JonnyLaw Posted March 18, 2015 Share Posted March 18, 2015 I am ready for the end of Cena as mega-babyface ace of WWE. I hate how he'll kinda no-sell towards the end of a match after taking damage and end the match with his loose STF or a sloppy AA. I am beyond tired of the way he goes "yeah, I lost, so what" after losing. That said, I've come to begrudgingly admit that he is really good at drawing me into his matches. I think he's probably a better wrestler than Sami Zayn is at this point. But I go out of my way to watch Sami Zayn. As has already been discussed, his win over Neville had people about as emotionally invested in a match as possible given the current WWE landscape, outside of #yestlemania. I voted Zayn. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Godfrey Posted March 18, 2015 Share Posted March 18, 2015 On March 1st, I would've voted Zayn in a heartbeat. But because of this tournament I've been seeing such great Cena matches that now I have no idea who to vote for. I never thought I would say that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JRGoldman Posted March 18, 2015 Share Posted March 18, 2015 I think if you just look at match quality, it's a lot closer than the voting would suggest. I just feel like i'd already seen what Cena had to offer at this point. Like, how is this year for him noteworthy? We all point to the absolute shit kicking he took from Brock, but he got his ass handed to him by Brock at Extreme Rules a few years ago, and that match was better. The Rusev feud has been a breath of fresh air because he hasn't made a poop joke yet, I guess. Don't get me wrong, a lot of what he has been involved in has been great. I just feel like I've seen it before. Zayn looked great all year, but more importantly he felt new. I would watch a match or segment with Zayn, and I didn't always know where it was going. In an otherwise even match up, that ability to keep me guessing and keep me interested puts Zayn comfortably ahead. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OSJ Posted March 18, 2015 Share Posted March 18, 2015 I think Goldman nailed it. If Cena wasn't being stuffed down my throat every Monday his great matches would have seemed more special, as it is, over-familiarity breeds contempt and as good as Cena is, I don't feel compelled to sit and watch to see what's going to happen, I know what's going to happen and I know what the post-match interview will sound like and it's too bad because Cena is a pretty talented guy, he certainly isn't the best wrestler in the world or the best living or whatever ridiculous hyperbole was being tossed out there, but he is damn good. Once again, less is more, give the poor man a couple weeks off every so often, make his matches special again.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Fowler Posted March 18, 2015 Share Posted March 18, 2015 The Brock Night Of Champions match is the overlooked masterpiece here. People focus on the finish being screwy and miss that it built off the SummerSlam slaughter beautifully and delivered an even better match, still easily the best I saw in the period. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SirSmUgly Posted March 18, 2015 Share Posted March 18, 2015 I don't know; I thought that this was a weak year for Cena, and I really enjoy him quite a lot and would say that he's the best big match working ace WWE has ever had, even better than Austin. I love that Triple Threat too, but when it turned into a regular Cena/Rollins match, it ended up not being very fun at all for me. I think that it should have been ten minutes shorter and never had Brock being knocked out on the outside. Cena/Brock at Summerslam was a great spectacle, but not necessarily a great match. Cena/Brock at NoC was okay, but only memorable because of the aborted cash-in. Other than that, Cena had a very rough series with Bray Wyatt, and while Wyatt isn't very good (outside of that nasty lariat he throws), Cena really didn't elevate him. Yeah, the booking with all the goofiness wasn't helping Cena any either, but the matches weren't good, and the cage match was actively bad. What else did Cena have on PPV? The six-man ladder match for the gold was underwhelming. The workhorses of the 5v5 SurSer were Ziggler, Harper, and Rollins. Cena/Orton was okay, but it didn't blow me away. Cena/Rusev was probably his best performance in a PPV match that wasn't focused on spectacle, and that's against a guy who well might win the tournament. He also didn't have the TV matches that he's had in past years, like the RAW matches vs. Swagger, Sandow, Punk, etc., I don't think. I think Cena's still great, but his year was his worst since '06, I would argue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Fowler Posted March 18, 2015 Share Posted March 18, 2015 The consistency argument is definitely the best against Cena this year. Not his best tv year. I thought the LMS with Bray was pretty damn good though. The Mania match was more interesting than good or bad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jiji Posted March 18, 2015 Share Posted March 18, 2015 For me, the Cena vs. Wyatt Wrestlemania match was the antithesis of the Zayn vs. Neville title change match. They both were laying it on thick in terms of in-ring drama and storytelling but one felt like an actual competition and the other came off as a bad grade 9 school play. Fuck that match. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JCM Posted March 19, 2015 Share Posted March 19, 2015 Honestly Cena vs Orton is my least favorite matchup in all of wrestling right now. I despised that hitc match they had. Zayn to me became the best babyface promo in WWE this past year, and Cena was more miss than hit in that regard. I don't think we can overlook the fact that Cena was working with better opponents than Zayn. Nearly every guy in NXT has had their best match with Zayn. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jstout Posted March 19, 2015 Share Posted March 19, 2015 Zayn-Owens was compared to Lesnar-Cena at Summerslam by the announcers, but it's only about 0.7 Lesnar-Cena. Zayn got too many hope spots in to even begin to compare that to Lesnar-Cena. Cena might have gotten in one tiny flurry before Lesnar beat his ass some more. There was a spot or two in Zayn-Owens where I thought Zayn was gonna pull it together and come back, but I never got that feeling about Cena in that Lesnar match. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GOTNW Posted March 19, 2015 Share Posted March 19, 2015 And if you want to draw a parallel between those two matches, I thought Zayn sold better than Cena did and was more empathetic in body language. This is a great point. Zayn carried that match with his selling and bumping, Cena just got squashed. Cena-Lesnar felt special, but it was much easier for it to be special because it's narrative was "John Cena gets squashed in a PPV main event". It worked. It was a great match. But Zayn had to do much more to make his match with Owens feel special, which he succeeded at, despite Owens' obvious shortcomings in that match. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J.T. Posted March 19, 2015 Share Posted March 19, 2015 Which one of these guys has the hype that I hate more... Hmmmm. Voting for Sami Zayn.. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nate Posted March 19, 2015 Share Posted March 19, 2015 Which one of these guys has the hype that I hate more... Hmmmm. Voting for Sami Zayn.. Now I'm intrigued ... voting for or against the hype? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J.T. Posted March 19, 2015 Share Posted March 19, 2015 Zayn and Cena are competent workers that are ridiculously overhyped. I am voting against the guy whose Wrestling Jesus hype I find to be most grating on my nerves and that would be Cena. One heel run would diffuse a lot of the legit heat that Cena has, but he lives his gimmick to an absurd degree. Dude, if your significant other can make a heel run and still remain a relatively awesome person in real life, then so can you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OSJ Posted March 19, 2015 Share Posted March 19, 2015 But think of the merchandise! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hooker Posted March 20, 2015 Share Posted March 20, 2015 Christ, Nakamura is barely beating Harper. This really is going to be Zayn vs Rusev, isn't it? Two guys that won't make it out of round one next year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RIPPA Posted March 20, 2015 Author Share Posted March 20, 2015 Cena - 30 Zayn - 108 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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