Forgotten Favorites 08.03.10: SummerSlam 2005 – John Cena vs. Chris Jericho

Welcome back, wrestling fans. With the second biggest show of the year right around the corner, we’re getting into SummerSlam mode here at Forgotten Favorites.

This week we’re turning the clock back five years to look at two guys who will (surprise surprise) be joining forces at this year’s SummerSlam. They may be tag team partners in their efforts against the Nexus, but some years ago they were doing battle head-to-head for the top prize in World Wrestling Entertainment.

It’s a quicker read than usual this week, but it still packs its regular punch. And if you disagree, well … you’re probably wrong.

So … who wants great wrestling?

SummerSlam – August 21, 2005
WWE Championship
John Cena vs. Chris Jericho

WHY IT SHOULD BE REMEMBERED

The USA Network, the televised home for Monday Night Raw for the majority of the program’s existence, recently went through a re-branding phase within the last couple of years. Their new tagline, Characters Welcome, places an emphasis on the unique and eccentric personalities that populate the variety of shows available for your viewing pleasure on USA. Be it the rugged police officers of the 89th Law & Order spin-off, the super sexy secret agents on one of the many super sexy secret agent shows, or the larger-than-life WWE Superstars themselves, USA prides itself on offering a multitude of relatable yet out-of-this-world characters that hook viewers and keep them wanting more.

Now, my own personal opinions of USA’s programming aside (Raw is basically all I watch on USA, although Burn Notice can pass the time nicely sometimes), I am still very much a fan of their most recent character-focused marketing campaign. For a story to be entertaining, exciting, heartwrenching, or to grab the viewer (consumer?) on any kind of emotional level, the characters within the story must be interesting. No matter if it’s a film, television show, or even a wrestling angle, the coolest, most clever story or plotline in the world will inevitably fall flat on its face if the characters don’t pull their weight. The first Resident Evil movie had what I thought was a bangin’ concept, and yet it’s a movie I will never cease to dump on for its total negligence of any kind of character establishment/development. On the other side of the zombie spectrum, you’ve got the original Night of the Living Dead, which (in this writer’s opinion) is quite possibly the most brilliant flesh-eating ghoul film ever made, simply because the characters were so well defined. A movie that — on its most basic level — is about people fleeing from dead people becomes something much more, delivering commentary on race, class structure, human instinct/survival, and a whole lot more. All of this is owed to the well written and executed interaction of believable and enthralling characters.

One of the joys of watching pro wrestling over the course of many years — and something which I’ve only recently come to appreciate within the last couple of years — is that we as viewers are constantly witnessing the development of these characters inside the ring. It didn’t hit home until I sat back and thought about all of the names I’ve seen come and go, along with guys I’ve watched get elevated from complete obscurity into World Championship material. Last week’s discussion of Evolution is a perfect example, as Batista and Randy Orton are two guys I’ve kept tabs on from OVW to their WWE debuts to their eventual WrestleMania main event spots. Of course, I realize that many of my readers have been watching far longer than I have, and a lot of you have probably witnessed far more careers from start to finish than I have, but you get the idea. When you watch a wrestler from his debut all the way up to the greatest successes possible in the business, you are there every step of the way with his hits and misses. Randy Orton is seven years my senior, and yet I almost feel like I’ve grown up with him over the years, having watched him go from plucky young babyface to RNN to Legend Killer to Viper. As his character developed, as he “grew up,” so did I.

Then there’s another guy who, despite being even older than Orton, is someone else who I — and all other fans — have matured and gotten older with, from his televised debut all the way up to his total domination of the business. You might have heard of him.

Slightly more relevant than, say, Rene Dupree.

I can remember John Cena’s debut like it was yesterday. I can also remember the first thing that crossed my mind upon the arrival of his then-utterly-bland Ruthless Aggression-crazed character, “So this is the Prototype guy?” Indeed, I was not very impressed. Yeah, he had some skills inside the ring and looked better-than-average (in comparison to most others’ debut matches; of course he did wrestle Kurt Angle though), but he didn’t win me over with any kind of incredibly unique personality. Athletically impressive, yet lacking in charisma, Cena was your typical John Q. Wrestler at the time of his debut.

