[MM15] R1: JOHN CENA vs. HIROSHI TANAHASHI

[DylanWaco]

People who say Tanahashi has bad strikes always act as if it were self-evidently true. But what exactly is wrong with them? They don't look as impactful as Ishii and Shibata's? Well, no shit, those guys are blasting their opponents as hard as they can while Tanahashi is holding back somewhat. So who throws better worked strikes?

 

To be honest, I don't think Cena had any matches during the voting period I would consider great on their own merits, let alone better than Tanahashi's best.

 

They don't look like they would hurt anyone.  As in not even a small child.  And this in a promotion where guys no sell backdrop drivers, and build huge portions of matches around strike exchanges - Tanahashi included.

 

I actually think it is pretty self-evident that Tanahashi's strikes are bad.  I would grant that there are times where he will lay it in more and it is always noticeable when he does because they are so bad normally it's hard to miss unless you are just being obtuse.  If you want a particular example that always stands out to me, his strikes in the Ishii G1 match in 2013 were so bad, unimpactful, and lazy looking that they kept me from being able to enjoy much of it.  

 

The thing about most champions of Tanahashi I've encountered is that they can never tell you what they like about him.  Ever.  They are very quick to dismiss arguments others have about why they don't like Tanahashi or think he's overrated, but I don't know if I have ever once see someone layout a case for why they think he is a great professional wrestler that didn't consist of "he has great matches."  And to be fair it may be that he is a guy who is way better than the sum of his parts.  But at much as the Tanahashi supporters get frustrated by guys like me, that is why I get frustrated by guys like them.

 

Here are what I would point to as his positives:

 

Charisma/connection to the crowd which makes his matches feel important

Good, at times very good bumper

Is willing to take punishment, eat offense, and make people well below him in the pecking order look good and even get over on him in definitive ways.

 

Many of the negatives I see in him have already been mentioned, but I would add that I find it ridiculous how easy people are on him for doing little to nothing so often on the C-Shows.  For all the shit you can say about Cena, I have been to many house shows where he's worked, and I have never seen him phone it in the way Tanahashi does on the regular on non-big time NJPW shows.  And if Cena did do that he would be absolutely eviscerated for it, just as Michaels and Bret were years ago by hardcore fans who accused them of being lazy on house shows.  

[Matt D]

Cena exists in this tournament solely to slay Tanahashi.

EDIT: actually he's got Itami and the Suzuki/Ibushi winner ahead of him too.

[Hail Sabin]

Yeah I'm going to wait to vote to watch more Tanahashi matches and rewatch some of Cena's.

[scraylo187]

I like Cena best in tv matches against guys like Harper and Cesaro. This match against Cesaro is fucking outstanding.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmcapUn2P1E

 

Of course a match involving last year's March Madness winner was fucking outstanding. It's Cesaro.

[supremebve]

 

People who say Tanahashi has bad strikes always act as if it were self-evidently true. But what exactly is wrong with them? They don't look as impactful as Ishii and Shibata's? Well, no shit, those guys are blasting their opponents as hard as they can while Tanahashi is holding back somewhat. So who throws better worked strikes?

 

To be honest, I don't think Cena had any matches during the voting period I would consider great on their own merits, let alone better than Tanahashi's best.

 

They don't look like they would hurt anyone.  As in not even a small child.  And this in a promotion where guys no sell backdrop drivers, and build huge portions of matches around strike exchanges - Tanahashi included.

 

I actually think it is pretty self-evident that Tanahashi's strikes are bad.  I would grant that there are times where he will lay it in more and it is always noticeable when he does because they are so bad normally it's hard to miss unless you are just being obtuse.  If you want a particular example that always stands out to me, his strikes in the Ishii G1 match in 2013 were so bad, unimpactful, and lazy looking that they kept me from being able to enjoy much of it.  

 

The thing about most champions of Tanahashi I've encountered is that they can never tell you what they like about him.  Ever.  They are very quick to dismiss arguments others have about why they don't like Tanahashi or think he's overrated, but I don't know if I have ever once see someone layout a case for why they think he is a great professional wrestler that didn't consist of "he has great matches."  And to be fair it may be that he is a guy who is way better than the sum of his parts.  But at much as the Tanahashi supporters get frustrated by guys like me, that is why I get frustrated by guys like them.

 

Here are what I would point to as his positives:

 

Charisma/connection to the crowd which makes his matches feel important

Good, at times very good bumper

Is willing to take punishment, eat offense, and make people well below him in the pecking order look good and even get over on him in definitive ways.

