Jyger’s Favourite 5 – 5 Favourite John Cena Matches

Poor John Cena. And I really mean that. Here’s a guy that I honestly believe loves the wrestling business, loves to entertain people, and never wants to take a break from doing so. Problem is, his overall ability in the ring is lacking, and while he’s plenty charismatic and one hell of a brawler, his matches often-times leave something to be desired…And yet, people tend to forget that, if called upon to give fans an extremely entertaining roller-coaster ride of a match, more often than not, he can do it. Now, this is not me trying to say he’s the best in the world, because he isn’t. I don’t wanna start a fight with anybody, even though I know just doing this article is opening the floodgates. Still, I feel the need to point out that, while he’s not the greatest wrestler in the world, he’s also not as bad as people think sometimes. So, here’s my 5 Favourite John Cena Matches. Criteria for this one: Singles matches only, different opponent for each one, and he does not need to win. These might not necessarily be his BEST matches, either, they’re just my personal favourites. So, what better way to start than…

#1 – vs. Kurt Angle, Smackdown!, 6/27/2002

Could you ever ask for a better way to make your début match? Kurt Angle had just come off a victory over Hulk Hogan at King of the Ring, making Hogan tap out, and was issuing an open challenge to anyone he’d never wrestled before. After a few seconds of nobody answering the challenge, a kid by the name of John Cena came out and got in the ring, and when Angle asked what quality Cena thought he had that gave him a shot against him, Cena answered “Ruthless Aggression!” before punching Angle out. The match was VERY back and forth, which was VERY impressive for the rookie Cena, but in the end, Angle used his experience and superior mat wrestling style to get the pin. Still, Cena’s position was cemented, and it would NOT be the last time these two would meet face-to-face. I think what I like most about this match, though, is looking back on it after seeing Cena use the same 4-5 moves every match nowadays, and getting to see him actually wrestle here, and wrestle a damned good match against Kurt Angle.

#2 – vs. Rob Van Dam in an Extreme Rules Match, ECW One Night Stand, 6/11/2006

John Cena was the WWE Champion for the better part of a little over a year, and was now walking into an arena of die-hard ECW fans at an ECW Pay-Per-View, going up against Rob Van Dam in a match where ANYTHING goes, and there was that one fan in the audience that had the sign that said “IF CENA WINS, WE RIOT”. So, you pretty much knew, going into the show, that Cena was dropping the belt to RVD. What you didn’t really take into account was how hard Cena was gonna make it for Mr. Monday Night. Not to take away from RVD’s performance, in fact far from it, just saying that Cena pretty much brought it to the Whole Fuckin’ Show and the ECW audience at One Night Stand and made Rob Van Dam earn the belt. My one complaint is that the involvement of Edge and Paul Heyman kind of tainted to Rob’s win a little bit. Didn’t need it.

#3 – vs. Umaga in a Last Man Standing Match, Royal Rumble, 1/28/2007

I always look at this match as redemption through pain for John Cena. Cena had been WWE Champion on and off for the better part of two years, winning most of his matches with the same 4-5 moves chained together, and people were getting pretty sick of it. Then came the 350 pound Samoan Bulldozer, the late Edward Fatu, known then as Umaga. Up until their match at New Year’s Revolution, Umaga had never been pinned. However, after a roll-up victory out of nowhere in their match that night, Umaga’s winning streak was ended, leading to Umaga seeking revenge against the WWE Champion at the Royal Rumble in a Last Man Standing Match. And I’m just gonna say this here, these two pretty much beat the shit out of each other. Cena was bleeding all over the place, Umaga was smacked around in ways he’d never had done to him before, they went crashing through tables and steel stairs, it was just BRUTAL, and the finish to the match, while it might be considered somewhat cheap by some, I felt was a decent end that made both Cena and Umaga look strong.

#4 – vs. Shawn Michaels, RAW, 4/23/2007

This one’s actually got a little bit of a funny story behind it. They were overseas for an episode of RAW, and they had two things planned for the second half of the show: John Cena vs. Shawn Michaels, and something to do with Randy Orton, and I honestly forget what it was, but something happened and Randy Orton couldn’t be there. So what ended up happening was that Shawn Michaels and John Cena went out there and wrestled for an hour. With the exception of Iron Man matches, a one hour match is virtually unheard of in WWE in today’s day and age. And it was actually a REALLY good match. I daresay it may even be better than Michaels’ Iron Man match with Bret Hart. And while Cena didn’t win, he hung with HBK for an hour. You don’t have to win at that point. lol My one complaint about this match: It took place on a live, televised episode of RAW with extremely little build up, while their PPV match at Wrestlemania 23 was kinda lacklustre. And speaking of one hour Iron Man matches…