Over the years, we fans have watched John Cena develop from generic white-meat babyface to generic “I’m angry!” heel to cartoonish heel rapper to prayer-and-vitamins-crazy Super Cena. And while he hasn’t always been my favorite wrestler (or the favorite of the IWC, at least in recent years) the fact that I’ve witnessed the evolution of this character over so many years makes me feel a certain connection with his career that I don’t have with certain other stars. The Undertaker, for example, is a guy who was lacing up his boots long before I first tuned into Raw Is War, and thus, while he’s a character whose backstory and history I’ve more than brushed up on, he’s still someone that I could never claim the same kind of attachment that I have with characters like Cena or Orton. With the latter two, I’ve seen the ups and downs of their careers, from title division to title division, well aware of each feud and rivalry that they’ve had along the way.

And here we lead into the other enjoyable part of following a wrestler’s career from his debut all the way to the top. With Cena, for example, I’ve been there to witness all of his feuds and interactions with other stars of the WWE, from the battle rap with Rikishi to the upset tournament victory that led him to Brock Lesnar to his eventual ascent to the top of the mountain against JBL. Going along with Cena for the ride, not only do fans get to enjoy the novelty of his first time match-ups, but there’s the added historical flavor that longtime fans are also able to enjoy when rivalries are revisited. If you were watching when Cena debuted against Kurt Angle back in 2002, then you were also enjoying an added layer to their later WWE Title matches in 2005, having watched Cena go from no-name kid hoping to upset Angle to defending Champ looking to add another notch on his belt with a title defense over the Olympian.

One battle out of the many.

Such is the case when we look at the years-long rivalry between John Cena and another of the modern era’s most successful World Champions. Cena’s debut saw him get right into the thick of things with Kurt Angle, but the first official feud that he was involved in was against the tag team partner that Codebreakered (Codebroke?) him this past week on Raw. One week after Cena debuted in a losing effort against Angle, he stepped into the ring with one half of that year’s WrestleMania main event, Chris Jericho.

The rivalry between the newcomer and the first Undisputed Champion kept up for a couple of weeks, where the two frequently mixed it up on the E’s blue brand. Everything culminated in Cena’s PPV debut at Vengeance, where he scored the biggest upset of his career to that point, earning a victory over Chris Jericho. While Jericho gets a lot of credit these days for putting over the younger talent and the new generation, it’s nothing new for the former Y2J, who’s been a tried and true company man for as long as WWE has been signing his paychecks.

And while this was their first series of confrontations, it was far from the last. Three years later, when the Draft Lottery led to Cena becoming a permanent member of the RAW roster, it was Chris Jericho who first welcomed the Doctor of Thuganomics to the show.

And so these characters’ careers crossed paths once again, this time on the Raw brand, and this time with both men playing the role of the hero. Well … at least for a little while ..

Following a tag team match that saw Cena and Jericho join forces against Christian and Tyson Tomko, Y2J revealed his true gold-loving colors in a vicious attack on the WWE Champion. His goal? Impressing then Raw General Manager Eric Bischoff enough to earn himself a shot at Cena’s WWE Title. Lucky for Jericho, Bischoff delighted in seeing his least favorite Raw roster member being brutalized, and thus Jericho was inserted into what was then a Christian vs. Cena matchup at the upcoming Vengeance PPV. While the Triple Threat match ended up being a successful title defense for Cena, the seeds had been planted for a reborn rivalry between the Champ and the man he earned his first PPV victory over. Jericho, hell bent on proving himself as a living legend and a guy who still deserved to be at the top, went on a path of heelish destruction in the weeks leading up to his one-on-one SummerSlam title shot against Cena.

And so the characters continued to evolve. While Jericho had played the traditional heel leading to SummerSlam and Cena played the face, the fans took a different direction when SummerSlam rolled around. In one of the first occurrences of WWE fans turning against the most recent company-endorsed hero, the live SummerSlam crowd was seriously divided on their favored competitor on that night.

Now here we are five years later, and the development of these characters hasn’t stopped in the least. Cena is worlds away from the character he was in 2005, and even more dramatically removed from the generic dude he was when he debuted back in 2002. Similarly, Jericho has moved on from the Ayatollah of Rock and Rolla to become the business-suit-wearing, extensive-vocabulary-abusing douchebag that we’ve all come to love. The characters continue to evolve, develop, and grow, yet with hints of the past always present in their interactions.

If we take this even further and look at the upcoming SummerSlam, we get even more added to the big seven-on-seven tag when we keep all of this history in mind. Yeah, recent fans might figure that Jericho and Cena should be wary of each other as partners considering they mixed it up over the World Title not long ago; but long-time fans know that there’s more to the story than that. It’s not just the confrontations they had within the last two years that should make Cena hesitant to trust Y2J; it’s the past eight years as well.

