Cena vs. Ryback - my thoughts

[BillAlfonsos_Whistle]

The PPV as a whole last night was pretty entertaining for a non-major. The Punk/Jericho match was great as expected and the Tag team match was pretty good too with a very entertaining finish.


I want to preface this by saying I am truly not a John Cena blind hater. He deserves the success he has because he is over with the kids and many older fans as well.


That match was atrocious just like all of theirs have been. Initially I was willing to put it all on Ryback for being a non-versatile muscle freak with no ability. Than I saw his match with Daniel Bryan a few weeks back on RAW and realized it's a Cena issue. These matches are glorified stunt man spots with some "wrestling" as a set-up. It's embarrassing to watch. Cole's assessment that "This is like a James Bond movie" last night right before the big AA spot on the Ambulance pretty much sums it up. The face of the company and the direction of the company are both so skewed to what actual wrestling fans want that it's hard to stomach.

 

[The Champ]

I think "atrocious" is an unnecessarily strong word. I don't think it was a great match by any means, but it wasn't terrible either. It was mediocre.

Their match at Extreme Rules, on the other hand, far surpassed my expectations, and I would consider it a very good, if not great match.

As for their feud as a whole? Boring. I like Cena, but I saw no reason to care about their feud at all. It was basically the exact same feud that Cena had with Big Show the previous year.

It's also pretty obvious at this point that Ryback will never be the star he could have been, because his booking has been mind numbingly stupid throughout.

 

[BTD MS]

The overall goal was obvious to make Cena look stronger, going out on limb there I know, after coming off WM still. The way they portray his character in ring is extremely played out and I know that this will never change. Just a necessary evil we fans have to deal with while we watch WWE programming. The match itself was pretty predicitible as far as the outcome is concerned but not as unwatchable as I thought it was going to be. The match seemed a bit rushed to me as well, mainly when Cena put Ryback through the table and Ry gets right back up. That didn't come off as a "monster" getting up in a fit of rage after being beaten in one of the stages but viewed as a guy trying to get to the next spot of the match quickly. I never could buy into this feud even when trying.

The thing is, yes, WWE is going to still show the Super Cena character by whatever means necessary to keep the moneyflow going, but breaking it down, they "wrestled" in 2 PPV's, with a total of 4 different stipulations in their matches. I look at this as the limited capacity of what Ryback can really do. Case and point, look at HHH vs 'Taker at WM 27. They made that a No Holds Barred match because 'Taker couldn't work a normal match like he used to based on his current health at that time. They did the same thing with this feud but not based on anyone's health or injuries but because the guy Cena was working with was very limited in what he can do in the ring, IMO.

While I'm not a huge Cena supporter, I have seen him work matches well with guys that make him look incedible, i.e. Punk and Bryan, but that is partially due to the fact that the guy he was working with made him look like the SuperStar that WWE has always wanted him to be. The entire PPV last night exceeded my expectations originally, but the closing match was pretty much how I envisioned it. It wasn't atrocious like a Steiner vs HHH, but by no means was it a match worth writing home about.

 

[#heel420]

I witnessed that atrocity live. And it was just bad. The crowd was dead for most of it because nobody over the age of 12 gave a shit. Chicago hates Cena and doesn't care about Ryback. So Cena gets booed and Ryback got little to no heat at all. Overall just a bad match that is supposed to be forgotten because Cena AA'd him thru the roof of an ambulance. The whole arena seemed unsatisfied with this as the main event.

Why WWE didn't have enough common sense to put Punk-Jericho on last is beyond me.

 

[Coco]

The face of the company and the direction of the company are both so skewed to what actual wrestling fans want that it's hard to stomach.

And what do actual wrestling fans want?

 

[Da Solo]

Considering the fact that 3 Stages of Hell is far and away one of the rarest stipulations WWE has, that match was a BIG letdown.

The lumberjack match was okay. The action was good, but the lumberjack involvement was very simplistic. The redeeming moment here is Cena's top rope splash onto the lumberjacks and Ryback. That was probably the high point of the whole 3 matches.

The Tables match is what pissed me off greatly. Near falls considered, the match dragged a bit, and made no sense. First of all, how the hell is a ShellShock, a move the falls backwards, supposed to put Cena through a table when Ryback is running forward? Why would Ryback even attempt it? And worst of all, did Ryback seriously no-sell getting AA'd through a table? That was ridiculous. I understand time constraints, but damn that is just inexcusable. Greater people get pinned after one AA all the time, period, but Ryback takes one through a table and gets back up not even 30 seconds later reinvigorated? Garbage on Ryback's behalf, and I've been one of his biggest supporters.

The Ambulance match was the saving grace, as it was different from others before it in that they actually fought with and around the truck instead of fighting up to it just for the winning spot. I, for some reason, wasn't surprised by Ryback going through the roof, but I do wish Ryback actually won this one, as he is now 1-7-1 in PPV's, and no one remembers that win over jobbers that long time ago.

All in all, they should've just made it an ambulance and been done with it, but I guess they didn't want Cena obviously overshadowed by Punk or the double turn or Bryan. Either way, I hope they learned how to time this stipulation better.

 

[Magic Mark]

Either way you look at it, the match just wasn't very good, but I mean really, when was he last time you saw a 4 star match-up between two guys with rather limited movesets? Overall, I wasn't impressed with it, but I can't really say I'm dissapointed either

 

[Coco]

I mean really, when was he last time you saw a 4 star match-up between two guys with rather limited movesets?

All movesets have limits.

 

[ABMorales787]

The face of the company and the direction of the company are both so skewed to what actual wrestling fans want that it's hard to stomach.

Your sense of logic seems more skewed to me.

 

[The Holy One]

It was a pretty good match