#5 – vs. Randy Orton in an Iron Man Match, Bragging Rights, 10/25/2009

Randy Orton vs. John Cena, or as The Spoony One likes to it, “AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!” XD Admittedly, Cena and Orton have wrestled WAY too many times, but I think this is the best one, is when they went one hour in an Iron Man match. The one thing that stands out the most in this match was the fact that Orton tried to BLOW UP John Cena with the pyrotechnics on the stage. And then they tried to turn him face for a few years…I don’t get it. lol The one problem I have with this match is that they had to stop it for a few moments for blood, which was a thing they did sometimes. I’m not sure if they still do that, but it got rather annoying. I would just as soon prefer there be no blood spots in wrestling than to have a blood spot that interrupts a match, you know what I mean?

So, those are my favourite Cena matches. Got one that’s not up here? Feel free to suggest it in the comments sections. All I ask, PLEASE don’t turn the comments section into an argument. I’m not asking you to like John Cena, just please, please, PLEASE do not start flaming each other if you disagree on him. Ja né!

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Jyger The Mark’s Ramblings – Royal Rumble Aftermath

Okay, so the Royal Rumble has come and gone, so now’s as good enough a time to look and see how I did in my predictions, as well as talk about some of the highlights from the show.

Since the show started with the Steel Cage Match, I’ll start off there. So yeah, pretty much like I thought it would go, with the three of them laying some pretty good beatings on one another, but ultimately Daniel Bryan managed to slip away with the win…quite literally, actually, since Big Show had him in a death grip above the ring and Bryan slipped out of his grasp to fall to the floor below, thus getting the win.

Daniel Bryan Wins

Afterwards, there was a bonus match: An 8-Diva Tag Match. I didn’t really care much for it. Don’t get me wrong, I like Natalya and Beth Phoenix, and I guess Kelly Kelly and Eve are alright, but…well, I guess I’ll just say it: Will somebody please tell me why the hell Alicia Fox got a match on a PPV? She is one of the worst piece of shit wrestlers I have ever seen in my life. Anyway, not much to say, Team Phoenix got the win.

So my reasoning behind Kane winning his match by DQ was simple: Cena needed momentum going into his match with The Rock, and Kane shouldn’t have lost his first big match back. I figured, how else could they pull this off? Well apparently, there was one way that I didn’t think of: A double count-out. Oh, and when it was over, Kane beat the crap outta Cena, got ahold of the already injured (on-screen that is) Zack Ryder, and gave him a Tombstone Piledriver just for fun. So yeah, should be interesting to see where this goes.

After that, I’m pretty sure there was a match between Drew McIntyre and Brutus Clay…At least I think there was. As soon as I saw Brutus come out and start dancing, I retreated into the dark recesses of my mind. Anyway, double checking on Wrestleview.com showed me that Brutus won with the…err, “What The Funk” Body Splash?…Okay…

Brutus Clay Wins

CM Punk vs. Dolph Ziggler was again what I expected…with a slight twist, in that John Laurinaitis assigned a different in-ring referee and he essentially became the Special Enforcer/back-up referee. Punk and Ziggles (no I didn’t misspell it, that’s just what I call him sometimes) put on a good show, as I figured they would. I just hope that next time Ziggler gets a shot at the title, the story has more to do with him and not the guy officiating. Anyway, CM Punk wins with Laurinaitis getting in the ring to count along with the ref, continuing the current angle of him trying to suck up to everyone so that he’ll keep his job.

Finally, we came to the Royal Rumble. Before I get to the winner, lemme talk about some of my favourite moments from this Rumble…

Mr. Socko vs. The Cobra

As I’ve made clear to people I talk to about wrestling, I really can’t stand Santino. I find him to be a waste of money, especially when you consider that the only reason he ever got a job with WWE is that he gave them a reason to fire Jim Cornette. However I will note that he usually gives some HILARIOUS moments at the Rumble, and this year was no different as he and Mick Foley had a stand off, resulting in them pulling out Mr. Socko and The Cobra. Yeah, forget Cena vs. Rock, forget Hogan vs. Andre, Mr. Socko vs. The Cobra could totally headline Wrestlemania.

Superstars Return

Oh, we had some good ones this year. Not including Chris Jericho and Mick Foley, since we knew they’d be in already, Hacksaw Jim Duggan, The Great Khali, and even Kharma all returned to take a crack at winning the Rumble.

Kofi Kingston's Handstand

I honestly didn’t think anyone could ever beat John Morrison’s use of parkour to avoid elimination, and then I saw THAT. I should definitely make a list of some of the most eye-popping moments in the Rumble, but for now, let us just say that ranks pretty high.