With all of the negativity floating around the IWC, I feel it’s my duty to try and point to the good things about being a fan, and I think this is one of those cases. Let’s not forget that before we all became armchair bookers, we were all just fans of a form of incredibly unique entertainment. And there’d be no entertainment to keep us hooked in if it weren’t for the characters that we’ve latched on to along the way. So when you’re looking at the SummerSlam card, and you’re thinking that throwing Cena and Jericho together in one match is a waste, try and remember all of the history you’ve witnessed between these two guys. Remember that this is just another chapter in these characters’ development, and it’s only going to add more intrigue and interest when all of these characters meet up again in the future.

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BONUS MATCH(!)

Vengeance – July 21, 2002
Chris Jericho vs. John Cena

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Feedback! (or, the Backfeeding!)

You said the C**** B***** word! IM TELLIN!

Posted By: AG Awesome

411 gave me no recess for a whole week.

I was actually at this show and remember everyone kept checking the time since the show went WAAAY over the normal time. The show itself wasn’t decent, but this match really put it over the top.

Posted By: TraceAber

Lawler mentions at some point near the end that they’re at twenty minutes past the hour. TV matches going above and beyond what’s expected are beautiful things. I think this one ranks up there with HBK and Cena’s near-hour WrestleMania rematch.

not to seem like an asshole because we may never know what the future holds, but I can’t see half off the Nexus being more then mid-carders

Posted By: Guest#9049

I think Slater, Young, and Tarver are a few steps behind their colleagues in their development, but it’s still early on for everybody. Barrett, Gabriel, and Sheffield are looking like money already, and Otunga will be right there with them if he can clean up his work inside the ring. At least that’s my opinion at this time.

I am sorry, but I cannot get into anything that has that disgraceful human being, Chris Benoit, in the column.

How anyone can still watch or support any video that features Benoit is beyond me. Benoit is a monster and is a horrible human being and should NEVER be praised for being a wrestler.

Chris Benoit does not deserve praise for his wrestling career…He should be spending his eternal life begging for forgiveness for the crime he committed.

I am sorry but that is how I feel.

Posted By: Dan Connor

Benoit has eternal life? I knew he faked his death!

I’d deliver an actual rebuttal but it’s clear that you didn’t even read the column last week. If you did, you might have noticed that I didn’t praise Benoit at any point, and I have, over the course of several columns, condemned his soul. Word.

i just read the comment that mentioned the team of Hurricane and Kane and i was wondering if they had any forgotten favorites besides the RAW TLC

Posted By: laparkinator

None that are coming to mind. The team didn’t last all that long from what I remember, and Katie Vick outweighed everything else in importance.

child murderer kills another legacy

Posted By: shabba

Legacy is actually alright considering they were post-Benoit. I was actually talking about Evolution. JK LOL OMGZ LMAO!!!

Great points about Benoit and the consequences of attempting to “erase” him from history. I, for one, have avoided buying recent WWE retrospective-type DVDs because by ignoring Benoit matches, they ignore matches from many of my favorite performers: Austin, Jericho, Angle, Michaels, etc.

The beauty of the DVD is that if someone is inclined to skip a Benoit match, we can skip it, plain and simple. Let’s not dump away others’ legacies for the sake of one manes horrible mistakes.

Posted By: Jareth

As for my personal taste, I still avoid anything that heavily features Benoit. I don’t particularly enjoy watching the guy wrestle all that much anymore (especially any kind of bumps he takes to the head), but it makes sense to me that others may feel different. One on one matches involving Benoit are of no interest to me, but something like last week’s match, where it’s a multi-man environment and the focus is on other stars, I’m more likely to actually go back and check out.

It seemed like every Raw in early/mid ’04 ended in an Evolution tag match of some sorts. I’m not complaining, cos they were always against the likes of Michaels, Edge, Benoit, Jericho, Benjamin, etc., and always kicked ass, but it was very one-track. And it was lightyears ahead of every TV main event featuring Austin and a pre-JBL-Bradshaw taking on the nWo two years prior.

Funny enough, they did seven-on-seven (fourteen-man?) just last night but went about it all wrong. It did more to hurt the team who lost 7-zilch (including Evan “Derailed Push” Bourne and the goddamn TAG TEAM CHAMPIONS OF THE WORLLLLLLLLLD) than put over Nexus.

