wrestling / Columns

Ask 411 Wrestling: How Does WWE Justify John Cena Hate?

April 29, 2015 | Posted by Mathew Sforcina

Hello, and welcome to the only column annoyed he didn’t do a big spiel about how the Network should have more live stuff like KOTR, Ask 411 Wrestling!

At least, I don’t think I did…

Anyway, lots of stuff happened this week in wrestling, some good, some bad, some… unsure. Let’s hurry up and not talk about any of it!

Got a question about anything wrestling related? [email protected] is where you should send it.

In the general vicinity of Newcastle this weekend? Newcastle Pro Wrestling has a show to benefit the SES after the recent storms, and I’m in the main event, kicking Four Nation butt, so do come along and have a great time, all the details here, do come along.

/Shill.

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Saving The Divas: Well obviously in order for the Divas division to be ‘saved’ you need a massive change in the backstage situation, coupled with a long period of retraining the fanbase, sure. But so many people, myself included, have banged that drum for a while now. I assumed it was taken as read, plus I was kinda shot from the first two questions. But yeah, obviously the most important person to change the Divas division is Vince right now, HHH long term.

The Title Thing: I’ll do a full breakdown when I post it as a Special Edition in a year or whenever I get it done.

Wrestling On TV: Thank you for all the ones I missed!

The Trivia Crown

Who am I? I’m on WWE’s roster page on Wikipedia right now. I have twice as many WWE title reigns as I do TNA ones (although that number changes if you choose to include a reign that you really shouldn’t). My first ever match was a draw, while the first match I had in one company I won a contract out of. I was the first International something or other, losing it to a guy whose WWE run revolved around ladies. I won another contract by beating a guy who doesn’t give a fuck. One of my reigns was the longest in history, while another one was a whole three days. A guy who hopefully still has his popcorn machine, I am who?

Matias has our answer.

Who am I? I’m on WWE’s roster page on Wikipedia right now (NXT Roster)

I have twice as many WWE title reigns as I do TNA ones (WWE Tag Team, World Tag Team – TNA X-Division… the world tag team title reing was a botched finish in a live event in south africa)

My first ever match was a draw (10 minutes Draw against American Dragon)

While the first match I had in one company I won a contract out of (ROH debut show)

I was the first International something or other, losing it to a guy whose WWE run revolved around ladies (First ever NWA International Junior Heavyweight Champion in Zero-1, lost to Low Ki, Kaval in NXT with Laycool as pro) I won another contract by beating a guy who doesn’t give a fuck. (Beat Shannon Moore to win a Smackdown contract)

One of my reigns was the longest in history, while another one was a whole three days. (WWE Tag Team longest – WWE World Tag Team 3 days)

A guy who hopefully still has his popcorn machine (Won at The Price is Right

I am who? THE BRIAN KENDRICK

Who am I? I never did something that in wrestling almost everyone does at some point. I’ve been a lion, and the first guy to hold a specific title. I once had to forfeit a title right before it underwent a name change. (I also underwent a name change at some point). I’ve won a major league tag title twice, each time with a different partner. I have a 100% success rate in one major promotion. You can argue my last Wrestlemania was one of three, depending on how you count it. A man who got his revenge over his partner’s betrayal on a big show no-one saw on TV, I am who?

Getting Down To All The Business

So then, as I said before, let’s talk about stuff that isn’t at all current, Brian?

“Somebody call Jim Johnston . . . ”

Naomi needs a new theme song now. That’s not a question, I realize, but I’m so certain of this that you can just write your opinion as to why you agree. (and none of this “I would have agreed with him but since he acted so cocky let me now purposely disagree”, you’re better than that

… That’s current. And also behind the curve, since she has a new theme. (and it’s quite good, I think, as these things go) Brian did follow on in a later email…

Okay, so since I was already proven right (well, at least the WWE and Naomi agreed with me, now that I think about that not sure that makes me right at all . . . )

1. You should still print my question, so I’ll look Smarter than a Sandow, Brainier than a Brainbuster, and more genius than a . . . . guy nicknamed Leaping that wrote poems and threw frisbees in the crowd? Wow, wonder how that guy lost his stand to be in the HOF . . . .

The issue wasn’t that The Genius didn’t deserve a spot, he’s as deserving as anyone else from the time (guy beat Hogan, that’s gotta count for something, right?), it was the issue that Savage insisted on a group induction of his family that was the problem. WWE wanted Savage by himself, not as a package deal. But now that Lanny has gotten Savage in, I’d wager he’ll get in in a few years.

