There currently exists one unfortunate constant, a lamentable fact, that Vince McMahon and the WWE has had to grudgingly bear and live with for almost seven years. Just one constant that creates a multitude of odds they who shape the fate of the stars – McMahon himself included – must work against, but sometimes just plain ignore as they proceed with business as usual. This constant is none other than the fact that their biggest star, a Mr. John Felix Anthony Cena, has been a polarizing figure for nearly the entire duration of his stewardship as the face of the company.
But it is the company’s own fault for the existence of this long-running problem; by stubbornly insisting on fashioning Cena as the second coming of Hulk Hogan mainly through his predictable tendency to overcome any and all comers, as well as insisting on this model despite the negative reaction he gets, they fuel the fire of Cena’s staunchest critics for seemingly no productive reason. (Even though Cena steps up to the plate and proves those critics wrong, at least with regards to his actual ability, on occasion.) The insistence of Cena as the company’s flagbearer is so great that they have to try and engineer heel heat for the Rock, who remains a beloved figure of a different demographic, thus splitting the audience in the context of their rivalry.
By now, most fans are well aware of the rhetoric thrown around both for and against Cena, as the many debates about his ability, or perceived lack thereof, have raged on ever since the company made it clear that he was to be the focal point of this generation. While a good number have already been convinced of his physical prowess in between the ropes, and another good number refuse to acknowledge it, what most agree on is that same staleness of his Hogan-like superhero character. A greater number seek a change to that, as it is what we have been seeing for almost seven years now.
The WWE, for their part, does actually recognize the apparently permanent disdain towards Cena’s character, which is nearly always present in the audience. They have capitalized on it with actual merchandise, they have had Cena himself acknowledge it and channel Vince’s refusal to change the character’s alignment, and they have even taken advantage of it in propelling other Superstars to the spotlight. (See: CM Punk.) What they have never done with it, however, is to use it in the exploration of Cena’s character, who had always just lived and worked by a set of principles designed to raise his young fans the right way.
Of course, until now. Enter Kane.
Kane had never tangled with Cena before and really had no reason to go after him at the beginning of this storyline. He still really doesn’t have one now, but his current involvement with Cena is clear, poignant, and meaningful. And because no recent storyline has ever truly explored the motivations of a character quite like how Kane is making Cena look at his life right now, it is also groundbreaking. In fact, I’m going out on a limb and calling it the storyline of the decade so far.
You see, Cena’s introspection goes above and beyond the desire for achievements both tangible and intangible. You can look at CM Punk’s rise to the top last year and say it was meaningful – it was, but in the end it was a quest for respect by way of the WWE Championship. You can look at Shawn Michaels and the obsession with the Undertaker’s streak that ultimately led to the end of his career, but in the end it was another quest to create his own legend by destroying another. Pro wrestling has always built its narrative, both successful and unsuccessful, on the quest for that something that embodies the subject’s hopes and dreams.
But rarely has it ever touched upon the question of how the wrestler himself should be, and even rarer has it touched upon that element when it is born out of reality, trying to force itself into the mythos the storytellers have created, and on which they are vehemently insistent. The last memorable time the audience ended up dictating a star’s alignment was when CM Punk rebelled against authority – and Vince had no problem turning him face and inserting himself into the picture as the villain. The same goes for Stone Cold Steve Austin, who laid down that very same model for Punk to follow. Now they are dealing with a star they desperately want to remain pure, but the temptation to at least flirt with the idea is too much to resist.
So here we are now, and boy, what an amazing job they’re doing with this. Never mind that Kane is also wielding the weapon of satire, intending to also guilt-trip the audience along with Cena; not just by profiling and generalizing them in a way a heel always does, but as well as admonishing them somewhat subtly for actively choosing to glorify the concept of hate. They’ll never get that and they won’t care about it.
No, all this is actually to set the Cena character up for his impending legendary clash with the Rock. Without Kane trying to corrupt Cena and at least leaving a mark on his soul after this is all done, we would get the same old verbal warfare between Cena and the Rock when Wrestlemania draws nearer. The logic of the storyline is beautiful as well, even if the execution falters slightly at times, as the supporting actors play their roles perfectly. This is exemplified by last Monday’s RAW: the incidents involving Zack Ryder (whom, for the record, I don’t think we’ve seen the last of in the U.S. title scene just yet) and Jack Swagger – which Kane also had a hand in manipulating – were not only about them, but they were ultimately about Cena as the evening built up to his outrage and Kane’s exposition, which moves the story forward.
