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Submitted by Randomguy#5 on Thursday, October 18, 2007 at 11:28 AM EST
The 16th Stop on the Road - John Sinner Welcome everybody. You’ve arrived at The 16th Stop on the Road. A place for you to disengage from the worries of the real world and delve into that magical realm we all love, known as professional wrestling. I’m The Letter P and I’m really glad you’ve taken the time to stop by here. I hope you enjoy your stay! Well September sure was a sweet month for yours truly. Not only did I win the regular Column of the Month contest held in the LOP Columns Forum, I also won another writing competition by the name of Wargames (which I like to call ‘War Games’ for laughs) that our slice of internet haven, the Columns Forum, hosted. So that means I now have the opportunity to post two columns here on the LOP main page. How lucky am I! Thanks to everybody who voted for me in either competition and thanks to you for stopping by to read my work! Anyways, why don’t we talk about some wrestling now? My column is a pretty simply structured one. I have the Rest Stops section, which consists of some brief thoughts on the current wrestling product, followed by my main section, The Road House. So what do you say, we get on with it?! Rest Stops -Hardcore Holly and Cody Rhodes teaming together is one of the signs of the apocalypse. Start fleeing to high ground now. -The idea of Vickie Guerrero and Rey Mysterio doing a ‘Hispanic Stone Cold vs. Vince McMahon feud’ makes me laugh. In fact, I haven’t laughed that much since someone tried to tell me the Wrestlemania 23 main event was a good match. -Okay, I fib, TNA trying to negotiate with Chris Jericho makes me laugh even more than a béér chugging Rey Mysterio. Honestly, how does TNA expect to compete with WWE’s SEVEN FIGURE contract? They won’t be able to afford a Pacman Jones contract renewal if they want Jericho, that’s for sure. -You know I Haven’t voted on any Cyber Sunday matches and I really don’t plan to. I did try (Kennedy and Big Daddy V are the definition of awesome), but I decided I couldn’t. You know why? They want my age, email address and to sneakily sign me up to TWO newsletters AND I have to go through some crappy pop-up, flash like thing that takes way too long to respond even on broadband (yeah, broadband is somewhat of a rare commodity down here in Australia). It amazes me how the WWE can just completely fuck up everything they try and do on that damn website. How hard is it to place a poll on a page that’s easily accessible and not a total scam? I could do it! Gah, I say we start a ‘do fire Michael’ campaign. The Road House Atop a mighty mountain are two deck chairs. One is empty. The second is occupied by an elderly man, draped in beautiful gowns and emitting a sensual, white aura. He gazes from the mountain to the tiny world far below. His face is expressionless. What he thinks, what he feels, is impossible to know. A man in his early 30’s soon sits himself in the empty chair. This man needs no introduction. His name? Mr. Kennedy… KE- Old Man: We know the routine! Kennedy: I still like it… Old Man: Man up! There’s a lot of weight on your shoulders, you know? And if you’re not up to the challenge, this world doesn’t stand a chance! Kennedy: Maybe… Old Man: No maybe’s about it! Those people down there have no idea how close the end came! The wheels were already in motion! They would have spent the rest of their days in constant suffering, if it wasn’t for you! Kennedy: I don’t know… Old Man: What’s wrong Ken? Kennedy: I thought they would be grateful, dad. But they’re not. Everyone hates me now. Old Man: First of all, I’m not your dad. Kennedy: WHAT?! Old Man: You’re the son of mahon after all, not the son of me. Kennedy: At least I was… Old Man: Look, Ken, don’t you worry about it. The message will be delivered. These people will come to understand. Kennedy: How? The old man grins broadly and then gazes out at the world beneath them once more. Kennedy: Right, I have to have faith… I am the LORD God, thou shalt have no other gods before me. I doubt my pals in the columns forum will believe me, but I really don’t hate John Cena. Why wouldn’t they believe me, you ask? I suppose there are a couple of reasons. The fact I tell him never to return in my signature on the boards, the fact I blatantly marked out at hearing of his injury, with no regard to his health, the fact I said Mark Henry taking a dump for two hours every Raw would still be more entertaining than Cena, the fact I - well, you get the point. But I honestly don’t hate him. I just hate the way he’s booked. The way Vince McMahon views him as a Wrestling God. Fuck JBL. Fuck SAVE_US.222. It’s John Cena that will send the WWE to the promised land… apparently. But Wrestling God’s don’t exist anymore. Vinnie Mac can try to give them a place in our reality, but it won’t