2. This is an under the gun sort of question (as I’m writing it the Monday morning after Extreme Rules/the morning of the RAW when KOTR will start), well, now it’s got two parts because of that:

2a. Do you think they in part had Kidd/Cesaro drop the belts because Cesaro is going to win the KOTR? It would be a great device for him-a reason to move back into high-profile singles; something to compete with/for that’s at least differently important (if not more important) than the secondary titles he’s already been involved in; from WWE’s perspective a way to keep him out of the true title picture for some time; and a way to artificially add some character to him. They did it with Regal and Booker, two guys who (as much as I love Claudio) already had more character than he does, so why not? It’s a perfect tie-in with his Euro heritage as well, plus his last indy tag team the Kings of Wrestling!

2b. WHY is my question under the gun? Seriously, the hype machine known as WWE can’t plan this out at least a little bit ahead, or tease it for some time with videos of Harley Race and new HOF MMRS, or do a WWE special on all the Kings (I mean, maybe that’s a DVD even, right?). I know what has been said about a tournament in regards to PPV sales–people won’t pay for matches they aren’t aware of yet (I partly think that’s bogus, as nearly everyone is willing to watch the Super Bowl or World Cup Final regardless of the opponents, but I guess this isn’t the top event and wrestling is built on stories, not just “victories on my side of the tournament bracket”). But in terms of free TV (or cable, or that it seems they’re going to use the Network for this) why not build this thing up?

Supposedly this was greenlit last week, so you would think that they could then plan it out, get people hyped and then have it occur next month, when people have to pay for the Network and thus might stay on/sign up to see it.

Or maybe that’s the idea, to show people “look, you’re going to get to see important stuff only on the network now, better buy it!” while they are having a free month and keep them locked in.

Perhaps Vince wanted a King right now dammit!

Or maybe, just maybe, with Barrett unable to win the IC title, they need to give him something to give him a bit of a push so he can then feud with and be sacrificed on the ‘Please Let Reigns Be Over’ mountain…

The actual thinking is yet to emerge as I go to type, so hopefully by the time this goes live you all know why and I look stupider than usual.

3. This may be my most interesting question I’ve posited in the time I’ve written to you. The family got me an old WWE game for the Wii, and the commentary in that game has Jerry Lawler saying “John Cena is one of the most polarizing superstars ever in the company”. So this is something they’ve acknowledged in some promos that Cena has delivered, and in some that others have delivered (Heyman? Punk? Rock? I guess I’m not quite sure who/whom), and they’ve gone so far as to point out in a video game (which is totally unnecessary as they control the crowd in the game, which is largely marketed to kids).

But as for the announcing crew itself, they’ve said it dozens of times, and I wasn’t even watching regularly during the Cena/Jericho/Christian era, where I’m lead to believe the fan vitriol may have been at it’s apex, so I don’t know how frequently they’ve said it. I’m not asking you to count. What I’m wondering is, how accurately have they ever described WHY he’s polarizing? Have they ever explained it, either in a kayfabe way that was covering it up, or in an honest way?

See, I feel like they actually, generally, have done a good job with this with others. Perhaps they’ve been a little late to the party to acknowledge how a crowd feels (early rocky, recent reigns), and they certainly would prefer to hide/disregard the minority who full-on love a heel (House of Pain Mark Henry; suited-up Jericho), but this just feels different. They’ve told us time and time again that he’s controversial, or polarizing, or that the WWE universe is split on their feelings, but they haven’t said why.

Now, the why is tricky, I’ll give you that. Any of the number of things they could say, they probably can’t, like:
-Kids like him, but the rest of you find him boring (too on the nose)
-He hasn’t changed who is in a very long time (not only can they not address face/heel or character revamps, but frankly in real life a person doesn’t necessarily have to change, especially if it’s working for them)
-People are tired of him winning so frequently (although that would be meta-insulting their own booking, I should stop short by saying this couldn’t work–people hate Man U and the New York Yankees and Duke Men’s College Basketball largely for that same reason, i just think that they’ve taken guys like that before like HHH or even Flair and been happy enough to have them be heels)

I just think an empty acknowledgment is like responding to the current crowd chant phenomenon “Can You Hear Us?” with a “yes we can”, but treating it just like that–the purpose of your chant is whether we can physically hear you or not, as opposed to processing and contemplating WHY you’re chanting. We would never be okay with not knowing the reason for a protest in the real world–how can they believe it’s okay in this instance?