 

Many of the negatives I see in him have already been mentioned, but I would add that I find it ridiculous how easy people are on him for doing little to nothing so often on the C-Shows.  For all the shit you can say about Cena, I have been to many house shows where he's worked, and I have never seen him phone it in the way Tanahashi does on the regular on non-big time NJPW shows.  And if Cena did do that he would be absolutely eviscerated for it, just as Michaels and Bret were years ago by hardcore fans who accused them of being lazy on house shows.  

 

This is a very good case that is also the exact opposite of how I feel about Tanahashi, and Cena for that matter.  I don't care what someone does in order to make a match great as long as the match is great.  It is kind of like I can enjoy a hamburger in french fries just as much as I enjoy a gourmet meal.  It doesn't matter if the tomato that tops the burger is cut unevenly if it adds to the taste of the burger.  I don't care if the fries are cooked in duck fat or vegetable oil as long as they're deliciously crisp on the outside and soft on the inside.   Those guys consistently put on good to great matches with a wide variety of opponents.  Neither guy is a super worker, but they know how to make their matches feel important better than anyone else in the world.  They are in the positions they are in based on the fact that when they are called on to perform on the highest level they do not disappoint.  They are the guys you hitch you wagon to and know that you are going to get to your destination safely.  They aren't the high performance cars that are going to wow you with their speed and precision.  They aren't luxury cars that leave you in awe of their sleek lines and the comfort of their ride.  They are the old reliable Hondas and Toyotas that you can drive for hundreds of thousands of miles, despite the fact that they get where you are going a little slower and bumpier than their more exciting counterparts.  The hard part of this matchup is that they are are different guys playing the exact same role and doing it in a very similar way.

[Jiji]

I thought Tanahashi's use of dragon screw leg whips to ground Okada for the High Fly Flow at WK9 showed more in-ring psychology and storytelling than anything John Cena has ever done. His use of Fujinami and Strong Style inspired offense to take out some guy trained by Ultimo Dragon (and thus not a true born) was brilliant.

[Big Fresh]

I like Tanahashi. But he ain't on Cena's level.

[SirSmUgly]

Yeah man, fuck this, Cena's better than Tanahashi. The people arguing in support of Cena are right. 

[Niners Fan in CT]

 

So far, I've seen a lot of Tanahashi loathing going on (Dylan calling him a "fraud" is pretty funny). Could I get some actual criticisms of his work? I'm not his biggest fan, not by a long shot, but he had some great matches the past 12 months that blow Cena's top end stuff out of the water. I enjoy Cena the in-ring wrestler a great deal but sitting through his promos are a chore and I hate his character. He had a good year but not nearly his best.

 

Here are some of the reasons why I'm not Tanahashi's biggest fan: shitty strikes, lacks passion in the ring, shoddy psychology at times, inconsistent selling. What else am I missing? 

 

I think Tanahashi is a really poor ace.  

 

Isn't he pretty much the whole reason behind NJPW's turnaround? 

[Raziel]

 

 

So far, I've seen a lot of Tanahashi loathing going on (Dylan calling him a "fraud" is pretty funny). Could I get some actual criticisms of his work? I'm not his biggest fan, not by a long shot, but he had some great matches the past 12 months that blow Cena's top end stuff out of the water. I enjoy Cena the in-ring wrestler a great deal but sitting through his promos are a chore and I hate his character. He had a good year but not nearly his best.

 

Here are some of the reasons why I'm not Tanahashi's biggest fan: shitty strikes, lacks passion in the ring, shoddy psychology at times, inconsistent selling. What else am I missing? 

 

I think Tanahashi is a really poor ace.  

 

Isn't he pretty much the whole reason behind NJPW's turnaround? 

 

Him and Nakamura growing the best personality ever, along with Jado and Gedo booking, yeah.

[DylanWaco]

Tanahashi was the top star of NJPW during the promotions historic lowpoint in terms of drawing.  

 

The turnaround started right around the time Okada started to be pushed as a top guy and rival to Tanahashi.  It's also worth noting that the "turnaround" itself has been heavily exaggerated in some quarters.  

 

In no way am I saying that Tanahashi deserves no credit for his role in the current business success of NJPW.  I'm not even saying he's NOT the top guy in the promotion.  But the narrative of Tanahashi as the savior of NJPW that you see some places is based on a very selective reading of his history as a draw, and the timeline of when things turned around.  

 

Tanahashi needed a rival that connected with the audience.  He got that in Okada, right around the same time that Nakamura turned into the most charismatic worker on Earth, the company opened up a massively successful revenue stream with IPPV, and the Gedo/Jado booking team started to really deliver.  