work. It may have worked for Hulk Hogan and Goldberg, but wrestling fans are different now and with this, comes different expectations. Seeing one wrestler pushed to the moon doesn’t make them popular. It makes them predictable. With the evolution of the internet, fans feel they’re more in-tune with ‘the business’. The fact we are almost certainly not is irrelevant. Reality is a state of mind, you know? And so John Cena’s push transitioned to force feeding. Yes, he makes money, yes he’s been good for the company, but he has just as many people that can’t stand him, as he does who enjoy his work. That’s not a God. That’s just a failed face push. Thou shalt not carve a graven image. If you visit wikipedia.org and have a look at John Cena’s page, you’ll notice it says the man’s popularity began declining when he moved to Raw (although some 13 year old kid has probably changed that information by the time you read this). This, however, is not actually true (yes, Wikipedia lied to you, shocking right?). If you go have a watch of Wrestlemania 21 and can manage to make it to the end of the JBL vs. John Cena match, without gouging your own eyes out with a rusty butter knife, you have an opportunity to see (or perhaps hear) something interesting. As John Cena is celebrating with his newly won WWE Title and the fans who supposedly adore him so much, listen very carefully. The sound you will hear is of booing. John Cena was being booed at Wrestlemania 21. Yep, the jeers had already started. Yes, they were very faint, but they were there. More to the point they occurred while Cena was facing John Bradshaw Layfield. John Bradshaw Layfield! Booker T was getting Shawn Michaels sized face pops against JBL, after being a face for a week. A heel Kurt Angle was getting face pops against JBL! And JBL doesn't attract 'good' heel heat either. He attracts the 'for the love of all that is sweet and innocent in the world, get your hairy neck and botched headlocks the fuck off my television screen!' heat. JBL is viewed as perhaps the most pitiful WWE Champion of all time. You or I could gain face pops against him. And yet John Cena could not. So when exactly did John Cena begin to lose his fan support? I can tell you exactly when. It was the same day management decided this would be a good idea:  Oh yes, I can remember back to 2004 very well. When John Cena first emerged with his spinning United States Championship, after winning it back from Carlito. I can actually remember the conversation I had with my John Cena supporting friend. In the space of seven days we had gone from complaining Cena wasn’t being pushed further up the card to, ‘fuck Cena is a queer, that belt looks like it’ll break if he hits anyone with it’. Needless to say, from that day on neither of us were Cena fans. Honestly, who thought a custom belt would be a good idea? He was already getting booed with a custom mid card belt and then somebody had the genius idea of doing it with a world title?! Even now, Randy Orton is using a belt that has been created for Cena and likened to him for the last 2 years. You think of that belt and you automatically think of John Cena. It reeks of golden boy. If a guy can have his own belt, it makes it completely obvious he is above the rest of the roster. Where’s the unpredictability in that? ‘Yo homes, I have my own belt and just last week you were on ECW’. Hmmm, why are we supposed to think Cena’s opponent has a hope in hell of winning anything other than a certified ticket to the ‘jobbers for life’ club? Right now it just appears like Randy Orton is babysitting the Title for Cena. Basically, Cena is the Title now. And why in the hell should we cheer for a Title? Thou shalt not take the Name of the LORD God in vain. I’ll admit now, I’m neither foolish, nor brave enough, to attempt to sit through anything brandishing the ‘WWE Films’ sign. I make it a point to not see any movie that has a suck preview. If the staff can’t find 30 seconds of decent footage, why the hell would I want to see some 90 minutes of their shit? Although, perhaps a better question is why in the hell am I talking about films? Well, of all the films WWE have released, I would say ‘The Marine’ looks the least shit. Namely because modern, western horror movies suck as it is, even when the main villain hasn’t been defeated by everyone short of Eric Bischoff (oh, wait…) and because Stone Cold is about as legible as Big Daddy V’s breasts when speaking. And that’s one thing John Cena can do well. Cena is a charismatic guy. He can go on a mic, no one can deny that. Or can they? Perhaps, just perhaps, they can. Nah, fuck it, Cena can talk damn well. So why doesn’t he? Cena sucks on the mic. Yes, he can deliver an awesome promo, but he rarely does. He tries too hard, you see. The WWE wants him to be funny, in a feeble attempt to have the fans laugh, rather than boo vehemently every chance they get, but they also want him to be serious, to build up intensity in his feuds. What results is generally a cluster fuck of TNA sized proportions (yes, as sad as it is, a single WWE guy can be compared with TNA in it’s entirety). “I never learned to reeeeaaaaad”. “Ladies and gentlemen… Mrrrrrrrrrr. Cameltoe!”