WWE has settled on their company line, which is ‘The WWE Universe Is Having A Good Time HAHAHA I LOVE IT MICALE HE’S TWERKING!!!’ or words to that effect. The WWE hang a lampshade on the fact that Cena gets booed and then assume that’s enough.

Occasionally they allow themselves to indulge in the ‘enemy territory’ explanation, when he fought RVD at One Night Stand, Punk at MITB, Philly 95% of the time, if they can say how the fans are all against Cena because they are for his opponent, they’ll go with that.

But for the most part, it’s just ‘Some people don’t like John Cena, but you should totally love him because he’s cool, see how he wins all the time?’ WWE won’t specifically lay out reasons, they’ll just say the WWE Universe is having fun and entitled to their opinion and blahblahblah.

After all, they can’t say why he gets heat, given that it would require them to discuss how the Cena character has been both pushed strongly AND remained unchanged for nearly 10 full years now, which, for the record, is about as long as Hogan was in WWF during Hulkamania, and he was TV maybe once a month, AND Cena had five or so years prior to that. They can’t explain how Cena is all the worst attributes of Superman, and symbolic of all the issues the average older male fan has with WWE right now.

There’s no neat way to explain Cena’s polarisation beyond simply admitting it and moving on, because there’s no neat reason for it, it’s a whole lot of factors playing into it. But at the end of the day, Cena gets a reaction, people buy tickets to see Cena and cheer him, or they buy tickets to see Cena and boo him, either way he’s a drawcard and that’s worth having to admit he gets booed and cheered.

Raza takes us back.

I always wonder what was the reason of transforming the Undertaker into American Badass in 2000 and similarly Hulk Hogan to Mr. America in 2003, I mean they were legends in their own right in terms of their gimmicks so why WWE/F took a risk and change their gimmicks particularly when Kevin Nash claimed recently that Undertaker was close to joining WCW in 2000 in his Badass gimmick?

Hogan as Mr. America is the easy one, it was just an angle. It’s an old angle, known as ‘Charlie Brown From Outta Town’ in some corners, ‘The Midnight Rider’ gimmick elsewhere, but basically the idea of ‘wrestler gets suspended, returns under unconvincing mask, shenanigans follow’ has been around for ages. Normally the person involved is a face, unjustly suspended and thus their return is fought for by their good friend/cousin/whatever.

In Hogan’s case, it was just part of the ongoing Hogan/Vince feud, a way to justify why Vince wouldn’t just fire Hogan (which he did eventually) and also a way to build to a Mask V Hair match between the two, and thus give Hogan a reason to shave Vince’s head. It had nothing to do with Hogan’s gimmick, just running an old but effective angle.

Taker is slightly more complicated, but not by much. The Undertaker persona, as last seen before his break from wrestling before his return as the American Badass, he’d been the Satanic Prince of Darkness.

All well and good, teaming with Big Show and such, then he leaves for a bit. And then by the middle of 2000, the WWF has changed a whole lot. Guys like Angle, Benoit, Jericho, Tazz and the like have come in, and the WWF is now a lot more serious, or at least down to earth. Wrestlers are wrestlers, not characters. At least not as much as they used to be.

Compared to that, the Demonic Undertaker kinda sticks out like a sore thumb. So, he had to evolve, and became the American Badass, with the demonic stuff becoming motifs and such rather than the full persona.

He had to become more human to fit in with the tone of the company, and so he went Biker. Otherwise he’d be an obvious sticking point. Plus while he’d enjoyed the Demonic Taker run, once the Corporate Ministry thing happened, Taker felt the magic was lost, so to speak.

This is pretty great.

Marco writes in from Germany with a few questions.

I have a few questions now… First about The Ascension, and the push / de-push style of the WWE. Let’s start with the Ascension: Why, for crying out loud, has the WWE given up on them without at least trying? I mean they’ve been degraded to jobber status about four weeks after their debut… Don’t get me wrong, I really don’t like them, but WWE could at least TRY and push them… So why would they do that? They had Ascension in NXT for years, they can’t have just realized they suck a few weeks after the call up?