 

Of course none of this really has to do with my point which was about my view of him as a working ace, but yeah. 

[Niners Fan in CT]

I understand what you are saying but something has to be said for a guy who the live audiences definitely buy as an ace. I'm not sure even I see it. I'm higher on his body of work than a lot of people in this discussion but he's probably not a top ten favorite of mine within NJPW. Regardless, many people do buy him as the man and that's the same kind of argument we have with Daniel Bryan. The audience buys Bryan. He should be given the reins, no pun. But with Tanahashi, I kind of have to bite the bullet and say "well, maybe he should be the man" because so many people do view him as such. 

 

I'm rambling but it's getting late. Screw it. I voted Tanahashi because this was Cena's worst year in quite some time and match for match I think Tanahashi had the better year. Neither is a favorite of mine to win this.

[Cristobal]

If it wasn't a pun, then you mean "reins".

[Niners Fan in CT]

Yes. Forgive me. I've typed the word "Reigns" a billion times since January. It's all I know.

[Brian Fowler]

I haven't watched the Tanahashi stuff recommended to me yet, so I'm not going to vote (Sunday I hope to get to it) but I'm not sure how this was Cena's worst year in years.  He had classics with Brock, Bray, Brock and Rollins, and Rusev without me even having to think about it.

[DylanWaco]

Brian, I am not a Tanahashi fan, but I would recommend you watch the Shibata match from the G1 and the rematch from later i the year (which I didn't particularly care for, but Meltzer and hardcore Tanahashi fans seem to have loved it), last years Invasion Attack match v. Nakamura, the Okada match from WK9 (another one I think has been wildly overrated in some quarters, but it was good), and the match with Styles from New Beginning (which I thought was actually underrated and one of the better Tanahashi performances I've ever seen).  

 

Even though vote rigging means I voted for him, I don't think he was as good as Cena last year, but he had some stuff worth watching and commenting on.  

[mattdangerously]

It took him a while to find his groove after coming back from the arm injury. There was a long stretch where he wasn't producing anything special. His Wrestlemania match against Bray wasn't as bad as some people say, but it wasn't as good as you would hope a Cena WM match would be. The cage match the next month was fucking terrible. It wasn't until the Last Man Standing match that it seemed like Cena was firing on all cylinders again. Really, Cena's "worst year" is still a pretty decent year overall, relatively speaking.

[Brian Fowler]

Brian, I am not a Tanahashi fan, but I would recommend you watch the Shibata match from the G1 and the rematch from later i the year (which I didn't particularly care for, but Meltzer and hardcore Tanahashi fans seem to have loved it), last years Invasion Attack match v. Nakamura, the Okada match from WK9 (another one I think has been wildly overrated in some quarters, but it was good), and the match with Styles from New Beginning (which I thought was actually underrated and one of the better Tanahashi performances I've ever seen).  

 

Even though vote rigging means I voted for him, I don't think he was as good as Cena last year, but he had some stuff worth watching and commenting on.  

 

Thing is, I won't vote without giving Tanahashi a fair shake, but it's hard to imagine he's going to get my vote, because, as I think I've articulated, I think Cena should win this whole damn tournament.

[DylanWaco]

I actually thought the Mania match with Bray was good, but the wrong guy won and that means it left most people with a terrible taste in their mouths.  

 

One thing I will say is that I think it is perfectly fair to rip Cena for that Bray feud, as he should have insisted Bray go over at Mania, or at least win the feud definitively (and if you don't think Cena has that kind of clout you are nuts).  I'm not even a Bray fan, but they had something there, and the way that feud went hurt him badly, to the point that he was worse off coming off a feud with the companies top star than he was coming in.

 

That said if we are going to rip Cena for that feud, and for not hitting as many home runs as he did in his best years, Tanahashi should be held to the same standard.  In other words, the fact that Tanahashi coasts or goes on cruise control on almost every non-major show he's on should be criticized (Cena couldn't even do this if he wanted to given the nature of WWE television) at minimum.  I also think it's interesting that I don't know of a single person who watched the G1 who thought Tanahashi was one of the top tier performers in that tournament, which isn't in and of itself an indictment of him, but it suggests that on a level playing field he doesn't stand out from his NJPW peers very much.

[DylanWaco]

 

Brian, I am not a Tanahashi fan, but I would recommend you watch the Shibata match from the G1 and the rematch from later i the year (which I didn't particularly care for, but Meltzer and hardcore Tanahashi fans seem to have loved it), last years Invasion Attack match v. Nakamura, the Okada match from WK9 (another one I think has been wildly overrated in some quarters, but it was good), and the match with Styles from New Beginning (which I thought was actually underrated and one of the better Tanahashi performances I've ever seen).  