. “[Insert mentally handicapped like speech in this space]”. “Britney Spears was still hot back then”. “And I probably won’t send you a Christmas card, Randy”. These are just some of Cena’s many failed attempts at humour. Simply put, the guy’s mic work is overrated. He has the potential to be phenomenal, but he usually just comes across as awkward. This was most evident when the guy actually interviewed himself on Raw one week. Cena went full on split personality, with one ‘funny’ side and one ‘intense’ side. Things aren’t funny when you’re threatening to beat Carlito to a pulp every second line and they sure aren’t intense when you're cracking unfunny jokes every first line. It’s just confusing. Thou shalt not bear false witness. I think the worst thing about Cena’s mic work is that it is covered by the stench of ‘sell out’. John Cena managed to get over with the fans by rapping. What did he do as soon as he became a main event level guy? He stopped rapping. It makes sense, I suppose. After all, he’s a man aimed at appealing to children. And talking about sucking his genitalia isn’t something that children should have their innocence exposed to. But at the same time, if it’s what got him to the main event, it’s a ludicrous move to stop as soon as he gets there. If you take away what people like about someone, they are obviously not going to like that someone anymore. Keep holy the Sabbath day. Did you know, that of the 26 WWE Title matches on PPV between Wrestlemania 21 and Unforgiven 2007, John Cena was involved in 25 of them? More to the point, did you know the one he did not compete in was also the best of those 26? Well, I suppose that is a bit naughty of me. Rob Van Dam vs. Edge was the best singles match of those 26 bouts. Cena was involved in two matches I would deem equal or better than RVD vs. Edge - they being his gimmick matches with Edge and Umaga. Honestly, anyone can have a good gimmick match. Tommy Dreamer and Sandman made a career of giving good gimmick matches. Yeah, case closed with that one. Of course you can make the argument ‘it doesn’t matter how they were entertaining, they were still entertaining’. Fair point I suppose. Of course it still doesn’t justify Cena’s constant butchering of Sunday night PPVs. Even if we include gimmick matches, that makes 2 of Cena’s 25 title bouts on par with the one he was not in. Which gives John a grand total of 8% of matches on par with the 100% of matches he wasn’t in. That’s a difference of 92%. Sure, my statistics may be the most incoherent, inane thing ever pulled out in a wrestling column, but 92% is a big fucking number, no matter where it came from. But match quality is subjective, right? Right. I myself enjoyed The Undertaker vs. The Great Khali from Judgement Day 2006 and MVP vs. random jobber from No Mercy 2006. But I’m not the only one finding John Cena’s repetitive, no sell, five moves of doom, bitch fests to be completely stale and nauseating. That’s why 12 year olds strut around with their spinner belts and generic, wannabe-battler t-shirts, while the bulk of the IWC - us guys who can ‘appreciate a wrestler’s performance in the ring’ (I don’t know who I’m quoting there, but roll with it) - are constantly complaining about John Cena being on top of the world. And come on, Cena managed to have perhaps the most God awful excuse of a Wrestlemania main event since the days of Hulk Hogan. ‘Oh man, Shawn punched me in the knee, now I can’t walk for the next eight minutes. Ha, you’ve carried my predictable ass for long enough Shawn! NOW I’M GONNA GET YA! I’ll run around, completely untouched, without so much as a limp. Then I’m gonna lift you up for an F-U on my supposedly injured knee. Then after all that’s over with, I’m going to grab my knee for a split second and then continue running on it, like it’s totally unaffected, just to make sure I spit on every little scrap of ring psychology’. Of course, like Cena’s mic work, his suicide inducing matches aren’t his fault. It's just more terrible booking. But that isn’t really the point now, is it? Honour thy father and thy mother. Come Summerslam of this year, Randy Orton was getting face pops against John Cena. The man dubbed ‘most likely to never be a successful face’ (by men, that is) was receiving cheers against John Cena. And so the WWE introduced John Cena Senior to the affair. He showed up in King’s hometown, just to make it obvious he was there for no other reason than to get savagely owned. And ‘savagely owned’ pretty aptly sums up what happened to him. And you know what happened to Randy Orton? Nothing. Orton