Not that they’ve realised they suck, just that they’ve realised that they aren’t over. You can argue why they aren’t over, whose fault it is, if they should have been called up or let go, so on and so forth, but they couldn’t stay in NXT forever, so they called them up and gave them a ‘shot’ and they failed to get any real heat, for whatever reason, and thus they then get depushed. If you don’t get over, you (usually) get depushed out of it.

*insert Reigns joke here*

2nd question: Why is WWE pushing wrestlers, only to send them on losing streaks, after which they will push them again, rinse and repeat? I don’t get that. I take Cesaro as an example: Guy becomes US champ, goes on losing streak, feuds with Swagger and wins ATGMBR, goes on losing streak. Or Punk, back in the day. DB. MVP. Ziggler. Or Harper. Rowan. You get the drill.

One name: Bobby Lashley.

Well, ok, maybe it’s not fair to blame him as such, but he’s the guy that is the poster child of the causation for the losing streak gimmick. See, Lashley got a big fat push, he got to look awesome, he got pushed, got to shave Vince’s head and then feud with him for the ECW Title, due got a huge push.

And then he left the company.

Now yes, Brock Lesnar was before that, and he was higher profile. But Lashley is the guy who seems to have made Vince paranoid about guys getting pushes and then bailing. After Lashley, a whole bunch of changes came in, most of them subtle and backstage, where they tried to ensure guys who came in would view WWE as the only way to make a living and that the brand was bigger than any one name, and thus there was a generation of wrestlers who came in who were mostly bland and uninteresting, until they changed their minds and starting hiring talented indy guys as well.

But one of the more public aspects of the fallout from Lashley was the losing streak gimmick. See, you take a guy who is getting over, whom you don’t have immediate plans/intent to use, and you give them a losing streak gimmick to cool them off (so they don’t bail), and to test them to make sure that they are dedicated and loyal and want to be there. If a wrestler sticks around through such a gimmick, they he can be trusted, and they’ll reheat them later.

Maybe.

And, of course, if they don’t get over, that’s all on the wrestler, of course. Totally their fault.

Oh, and a third question: How does the australian wrestling scene look like? What makes it different from the US or Europe? Which feds would you recommend, is there anything legal up on YouTube where you’d say: Watch this, this is the best aussie wrestling you gonna get?

Yeah, these questions always make me super popular…

*1/100 of a Chandler*

Anyway, Australian Wrestling is a real mixture of things, there are family friendly companies, hard hitting companies, hardcore companies, with guys working every style under the sun, practically. And often times, due to the talent pool, a lot of those different styles will clash as you see a lot more intermixing of talent they you might elsewhere. Although there’s a lot of companies for such a small population, the distance factor means that there’s a bunch of people who work all over the place, and then a bunch of people who just work for one or two companies. So there’s a little bit of, I don’t want to say sameness, but you’ll see the same names popping up, which isn’t a bad thing.

Plus the women down here are amazing, a lot of really awesome female talent is down here, Eagles, McKenzie, Evie, Wonderland, Skater, a lot of really strong female wrestlers are here, which is awesome.

But in terms of showing you online… That’s kinda hard. Certainly I’ve tried to show some if/when it’s come online with you, dear readers, but for the most part Aussie Wrestling is small compared to say America, so DVDs and such are more important, and thus online stuff is harder to come by. Australian Pro Wrestling Gym, a training school down here, has shows that they put up online, which can be cool, young guns learning their craft and all that.

And some talent does try and get their stuff up online a lot, Four Nations (bastards) and Bee Boy (good guy) gets his stuff up online.

But in terms of the best Aussie Wrestling, that’s not online, alas. Probably a Mick Moretti V Concrete Davidson match.

I maintain that there’s enough world class talent in Australia for one really awesome company. It’s just getting them all on the same page is kinda hard.

Come to my show on Saturday!

Shaun has a simple question.

How many times has Kevin Nash actually torn his quad?

Once that we know of. Possibly he tore it at some point as a kid or something, before he got into wrestling, but all the jokes and memes came from the one match, where, right after his return from a torn bicep, in a 10 man tag match, he tore his quad walking across the ring giving a big boot.

All of it, from that one moment.

jayzhoughton has the time consuming questions this week.

Who had the shortest time between debut in business and winning a World Title (eg NWA, WWF, AWA etc)?