 

Even though vote rigging means I voted for him, I don't think he was as good as Cena last year, but he had some stuff worth watching and commenting on.  

 

Thing is, I won't vote without giving Tanahashi a fair shake, but it's hard to imagine he's going to get my vote, because, as I think I've articulated, I think Cena should win this whole damn tournament.

 

 

You are far more bullish on Cena than I am, but Cena does have some great performances in the period.  And while the Shibata mauling of Tanahashi in the G1 was cited as a great example of a top guy taking it on the chin to help put over another guy, that match has absolutely nothing on Cena allowing himself to be squashed by Brock for the title.  

 

I mean...I can't see any argument for Cena winning the whole thing to be honest, but most of my top picks have no chance in hell, so who knows who I will be voting for down the stretch of this. 

[Brian Fowler]

Cena is in at least four of my ten favorite matches of the period, maybe five. 

 

But that's as much a function of Cena being my favorite in-ring performer as it is the reason Cena is my favorite blah blah blah

 

(The two Brock matches, the triple threat, and the Rusev match, with the LMS with Bray being the maybe.)

[NintendoLogic]

 

People who say Tanahashi has bad strikes always act as if it were self-evidently true. But what exactly is wrong with them? They don't look as impactful as Ishii and Shibata's? Well, no shit, those guys are blasting their opponents as hard as they can while Tanahashi is holding back somewhat. So who throws better worked strikes?

 

To be honest, I don't think Cena had any matches during the voting period I would consider great on their own merits, let alone better than Tanahashi's best.

 

They don't look like they would hurt anyone.  As in not even a small child.  And this in a promotion where guys no sell backdrop drivers, and build huge portions of matches around strike exchanges - Tanahashi included.

 

I actually think it is pretty self-evident that Tanahashi's strikes are bad.  I would grant that there are times where he will lay it in more and it is always noticeable when he does because they are so bad normally it's hard to miss unless you are just being obtuse.  If you want a particular example that always stands out to me, his strikes in the Ishii G1 match in 2013 were so bad, unimpactful, and lazy looking that they kept me from being able to enjoy much of it.

 

Which brings me back to my question: who throws better worked strikes? All the guys cited as having good strikes are guys who lay it in-that is, hit the other guy for real. Is it simply not possible to have good-looking worked strikes?

 

 

The thing about most champions of Tanahashi I've encountered is that they can never tell you what they like about him.  Ever.  They are very quick to dismiss arguments others have about why they don't like Tanahashi or think he's overrated, but I don't know if I have ever once see someone layout a case for why they think he is a great professional wrestler that didn't consist of "he has great matches."  And to be fair it may be that he is a guy who is way better than the sum of his parts.  But at much as the Tanahashi supporters get frustrated by guys like me, that is why I get frustrated by guys like them.

 

This is bullshit and you know it. Plenty of people have pointed to his ability to structure a match, which is arguably the most important quality a wrestler can have. By contrast, Cena has everything laid out for him by his opponent and agents, so all he has to do is execute. And half the time, he can't even do that properly.

 

 

Many of the negatives I see in him have already been mentioned, but I would add that I find it ridiculous how easy people are on him for doing little to nothing so often on the C-Shows.  For all the shit you can say about Cena, I have been to many house shows where he's worked, and I have never seen him phone it in the way Tanahashi does on the regular on non-big time NJPW shows.  And if Cena did do that he would be absolutely eviscerated for it, just as Michaels and Bret were years ago by hardcore fans who accused them of being lazy on house shows.

 

I think I've been consistent in not particularly caring if a guy mails it in on small shows. If you're great when you want to be, you're great.

 

Also, I just want to say that calling the Bray, Brock, and Rusev matches classics strikes me as insane. I don't mean that it's an opinion I vehemently disagree with. I mean that if you believe that, you literally suffer from mental illness and need to be committed before you eat someone's face.

[Brian Fowler]

Yes, that's a perfectly logical conclusion to draw. 

[DylanWaco]

 

 

People who say Tanahashi has bad strikes always act as if it were self-evidently true. But what exactly is wrong with them? They don't look as impactful as Ishii and Shibata's? Well, no shit, those guys are blasting their opponents as hard as they can while Tanahashi is holding back somewhat. So who throws better worked strikes?

 

To be honest, I don't think Cena had any matches during the voting period I would consider great on their own merits, let alone better than Tanahashi's best.