And the questions keep coming, like a good story should cause, and even better, you know the bout with Kane will provide most answers. What does Cena do next week? Does he ultimately embrace the hate, especially so that he can properly defend his friends? Or does he get a little more cautious so as not to fall into Kane’s trap, but risk putting them in more danger by being lax? What happens when Cena does defeat Kane at the Royal Rumble? Will he win by ultimately giving into hate, or will he manage to rise above it? How does he go on to face the Rock after that? Will he turn on us, like we’ve been asking for? Most importantly, however, will Vince even consider any of this by the time the payoff needs to be delivered?
We won’t know until we find out. I don’t think John Cena – the character – will either, until he finally gets to the end of the biggest trial of his career. But we, the critical, unhappy demons of fans that we are, welcome anything that makes him really think twice about what he’s doing and how he does it.
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Welcome to another edition of ROH Friday, ladies and gentlemen. This is going to be a short one, a quick entry, as we continue to wait for ROH to move on from showing us dated house show broadcasts and finally advance the plotlines they’ve set up at Final Battle. (If this happens for a third time, though, you can be damn sure we’ll have something to say about it.)
It’s annoying as all hell, though, and really makes them look third-rate. “Oh, these guys lost the belt at the PPV, but look, they’re still the champs in this match that comes on two weeks later.” Really, guys? You did this on HDNet, and it was stupid then. I want to like you a lot more, really, but you then fuck up some fairly important stuff like that. C’mon, now.
But we’ll save the negative stuff for later - they’ve just had their tapings in Baltimore last Saturday, and hopefully they could finally use at least some of that to give us new material for this Saturday. Instead, let’s focus on something interesting that has just come up on both the ROH and independent scene radar.
Since you were the one who pointed this out to me, Jeff, would you care to explain?
I’ll do my best. Essentially, ROH has extended its Proving Ground matches on behalf of all its champions to every other indy fed, asking for companies like CHIKARA and Pro Wrestling Guerrilla to send their best to take on ROH’s title-holders. The first match set up by this will saw the Briscoe Brothers, the tag champs, taking on the CHIKARA tandem of Jigsaw and Hallowicked. The match ended in victory for WickedSaw when a couple of friends from CHIKARA showed up halfway through and helped them secure a victory.
Personally, I’m hella excited about this, for several reasons. For one, it means ROH is gonna get a ton of different people coming in to wrestle matches, which will certainly add a bit of drama and interest to its title scenes. Considering how bland and repetitive the World Title scene has been for ROH, it will be rather cool to see perhaps a CZW standout or CHIKARA member taking on Davey at somepoint down the line. Secondly, and most importantly, it means that the indy feds might possible come together a bit and work more as partners trying to help one another help, which I can’t find an issue with at all.
They have actually experimented with this approach by partnering with OVW while they were taping in Louisville, but at the most we were given Mike Mondo as fodder for T.J. Perkins’s debut, as well as the services of Christian Mascagni (on-screen authority for OVW) as Kevin Steen’s lawyer. I did like the premise, but certainly they could’ve done better than Mondo (who was, then again, all right himself).
What’s interesting to me now is that all of this looks like ROH is trying to reformat what the NWA had originally built long ago and create some sort of new territorial scene, with ROH itself as the main hub. EVOLVE is also incidentally doing this by being another outlet for CHIKARA, DGUSA, and CZW talents and feuds to continue and flourish, but is obviously a less frequent occasion.
If ROH does eventually promote a lot more inter-company activity, do you think it’s possible that they become some sort of superpower that way? If the other feds rely on ROH for more exposure, I think some shrewd personality behind ROH could use that as leverage for power. (The quality of talent as compared to the already-existing major promotions wouldn’t be a question if they become a bigger presence.)
I don’t think we’d ever see a major merger of sorts between companies, but I could definitely see the major indy companies becoming some sort of conglomerate union of sorts, that allows everyone to remain themselves, but rely on others - such as ROH - to bring each other success and recognition. Which would be perfect. Every fed gets to retain their identity while working with one another to raise awareness of each other. CHIKARA can still be the family-friendly, colorful promotion, but can send a few wrestlers to ROH and get their name out their on national television. That way, they can expose their product to a wider audience without a fear of having to change what makes them the fed they are. And if the major indy feds (ROH, CHIKARA, DGUSA, PWG, and CZW) all did this with one another, it could only lead to good things for everyone involved.