Paul Wight, The Giant, Big Show, has to be the winner, as he won the WCW World Title in his first professional match. Sure, it was under dubious circumstances, and he ended up being stripped of it a week later, but it still counts. Although, to be fair, he did debut as a character on June 18th, and didn’t have his first match/win the title till October 29th. Still, four months has to be the record regardless…

Except for one guy. David Arquette debuted in wrestling on April 12, 2000. He won the WCW World Title (sigh) on April 25th that same year, the day after his first match, on the 24th.

So, depending on how you count it, it’s either Arquette or Giant.

Shortest time between WWE debut and winning WWE title?

Thankfully, someone already sorted this one out for me, you can examine the list at your leisure, but there’s a couple issues, since Pedro Morales did wrestle for the WWWF in 63, it counts Kane’s previous gimmicks, and how do you count Buddy Rogers?

So it’s either Pedro Morales or Yokozuna, depending on how you count it.

And shortest time between a gimmick change and winning a World Title (thinking more Isaac Yankem to Kane not Johnny Nitro to Morrison)?

Well that’s kinda hard to answer, based simply on what you consider a gimmick change. Does The Ringmaster to Stone Cold count? What about Rocky Maivia to The Rock? OK, they might come under Nitro to Morrison, but what about Giant to Paul Wight? Does jumping to a different company count as a gimmick change?

But JBL debuted as a persona on March 23, won the title June 27, that’s a little over three months, and I doubt you’ll get any shorter a gimmick change than that. But by all means readers, if you have one, do share.

Brandon asks about one of the many tag matches at Wrestlemania 2000.

I remember the Kane/X-Pac feud very well, it was a feud I really enjoyed, but how did it become a tag match at WrestleMania 2000? I’m just confused as to why it wasn’t settled one on one, and also, as far as it becoming a tag match with X-Pac & Road Dogg vs. Kane & Rikishi, how on earth did Rikishi come into the picture? I have looked and I cannot remember at all how Rikishi got involved.

He came in via Triple H, actually. At No Way Out, after he and Too Cool defeated the Radicals, on the next Smackdown Rikishi teamed with Rock to take on Big Show and Triple H, which Rockishi won, so the next Raw, Rikishi got a DQ win over Triple H, then on the next Smackdown Big Show and Triple H beat down Rikishi in a handicap match, which led to a six man tag match on the next Raw, where HHH, Road Dogg and X-Pac beat Rikishi and Too Cool after X-Pac hit Rikishi with a steel bell to the face. The one week later on Raw Kane and Rikishi had a match that Road Dogg and X-Pac ran into and beat up both men, which then led to the tag match.

As for why it wasn’t one on one, Kane had a broken hand, and thus couldn’t work a full singles match, so they added Road Dogg and Rikishi to hide that fact.

John has a simple enough question.

Were U2 ever linked with doing something musical with the WWF? As a kid, I always thought I remembered them being mentioned on a show. It would have possibly been around 1990.

Not to my knowledge. I looked around a bit and couldn’t find any record of anything from that time, U2, to my knowledge, was never set to play at a show or anything. Nearest they came was the Triple H Desire video.

But by all means, if a reader remembers this, do tell.

Ben wants to talk about The Undertaker.

I LOVE this column and at my age I should be doing other things like listening to symphony’s or driving a mid-life-crisis Porsche.

I have one question and apologies if it’s been asked before.

Is there any dirt on the Undertaker. Is there anyone who doesn’t like him, doesn’t think he’s all that. Is there anything he’s done that perhaps he shouldn’t etc. He seems to get so much respect, it makes me very suspicious. I’m happy if the answer is just a no and this can completely be your opinion.

There are some guys who don’t like him, or at least at some point, when asked in an interview, they’ll complain about him. But often people will come back around and profess nothing but respect and admiration and what have you.

Now, as for dirt, not really, as such. Yes, there was the pyro thing where Taker basically got the pyro guy who burned him fired-

But there’s no stories of Taker getting high and shooting a dog or yarns about Takr going on a three week cocaine bender in Mexico or anything.

What there are, instead, is stories about Taker having disagreements about booking. Taker having issues putting Brock Lesnar over immediately in 2002, his turning on Kronik after helping to bring them in during the InVasion, the DDP ‘feud’, the Punk thing…

Basically Taker, as the locker room leader that he is/was for so long, he had opinions that most people agree with, but if you’re on the wrong end of them, you tend to be pissy at the time, but usually get over it.

Speaking of getting over it, that’s the end of the column this week, sorry bout that. See you next week, where I’ll be basking in my destruction of the Four Nations, I’m quite sure…