can beat up a defenceless old man and still get cheered against John Cena. That kind of behaviour even got Chris Benoit universally hated, but against John Cena, people were still rooting for Orton. If that’s not a clear, resounding ‘Cena, we fucking hate you and your face turn is the biggest failure since Kane’s career’, than I don ’t know what is. Thou shalt not commit adultery. The WWE hasn’t just been using feeble old men to get Cena over. Whether it’s saving Torrie Wilson from the evil advances of Rene Dupree, saving Maria from the evil ass of Umaga or making out with any bitch that gets in his vicinity, Cena has been one knight in bad ass armour for the last 3 years. Not like I have to say it, but he still gets booed in every town he visits. The only thing that’s left is to get the Pepsi logo tattooed on his arm (yeah, I had to make a CM Punk joke at some point). Old men and hot chicks aren't working? IT'S ALL OVER! Thou shalt not steal. Cena has been stealing gimmicks for as long as I can remember (which is about 2-3 years, as I am a solidified member of the MTV generation). They tried recreating Austin vs. McMahon in Cena vs. Bischoff. It only succeeded in gaining Kurt Angle crowd support. They tried recreating Goldberg by having Cena play an intense guy, who does the same thing every single match. It only succeeded in gaining all of his opponents fan support. Of course, Cena has been a victim of theft himself. People have been stealing his face pops for two years now. JBL, Chris Jericho, Kurt Angle, Edge, Sawn Michaels and even Randy Orton have been taking Cena’s fan support since he became WWE Champion. It’s pretty sad really. Thou shalt not kill. Cena has been killing the credibility of superstars like no one before him, since Triple H, for the last two years. Look at the list of guys he has faced. How many of them have found themselves further up the card, after feuding with Cena? One. Edge. I won’t bother with main event level guys, as it’s pointless examining them. But let’s have a look at some of the (relatively) lower-card opponents Cena has faced. Rob Van Dam is our first candidate. People like to say Triple H pedigreed this boy out of the main event, but RVD had been on a decline out of the company sine he feuded with Cena. Sure, it’s easy to say ‘he screwed himself by getting caught with drugs’. Yes, that’s absolutely true and RVD is a douche bag for doing it. But even if he hadn’t been caught with drugs, where would he have been after his feud with Cena? He would have been the Tuesday Night Champion among such greats as John Morrison, CM Punk and Balls Mahoney. He would have been competing for a mid card title for the rest of his days. Umaga? Umaga has been a solid mid carder ever since he feuded with Cena. And that’s exactly what he was before he feuded with Cena. He was not elevated at all against Cena, besides having a few people decide he doesn’t completely suck the joy out of living anymore. The Great Khali? Sure, he had a World Title run after his feud with John Cena. He had a run with the same Title that people are saying Ric Flair deserves one last run with. So basically, he’s on the same level as a moob (short for ‘man boob’) wielding, 60 year old, who hasn’t done anything, except put younger guys over since WCW closed. That’s an accomplishment, alright. The World Heavyweight Championship simply does not have the same credibility, as the WWE Title. Should it? Absolutely. Does it? Not on your life. Mr. Kennedy and Finlay are perfect examples. They seem like legitimate contenders to the World Title, right? Can you say the same thing about the WWE Title? You can’t tell me Khali was below the World Title before he feuded with Cena, no matter how hard you try. He already had big wins against The Undertaker, Rey Mysterio and Kane - all World Champions in their own right - and tapping out to an STF didn’t make him anymore credible. But hey, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe Cena has been elevating his opponents and I’m just to naïve to realise it. Let me pose a question to you and we’ll find out. If John Cena has been helping his opponents, why did so many members of the IWC throw their arms up in panic, claiming the WWE now had absolutely no one to turn to, once Cena was injured? Eh? Eh? EH? Yeah, that’s right, you know it. Cena hasn’t helped anyone else, who isn’t named Edge. You can say ‘well he hasn’t really squashed anyone either’. Sadly, I beg to differ. With every victory Cena has attained, it has pushed him further above the rest of the roster and, indirectly, lowered everyone around him. I could tolerate Cena in the early months of his Title reign, because I could look to the horizon and smile gleefully at the thought of Triple H or Shawn Michaels obliterating his vanilla ass. And then he owned them both. Who can you say had a legitimate shot at taking the WWE Title away from Cena? Randy Orton? You actually think Randy Orton was going to win a Last Man Standing match against John Cena? You actually think Randy Orton was going to knock Cena out for ten entire seconds? Ha! Ha, I say! You are naïve. There was no evidence a Randy Orton Title win was even possible, let alone probable. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's goods. Cena has been envious of his opponent’s face reactions for a while now. No matter who it is, they will be cheered against John Cena. Sure, Cena can act all tough and claim he doesn’t give a shit if people boo him, but he’s lying through his teeth. If he doesn’t care what the fans think, why did he throw himself into them at Wrestlemania 21? Cena’s face push is a failure. The ‘E’ in ‘WWE’ is a failure, too. And sure, you can say ‘Cena sucks, so what? He was all Raw had’. That's true, to an extent. But you want to know the reason why all Raw had was John Cena? Because they had John Cena. Make sense? No? Damn. Having Cena disappear is the only way that Raw can escape it's current... suck? Yes, that will suffice. If Cena stayed he would have continued to dominate the entire roster. But now, the WWE has a chance. Sure, they may suffer some short term negative consequences, but look at the big picture. Now, when Cena returns, there is no reason there can't be a plethora of stars, like Jeff Hardy, Umaga, Carlito and Kennedy who have moved towards the top end of the card. Moved far closer than they ever could have with the glass Cena. No, scrap that last paragraph. Cena was never all Raw has. They have Vince McMahon cutting twenty minute promos every week. They have Randy Orton's rest holds of doom. They have Triple H ego stroking fests, where he crushes anything in his way. They have Hardcore Holly!! And I can honestly say - and I really am being completely honest - that all those things sound enjoyable when compared with anything involving John Cena. You like John Cena? Fine. He’ll be back in 6 months. Until then, quit your bitching and let the rest of us enjoy something we haven’t seen every single week for the last two years. Let us enjoy seeing a BRAND SPANKING NEW Hardcore Holly! Let us enjoy Randy Orton’s chin lock that hasn’t seen WWE gold in 3 years. Let us enjoy having Triple H squash everyone he encounters in new and exciting ways! LET US HEAR ABOUT VINCE'S BALLS!!!!! No, no, fuck it all. Fuck Orton, fuck Vince, fuck Holly and fuck H. There’s only one thing we need.  Then I looked, and behold, a white cloud and on the cloud sat One like the Son of Man, having on His head a golden crown, and in his hand a sharp sickle. And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to Him who sat on the cloud, “Thrust in Your sickle and reap, for the time has come for You to reap, for the harvest of the earth is ripe”. So He who sat on the cloud thrust in His sickle on the earth, and the earth was reaped. -Revelations 14:14-16 P-Lugs I’ve been a bit naughty with my column writing brethren, by slacking off on feedback quite a bit. I’ve still been reading though and these are a couple of columns I think you owe it to yourself to check out: Savana's Chamber of Pain #17- A Cool Spot on Chemistry for the Suprise Ending! By Andy_Savana My main man Andy has been improving faster than anyone I’ve seen in the columns forum and his columns really are becoming a ‘must read’ type affair. This time around, Andy examines the components that make for an entertaining wrestling match. All About the Game: The AATG <500 Part 1 By YourAyatollah YourAyatollah is one of the greatest writers to ever grace LOP and a generally cool guy on all accounts. He examines the wrestling business over the past 12 months and makes an interesting ranking of the top ten players in the business (or at least the top 10-6, as it’s a 2 part deal). He also tells us about a fight he was recently involved in, so what are you waiting for?! The Mega Column #4: pls rd n00bs kthxbye By aisce and Uncle Joe Both of these guys are probably going to want to murder me, after reading this column, but they still write good stuff. aisce (he’ll yell at me if I use a capital) and Joe have come up with a highly amusing beginner’s guide to professional wrestling. You should definitely have a look at this one (even if they did spell ‘n00bz’ wrong). That’ll do it for Volume 13. I really hope you enjoyed your stay and thanks for the visit. This was something rather different from my usual offerings, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. If you have any questions/comments/death threats for me, you can send them my way at theletterp@gmail.com. Be sure to keep a look out for my second main page column, which will be coming at you very soon. Until then, keep on truckin’.
*NEW GALLERY* Go Directly to a RANDOM BACKSTAGE SPECIAL PHOTO GALLERY! Check It Out!
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