Posted By: neverAcquiesce

The Wrestling Gods work in mysterious ways. I posted last week’s column to 411 not long before Raw had begun, and Bah Gawd I halfway ended up predicting the future. I don’t have a strong opinion one way or the other on Raw’s elimination tag; I think it was a step forward for Nexus, albeit still not any kind of major progress in establishing each individual guy. As for their opponents last Monday, I don’t see the loss hurting them too much, considering the Nexus is being built as a devastating force when all members are united, and thus it stands to reason that seven guys used to working together will fare better than seven guys put together out of the blue. I’ve got a feeling (a feeling deep inside) that SummerSlam is the make-or-break situation for the Nexus. On that night we’ll have a much better understanding of just how serious WWE is taking this angle, along with how long they plan to keep it running.

When they started, they had 16+

When they started Evolution, these four men had 22 World Championship reigns between them. Now the figure is 41. I think you’re right to say they made it 😀

IMO, Evolution really was one of the last great stables.

Posted By: ausjimmy

If you ask me, they were the last great stable. I might be drawing a major blank here, but I can’t remember any stable of the modern era that’s had anything anywhere close to the starmaking success of Evolution. Batista and Randy Orton were nothing when they joined and each ended up leaving the group with the World Heavyweight Championship. Fast a few years down the road and these guys have taken their spots as faces of the company, becoming two of the most advertised and spotlighted stars of the post-Attitude Era.

I still don’t understand to this day why the people immediately booed Angle after the Invasion and cheered Austin. Because Angle was a little more cocky than usual or something? Hell he saved the WWE at Survivor Series, I’d be more cocky than usual too. Maybe he did other stuff on that Raw I can’t seem to remember.

Ah, the year 2004, the year full of great matches. Jericho vs. Orton for the IC title, any match with Benoit and Flair because they chopped the holy mother of God out of each other, Christian vs. Jericho in a steel cage, Michaels vs. Benoit, etc. You need a Forgotten Year: 2004….and because of Benoit being champion that year, we know why it’s forgotten.

Posted By: BR

Raw in 2004 was da bomb, yo. This was back when I cared enough (/wrestling was consistently good enough) to tape matches, and I thank the gods that I still have my VCR. Raw had a stacked roster in 2004, and Evolution was such a hot storyline that it bled over into everything over the course of the entire year. Not all the greatness featured Evolution, but a whole lot of it did.

Just the other day, I was thinking about how awesome it was that we had an “overtime” match on RAW. It had a semi-realistic tone to it, in that matches don’t always end at the strike of 11:00.

Posted By: Jeff

I’d love for them to pull out another surprise with Raw running seriously overtime for a badass match, but the last few years have not been kind in that respect. Until Raw’s focus goes back to delivering great wrestling matches, we may have to hold our breath on this one.

Please use CM Punk vs Elijah Burke from Judgement Day 2007 for a forgotten favorite.Trust me it is a great match.

Posted By: Guest#7242

I do plan to cover one of Punk and Burke’s ECW matches at some point. These two had a great series of matches a couple of years ago and any of them would qualify as a legit Forgotten Favorite.

i think ,and please someone correct me if I’m wrong, that this was meant to be the start of Edge slowly ploughing thru evolution….if only amy dumas hadn’t been a super slut

Posted By: Rosie

Lita’s alleged super slut powers wouldn’t be activated until the following year. Yeah, these slut powers were what helped Edge in really becoming over the top, er, over, but the dude had been playing the heel since late in ’04. It really wasn’t too much longer after that Six Man Tag that fans started turning on Edge for being the major lameness, and he was transitioned into the crazy hair-pulling guy we know him as today.

I was actually at this show and remember everyone kept checking the time since the show went WAAAY over the normal time. The show itself wasn’t decent, but this match really put it over the top.

Posted By: TraceAber

also the same night hbk was taken out by kane. plus the show went waaay over because raw aired a long-ass joe shmo show preview…

Posted By: i think

Not sure about the Joe Schmo Show stuff, but that HBK and Kane stuff definitely went down on the same night. A great night of Raw, but then again there were many in 2004.

On top of Team Austin vs Team Bischoff which you referenced at one point a few weeks ago, I think Evolution vs. The Rock & Foley and Kurt Angle vs. Eddie Guerrero from WMXX need to be talked about again. Seems like everyone’s forgotten about them.

Posted By: SHADE

Two matches that certainly don’t get the credit they deserve. Whether or not they’re as forgotten as some of the other matches I’ve covered … well, I’m going to have to do the contemplating on that one. I’m curious to hear what you guys think about this.

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Well, that’s going to do it for this week. As always, stay safe, and avoid the damnation of Dundalk at all costs.