So you’re saying that it’s going to be more like a new NWA territory system, minus touring champions.
Basically. Every fed retains their identity and champions, but works closer and more cohesively with one another.
Now, before we close this, which guys currently in the other four promotions do you think could ROH benefit from with their appearance, as part of the cross-promotion deal? Giving the floor to you because you obviously know much more about the scene than I do.
Hmm. Well, Joey Ryan out of PWG would probably work out best for them overall. Ryan’s been in ROH before as part of the Embassy, but has improved leaps and bounds since then. He’s a rather charismatic fella who looks like a ‘70s pornstar (even if that’s no longer his gimmick) with enough actual wrestling skill to go toe-to-toe with the likes of Davey and Roddy. If ROH could manage to snag him and his Hollywood Submission Machine gimmick, even for just one show, it would be quite entertaining to see.
I’ve heard quite a bit about this Joey Ryan person. I believe he’s going to be in WRP as well... as a revolutionary gay character, I believe. No, not a homosexual soldier in the Revolutionary War, but a homosexual wrestling character done in a way the (homophobic) industry has never really done it before. At least, I believe that was him.
Now while I think he’d be the best fit, there are a few others ROH could snag for a show or two that would be cool. CHIKARA’s UltraMantis Black would be ominously out of place in Ring of Honor, but would certainly hold his own and bring a very interesting macabre vibe that ROH has rarely ever seen. CZW could send another former ROH talent, MisouriDragon’s favorite Sami Callihan, whose dark and rather odd looks would easily stand out. And the Callihan Death Machine hits hard enough with lariats to be a threat.
Hold up. Hold up. Hooold up. While I haven’t completely shared the Sami Callihan hatorade with Mizzou yet, I haven’t really been impressed with him just yet either. Sure, he hits hard, but I still have problems taking him seriously. He should first start winning me over by not wearing a singlet he seems to have borrowed from Rhino or Taz.
Meh, I like him well enough, he has his fans, and indy companies keep giving him work. He’ll be fine as a possible contender.
Moving on, DGUSA could send any Japanese talent they have, but should send Akira Tozawa, if they can. Tozawa is, simply put, the man, using some of the best German suplexes in the industry today while maintaining a lot of translatable charisma for a non-English speaker.
There are a cornucopia of names that could be sent to ROH, though, and most of them would work out well to be on any show. But these guys would be the best they could do, at least for me. Mainly because I kinda want to see the evil mantis man standing across the ring from a stoic ROH competitor for the “lulz”, as the kiddies say.
If somebody like El Generico, who seems to be far less serious as a character than UltraMantis Black, can get really over in ROH, I think the Mantis will do just fine. Kevin Steen is going to have a field day with him, though.
Anyway, that’s it for now. This column has already missed its deadline, and again that’s completely my fault; life and all its misfortune of the day simply got in the way.
Do you have any last words, Jeff? Like a podcast you’d like to plug, because I totally forgot to in my previous column and will do so now, right after we end this column?
Well, the LoPR train rolls along, and we have our latest episode, “Hodgepodge” up now, and we discuss everything from Evan Bourne’s suspension to the Funkasaurus to Johnny Ace and his angry side. And we should be recording another episode this weekend, so y’all be on the lookout for that.
All right then. See you all next week (hopefully in the proper day)!
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As mentioned earlier, here's the latest LOPR episode for those who haven't caught it yet.
Seven more days and we’ll all be here again. It’s Rumble season once more, and if you’re a WWE fan worth your salt at all, you’d have long dove headfirst into the sea of endless speculation. For the benefit of those who already have and those who haven’t yet, this will be another place to satisfy your need for Rumble-related discussion (of course, if such a need does exist – otherwise, I’m just bluffing and fluffing this paragraph up).
However, this will not be a column discussing who I think will win this year’s Royal Rumble; no, that’s next week’s Sunday Edition column, along with predictions for the rest of the matches on the card. Instead, we’ll be going a little broader today.
Now, just because only one man out of 30 (or 40) gets to win it all, it doesn’t mean there aren’t any other competitors deserving of the victory. While a lot of people recognize the need created by current booking for certain persons to win the Rumble (which I’ll get to in a bit), there are still a handful of upper-midcarders who have their own needs as well. And even though those needs may possibly be addressed by wrestler-to-wrestler interactions and angles within the Rumble match itself, it might not be practical to simply rely on the hope of such things happening.
Thus, today we take a quick look at the Superstars who are also in need of a Royal Rumble win.