All Three Announcers Enter

Yep, believe it or not, all three announcers entered the Royal Rumble this year, all the while I was laughing my ass off. And believe it or not, Michael Cole actually lasted longer than The King before…well, remember how I talked about those returns?

If I could, I would make that my screen saver. Seriously, that one move should award her a Slammy.

Anyway, on to the actual winner. You’ll recall I originally picked Chris Jericho, Sheamus, Randy Orton, or Wade Barrett to possibly win the Rumble. And as it turned out, three out of those four made it to the final four of the Rumble, with Jericho, Orton, and Sheamus staring each other and the 30th Entrant, The Big Show, down. Big Show was surprisingly the first of the four to go out, being eliminated by Orton, but then Jericho quickly tossed Orton out as well. After a LONG back and forth fight between Jericho and Sheamus, with multiple near-eliminations between the two, it finally ended with one good kick to the face of Chris Jericho, knocking him from the apron to the floor below, thus awarding Sheamus the victory as he will now move on to challenge the champion of his choosing in the main event at Wrestlemania.

Sheamus Wins

Well, that’s all from me. Hope you all enjoyed the Rumble as much as I did.

Jyger The Mark’s Ramblings – The Royal Rumble

So, I’m going to the Royal Rumble tonight. I generally don’t go to PPVs that often because they’re flipping expensive, but I generally try to go to the Royal Rumble because it’s my favourite since the Royal Rumble match itself pretty much stands for everything that I like about wrestling: Chaotic entertainment that is VERY hard to predict the outcome of. While I’m likely gonna be doing another blog entry where I talk about the results tomorrow (hopefully), I just wanted to make a few predictions on the show first.

WWE Championship: CM Punk (c) vs Dolph Ziggler

I feel really, really bad for Dolph Ziggler going into this match, and I will tell you why: Because the plot going into this match, the main story arc that this match is a part of, has NOTHING to do with Dolph Ziggler. This story is about CM Punk and John Laurinaitis. Ziggler is basically there to be the challenger, nothing more, nothing less. And it’s sad because I think him and Punk could have a great rivalry, but this is not about a rivalry between the two of them. They’ve even gone so far as to eliminate the possibility of Ziggler beating Punk for the title, it’s more a question of whether or not Laurinaitis will screw Punk out of the championship, and that’s kinda sad. Still, I expect these two to put on a hell of a match, and really, that’s the most important part, right?

Predicted Winner: CM Punk

Kane vs. John Cena

No, you know what, before I get to the match, I need to address something that I think a lot of people have been ragging on: Kane’s new attire. Watching videos on YouTube of Kane’s return, I’ve seen commenters (which spell checker says is not a real word btw) say that his new look is ridiculous. I have the following reply to such: WHY DO YOU CARE?! Have you actually been watching what he’s been doing since coming back?! He coulda come back dressed like Doink The Clown and I wouldn’t have cared, because the only thing that matters is that when you are standing across the ring from this Kane, you better fight for your life or he might just take it from you. PERIOD!

Anyway, as far as the match goes, I suspect that Kane will win via DQ, with Cena finally snapping as a result of Kane breaking his friend Zack Ryder’s back and will finally embrace the hate. The hate for Kane. What happens afterwards is anyone’s guess.

Predicted Winner: Kane via DQ

World Heavyweight Championship Steel Cage Match: Daniel Bryan (c) vs. Mark Henry vs. Big Show

I find what they’re doing with Daniel Bryan to be kind of intriguing. He hasn’t REALLY turned full heel YET, but you kinda feel like he’s going to. Surprisingly though, I actually find Mark Henry’s current persona going into this match as being the one I like most: The one that doesn’t care about the girl in the hospital and if she really forgives Big Show for accidentally tackling her or not, and not caring about who is on the level about what they say. He’s just coming to kick some ass and get his belt back. So between the animosity between Big Show and Daniel Bryan and Mark Henry’s intent to get his belt back, EXPECT EXTREME BRUTALITY.

Predicted Winner: Daniel Bryan via Escape

The Royal Rumble Match

This is one where I simply do not have one predicted winner, but that’s good because this is a match where I just like to sit back and see what happens and make predictions on the fly. The only thing I know for certain is that The Miz will be entering at #1, making him the least likely individual to win, but then stranger things have happened at the Rumble, which is what makes it so fun. Oh, and I know this much too: If Santino Marella wins the Rumble (because he came very close last year), I will protest. BIG TIME.

Possible Winners: Chris Jericho, Sheamus, Randy Orton, Wade Barret

…Anyway, that’s all from me, and I guess I’ll see what happens in a few hours.