Meet The Independent John Cena... Matt and Nick Jackson

[Papa Pillman]

Inspired by KJ's Bucks Hate Thread in the spam zone, let's present an obvious game of analogy:

Here's a newsflash: John Cena is the undisputed face of the WWE. He is beloved by a giant portion of the audience who buys ticket to WWE shows, but equally as important, he is hated by a rather vocal portion of remaining wrestling fans. One thing is always for sure though- he gets the biggest reaction from every WWE crowd. And while he's usually the main event(as was the case for the better part of a decade), even when he's not, its clear that he is the main attraction. Opinions on Cena have come to define one of modern pro wrestling's biggest buzzwords- polarizing. But love or hate him, he's insanely over, and the haters(many of whom hate so hard that they would try to detract from his overness by classifying their heat toward him as being of the "X-Pac" variety) have to face facts and deal with that.

Well Duh you say?

Well to all of you fervent anti-"smarks"(whatever the fuck that word is supposed to still mean in 2016), let's flip the script shall we...

Here's another newsflash: Matt and his younger brother Nick Jackson, collectively known as The Young Bucks, are the undisputed faces of North American independent wrestling. They are beloved by a giant portion of the audience who buys tickets to indy wrestling shows, but equally as important, they are hated by a rather vocal portion of remaining wrestling fans. One thing is always for sure though- they get the biggest reaction from every North American indy crowd. And while they are usually the main event(as is basically always the case with every US indy they work outside of ROH), even when they're not, its clear that they are the main attraction. Opinions on The Bucks have come to define one of modern pro wrestling's biggest buzzwords- polarizing. But love or hate them, they're insanely over, and the haters(many of whom hate so hard that they would try to detract from their overness by classifying their heat toward them as being of the "X-Pac" variety) have to face facts and deal with that.

Now let's be clear- argue all that you want, regardless of your feelings on either act, every word I've typed so far in this thread is objective fact not a subjective debate.


Now let's open the debate portion of the topic:

Ironically for me, these acts have another thing in common- I'm a big fan, but also a convert. You see there was a time where I HATED all three.

Until about five years ago I couldn't stand Cena's act. I hated his wrestling style, he annoyed the shit out of me, and I didn't get how anyone outside of prepubescent children could actually buy into him.

But guess what? Until about four years ago I couldn't stand the Bucks' act. I hated their wrestling style, they annoyed the shit out of me, and I didn't get how anyone outside of the most hardcore fans of the generic indy fly and flip style could actually buy into them.

But both acts won me over. Cena, whose mic and character work never bothered me but whose ring work left a world to be desired, won me over by drastically upping his work rate, diversifying his ring approach, and seemingly taking more pride in the quality of his match performances. The Bucks, whose ring work never bothered me but who had seemingly no characters and were just a generic young indy tag team, won me over after leaving TNA and hitting the reset button and formulating an insanely fun no-holds barred over-the-top meta tribute act to oft-criticized indy trope and late 90s wrestling cliches.

What about you? How do feel about this analogy(which is accurate whether you like it or not)?

Do you love or hate Cena? If you love him, have you always been a fan, or did you have to come around on him? And if you love Cena, how do you feel about the Bucks? If you still hate Cena, is there anything he could do at this late stage to change your opinion?

Do you love or hate the Bucks? If you love them, have you always been a fan or did you have to come around on them? And if you love the Bucks, how do you feel about Cena? If you still hate the Bucks, is there anything they could do at this late stage to change your opinion?

 

[ヒュー　G.　レックション]

I was a long time Cena hater. But of course I greatly respect him. Cena really was the ultimate heel for me when Punk faced him and beat him at MITB 2011 it made me realise that Cena was over to me, but as a heel! Same when Bryan beat him at Summerslam. And I loved his feud and first match with Rock, because as much as I hated Cena it was still a dream match! He is an all time great for sure.