 

They don't look like they would hurt anyone.  As in not even a small child.  And this in a promotion where guys no sell backdrop drivers, and build huge portions of matches around strike exchanges - Tanahashi included.

 

I actually think it is pretty self-evident that Tanahashi's strikes are bad.  I would grant that there are times where he will lay it in more and it is always noticeable when he does because they are so bad normally it's hard to miss unless you are just being obtuse.  If you want a particular example that always stands out to me, his strikes in the Ishii G1 match in 2013 were so bad, unimpactful, and lazy looking that they kept me from being able to enjoy much of it.

 

Which brings me back to my question: who throws better worked strikes? All the guys cited as having good strikes are guys who lay it in-that is, hit the other guy for real. Is it simply not possible to have good-looking worked strikes?

 

 

The thing about most champions of Tanahashi I've encountered is that they can never tell you what they like about him.  Ever.  They are very quick to dismiss arguments others have about why they don't like Tanahashi or think he's overrated, but I don't know if I have ever once see someone layout a case for why they think he is a great professional wrestler that didn't consist of "he has great matches."  And to be fair it may be that he is a guy who is way better than the sum of his parts.  But at much as the Tanahashi supporters get frustrated by guys like me, that is why I get frustrated by guys like them.

 

This is bullshit and you know it. Plenty of people have pointed to his ability to structure a match, which is arguably the most important quality a wrestler can have. By contrast, Cena has everything laid out for him by his opponent and agents, so all he has to do is execute. And half the time, he can't even do that properly.

 

 

Many of the negatives I see in him have already been mentioned, but I would add that I find it ridiculous how easy people are on him for doing little to nothing so often on the C-Shows.  For all the shit you can say about Cena, I have been to many house shows where he's worked, and I have never seen him phone it in the way Tanahashi does on the regular on non-big time NJPW shows.  And if Cena did do that he would be absolutely eviscerated for it, just as Michaels and Bret were years ago by hardcore fans who accused them of being lazy on house shows.

 

I think I've been consistent in not particularly caring if a guy mails it in on small shows. If you're great when you want to be, you're great.

 

Also, I just want to say that calling the Bray, Brock, and Rusev matches classics strikes me as insane. I don't mean that it's an opinion I vehemently disagree with. I mean that if you believe that, you literally suffer from mental illness and need to be committed before you eat someone's face.

 

 

On the subject of good looking strikes you don't have to lay it in, but you do have to work snug enough where the strike in question looks like it has some impact. Tanahashi rarely does this.  To take one example Nikki Bella throws a mean looking forearm.  I have no clue if she is concussing people every time out, but I find that to be highly unlikely.  My guess is she works snug, but doesn't brutalize people.  Tanahashi forearm strikes are not even close to the level of Nikki Bella.  

 

On your second point, it's absolutely not bullshit, it's a fact, as you well know.  I have asked some of the biggest Tanahashi fans on the net in polite and direct manners what is they like about him, and more often than not the response is "he has great matches," followed by them calling me an asshole, a dick, et. for daring to even ask the question.  The structure argument is something that I have seen tossed around in the last year or so, and was something I first saw mentioned by people who weren't particularly high on Tanahashi, but were trying to point to his positives.  

 

On the last point I assume it was directed at Brian and not me.  Having said that, my experience is that a substantial portion of the Tanahashi fan boy club is populated by people who have seen no more than a handful of his matches, and parrot the opinions of others so that they don't feel out of touch.  Before you cry that I'm defaming you, I would note that I'm not referring to you directly, but rather the sort of people I've had conversations with who tell me all about their favorite Tanahashi matches, without telling me a single thing that happened in the match, or being able to name a single opponent of note beyond Okada and maybe Nakamura.  Or the people who claim he is the level of star that Hashimoto and Choshu were because hey, "I read the Observer."  Or the guys who voted "Takahashi" for the Hall of Fame because "he's sold out the Tokyo Dome several times."  

 

What's the point of this?  The point is that I may not agree that all or any of those Cena matches are classics, but when it comes to being frauds, liars, phonies, the perpetually ignorant, and delusional psychotics - or to put it your way those who "need to be committed before" they "eat someone's face" - I'm not sure the hardcore Tanahashi apologists should be pointing fingers at the hardcore Cena apologists. 

 

At the end of the day I'd rather discuss the matches and the workers on their merits.  And I think there is something to be said for the argument that Tanahashi  (and Cena) may be better than the sum of his parts.  But if this is about "picking sides" I'll cast my lot with the Cena fans 1,000 out of 1,000 times.  

[Big Fresh]

Shit. I just ate someone's face.

 

WE SHOULD HAVE LISTENED!!!!