally fell off. I swear! Santino tries to toss Del Rio off the ropes but it backfires and Santino is done. Its Alberto Del Rio folks and I'm cool with that. If there ever was new talent to push it would be him.

It was an OK Royal Rumble.

Cena is Poopy

I used to watch professional wrestling, specifically the WWE promotion but for a time it wasn't easily available to watch. It's only now that I got back into it and I must say, I'm surprised at how much it sucks.

Before I go on, I need to get something cleared up. I know it's fake, OK? Wrestling is fake. I KNOW. If I had a hundred pesos for every time someone has to point that out to me every time I raise the topic, I'd be driving a Porsche.

Knowing it's fake, why do I even watch it? Now that's a good question. Moving on...

I could go on about the obvious flaws like how the Tag-team division is underwhelming or how badly I miss the Cruiserweight title or how completely useless the "Diva" division is. I could write separate topics about them but I don't want to write about those issues yet. Right now, I'd like to write about the worst thing in the WWE right now. John Cena. I wish he'd die.

I don't hate the performer. John Cena (the person) seems like a nice guy and is quite loyal to the company. However, I fucking hate what the character of "John Cena" had become. Shit, I remember in the "Ruthless Aggression" era, Cena used to talk smack and stand up to the likes of Kurt Angle and even Chris Jericho. The crowd loved him for it. He was an underdog but he had the "heart of a champion". That's why his character was awesome and fans like to cheer for the underdog anyway. It helped that he had a ridiculous white rapper gimmick which was pretty funny in its own right especially when he was trying to challenge Brock Lesnar to rap battles or something. Man, when did all go wrong?

Oh wait, I remember now. The exact moment Cena began to suck was when he won the WWE championship from JBL in Wrestlemania. Cena was now in the big leagues as a major face and that was all well and good except his character stagnated from that point on. He was no longer an underdog and they got rid of his rapper gimmick. He became "the Champ" or something. Fine. Whatever. However, that doesn't justify the fact that John Cena still doesn't have any substantial development even today. That's my first point. Aw, shit, looks like I'll have to make a list to keep me from rambling.

1. His Character Sucks

Honest question: What's John Cena supposed to be? He's not a midcarder underdog to cheer for anymore nor is he a semi-funny white rapper. Is he a marine? Like a Sgt. Slaughter character? Nah, that was just a lame promotion for his stupid movie. So what's his gimmick? Every wrestler needs a gimmick, that's just a fact of life. Without a gimmick, why would we care to watch that wrestler anyway? Oh wait, I know what Cena is! A piece of shit that's what.

2. He Can't Wrestle

It's wrong to say he can't wrestle because I know the performer is capable. What I mean is, I can't see anything going on in a typical Cena match. What usually happens is, Cena gets beat down by an opponent who does three times as many complicated moves than he does. Cena then "heroicaly" gets back on his feet to do that lame shoulder tackle or something. He gets beat down again. Suddenly, Cena overcomes all odds and does his finisher which doesn't even look that impressive. Any Cena match is a good time to take a piss or do some other things like write in your blog.

3. He is Overexposed and Boring

Cena gets way too much hype. The most annoying part is that he's such a goody goody. The Cena we used to love was not exactly an asshole but he had a mean streak going on. Now he's just not interesting. Why is he even a good guy? I just can't stand him anymore seeing how much of a pussy his character had become. I mean, recently when Cena was "fired" from RAW, he was all emotional and teary eyed. Kiss my ass.

In summation, Cena needs a character overhaul and a new gimmick. The problem is, WWE probably won't. A lot of the "smart" crowd hate him for the reasons above. The jeers in the ECW One Night Stand was pretty brutal. It made me sorry for the performer having to work with such a lousy character. Problem is, Cena is really popular with the children and the child-like adults who are fans of him. WWE won't tear down this hero and make him a villain although I wish they would. Hey, it worked for Hogan.

"You can't Wrestle!"