I've probably enjoyed Cena the most (bear in mind never really watched his rise and first reign on top) when he was US champion in 2015. Cena was fucking stale for years and this was entertaining promos and matches and i think Cena really raised the prestige of the belt. in the midcard is where I'd prefer him to stay. Of course I know that won't happen as he's too much of an asset. But really he's done everything at the top and I really don't want to see any additional world title reigns for him.

The Young Bucks, can't say I ever disliked them. I don't watch ROH but I enjoyed their TNA run and I think they're good in New Japan too. I think they are used perfectly as opening acts for the show.

So basically I like both now as long as they're not in the main event haha

 

[Psykohurricane55]

I'm not going to sugar coat this. I'm not a fans of the young bucks never was never will be. I think they are a disgrace to the wrestling business and represent everything that is wrong with wrestling right now. But at the same I going to give them credit, they were able to get over with a small apocket of the fans and they are the face of indy wrestling. The problem is, if they ever accept to go wwe, I don't them being able to get over with a good portion of the wwe fans. They lack the one think that makes a wrestlers or in their case wrestlers great, that's in ring psychology. They are descent wrestlers that do a lot a spots but their no reason for those spot and for an indy crowd that's great and all but in wwe, that won't work.

 

[Jack-Hammer]

As Cena goes, I wouldn't say that I love the guy, but I do very much enjoy him more than I used to. My problem with Cena had more to do with WWE's obsession protecting him to the, sometimes, detriment of the rest of the roster. Cena's act was bland and really has been for some time, but I've become more interested the past few years for some reasons. His work rate during matches has improved quite a bit and the fact that he hasn't been such a constant in the main event scene the way he was from about 2005 through about 2012 has been refreshing. Another huge boost to Cena has been taking him out of the main event picture altogether and being put in the US title scene. I didn't think the US Open Challenge would work as a weekly thing, but I was wrong and the result included some of the best matches on any wrestling television program in quite some time.

WWE does still protect Cena too much, such as what we saw following his loss to Brock Lesnar at SummerSlam a few years ago. Vince is so worried that people will lose faith in Cena that he can't recognize that Cena's far past a point where his career is going to be damaged and it's one thing that Vince simply will not listen to anyone else no matter how they try to convince him. However, it's still not as bad as it was during the first 7 or 8 years of his time dominating WWE.

Cena's a great pro wrestler in my view. He knows how to tell a story, has a strong understanding of psychology and has been able to more than carry his own weight against such a broad variety of opponents. The notion that some fans still cling to about Cena not being able to wrestle is embarrassing and continues to be one of the prime reasons so many people don't put a lot of stock in the intelligence of internet wrestling fans.

As for the Young Bucks, I just can't say I've ever been into them and I'm still not. That's not to say that I don't respect the success they've achieved out there on the indy circuit; I mean, they've found a strong niche that's been paying off very well for them the past few years and they're milking it for all they can. I'm just not a real fan of their work overall as characters or inside the ring. As characters, they're basically caricatures of various wrestling clichés that I don't really find all that entertaining. Maybe hipsters are into it, but it doesn't do much for me. As for their work inside the ring, they're spot monkeys with no understanding of psychology or storytelling while their matches tend to consist of little more than just one over the top, heavily choreographed spot after another with no little to no selling in between because they're too busy setting up and moving into the next spot in the match. As has been stated, that works fine for the indy scene but it's not something that wouldn't work in WWE because of WWE's schedule. What a lot of people don't realize is that WWE "waters down" the high spots because such spots will burn out a wrestler's body with a touring schedule that keeps them on the road some 300 days a year. Even if they just wrestle, say, 200 matches a year, enduring the physicality of the matches afterward while traveling to the next gig can also put strain on the body if there's not really enough time to rest up. If the Bucks signed with WWE and tried to keep their spot fests going exactly as is when working a WWE schedule, they'd be lucky to last a year before they were just physically exhausted, burned out, injured or all of the above.