It’s easy to throw around names like Chris Jericho and, to an extent, Randy Orton as favorites to win it all, but again, they’re the favorites mainly because majority of fans do recognize the needs they can satisfy as Rumble winners. Jericho is the top favorite because, other than the fact that it’s what the rumors point to, winning it could possibly mean that he may finally begin to explain himself. And some needs are less obvious than others: Orton’s victory could provide current World Heavyweight Champion Daniel Bryan a new (and better) opponent to feud with for Wrestlemania, assuming he does escape the stacked deck he’s facing at the Rumble itself.
But again, there are other people who are in good positions to benefit well from a Rumble victory, however improbable. This column won’t be to say that one of these people should win above all reasoning and booking logic, but rather to just say why they need the win.
You’ve got four people on the list, namely:
Wade Barrett - While the entire point of the feud with Randy Orton was to move up the SmackDown totem pole, the saturation of the blue brand’s main event scene makes it really difficult to really achieve some upward mobility. The problem is that when you’ve got three top guys who are doing their jobs well, properly moving up to their level is really going to be hard, and that’s the obstacle Barrett faces now. Thus, he may need a Rumble victory to be injected into the title scene, because waiting until Elimination Chamber is too long. If the circumstances were different, I wouldn’t cite this as a huge need for Barrett, but the fact is he gained momentum after the Orton feud and he stands to waste that now if he’s not angling for the World title. What makes this possibility vaguer, however, is that he would need to stand against a face champion, which may be a stretch for now with two dominant heels already in the picture.
Sheamus - On the other hand, here’s a guy who needs it a lot more, and the win would solve more problems than you think. The mishandling of Sheamus by the generally competent SmackDown creative team is embarrassing; there are so many opportunities for Sheamus in the blue brand and the best they could give him right now is Jinder Mahal. Sheamus could have been mingling in the main event scene, keeping the face/heel ratio even. If not, he could easily be keeping Cody Rhodes busy in a brief hunt for the Intercontinental Championship, which needs more credible challengers. Or he could go full-time against Wade Barrett, even though it would be a feud that Sheamus needs more than Barrett does. The Great White’s disappointing lack of direction is almost a license to lock him down for the win.
The Miz - Nobody since Edge made carrying around a future title opportunity his bread-and-butter than the Miz did. All the complaints about his ruined credibility are very much valid, and when R-Truth is higher in the pecking order than you are, you know you really need to do something big, and quick. In fact, now that I think about it, I could definitely go for a Punk/Jericho/Miz title match for Wrestlemania. (If you’re wondering where Ziggler is in that picture, I still don’t know what we could do with him. Would you accept an Edgesque feud with Mick Foley?)
Kofi Kingston - For all intents and purposes of this discussion, Kofi is the darkest of dark horses here (no Randall Morrison). While I don’t think he has any serious chances of winning here, the loss of his high-flying tag team partner Evan Bourne leaves Kofi with not a lot to do yet again, which was basically his life pre-Air Boom. He could go back to beating the U.S. Championship path yet again, but let’s be honest, we’ve seen him do that many, many times in his career. Why not try to cultivate that mean streak he showed against Randy Orton a few years before? Even career midcarders have the potential to turn things around with just one big opportunity. Just ask Mark Henry.
So there you have it – four names who need a Rumble win. Again, not saying that any of them deserve to be the winner above all else, maybe except Sheamus. I’m going to ask you now if there’s a name I missed, or if there’s anyone who shouldn’t be on this list. (I expect comments against Kofi’s inclusion here.)
That said, I’m warning you now that this is going to be a week full of Rumble talk. Let’s get it on!
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The Best Match You Didn’t See On TV This Week
“Holy next generation Superstars, Ro, is that a Divas match?” you ask me. The answer is yes. Yes it is.
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My boys over at the Lords of Podcast Roundtable are doing some serious work, and they’ve put out their second episode in one week. This one features (former? Can I say that already?) Main Page columnist Oni, and that means his fans are going to love this episode and his haters are going to rage about it. Check it out, if you haven’t already.
If you’re an ROH fan, then you’d do well to read my coverage of the recently re-debuted ROH television show. It comes out every week (as much as possible); sometimes it's late, but it still comes.
Also, for my fellow Filipinos, please tune in to my buddy Stan’s radio show S&M: The Morning After every weekend from 6 to 9 am (10 am on Sundays) on Mellow 94.7. If you find yourself up early on a weekend, do check it out!
