The Australian View
John Cena!

After a long hiatus ‘The Australian View’ has returned along with the Wrestling Epicenter. I am not going to talk at all about the past few weeks because it isn’t my business. My business is too provide everyone with my views and opinions on wrestling today’s, and a few special treats every now and then. On our Wrestling Epicenter forums there is a debate in regards to the WWE championship and the Doctor of Thugonomics, John Cena. There is a vast majority of wrestling fans on the Internet specifically that hate John Cena. That is fair enough but I think very differently. There is no doubt he isn’t up there with the class of Kurt Angle, HHH and HBK Shawn Michaels but he isn’t as horrible as people are making it out to be. John Cena is a good wrestler and a good worker. Not horrible and not great either.


A lot of the things that wrestling fans seem irritated about Cena and don’t like about Cena all revert to things that are out of his control. The first thing is the way the WWE Championship has been defaced and totally spat in the face off, with the spinning belt. A lot of people hate Cena because of this. News flash folks, that is another one of those idiotic creative decisions by our much-loved WWE writing team. John Cena is the person is told by his employer to “bring this spinning belt, its cool and hip” to the ring. The second thing is that people believe he has become boring and repetitive. Once again ladies and gentlemen, all of WWE television is scripted. 100% is scripted, form the interviews to in-ring action. Our favourite creative team scripts it all.


John Cena without a doubt is as charismatic as they come. Again, not in the league of Hulk Hogan, The Rock or Mick Foley, but charismatic none the less. This was proven in the time that a lot of fans have forgotten about. When he was a heel and praised by majority of the same people that boo him at the moment. Wrestling fans in this era love a heel and prefer a heel to a typical baby face. Christian, Jericho and Randy Orton with others were all praised as heel but received the opposite as baby faces. John Cena as a heel cut promo’s that were up there with the best amount WWE talent. This was during the Paul Heyman era, when the talent got a lot more reign over their promos. Now he has to get all his catchphrases in and follow ‘the script’. The reason for why John Cena doesn’t rap in his promos is because form all reports became sick with following the script written for him once Paul Heyman’s reign as Smackdown head writer was over. John Cena has proven over time that he can deliver great promo’s but since the writing team has taken over his character’s direction that has taken, not a turn for the worst but a turn down the wrong street, so to speak.


John Cena the wrestler. First off to decide how good of a wrestler John Cena is you need to be able to define a good wrestler. A good wrestler is not sloppy in the ring, doesn’t botch spots and can tell a story. That person doesn’t have to be able to do crazy spot or be a mat wrestling genius to be good. Hulk Hogan in the States rarely went down on the mat and ‘wrestled’ but is known as the best ever. Jake Roberts is also known as a great wrestler but I can’t remember seeing him wrestle on the mat like a Chris Benoit. John Cena display’s a limited arsenal but people need to realize this. His gimmick is supposed to be a brawler. It would not of made sense to see Bradshaw (APA), applying wristlocks and hammerlocks in matches and that is the same with John Cena. Also from news reports John Cena is told to hit all his spots in a sequence and to wrestle the style we currently see. Now for me it doesn’t bother me because I am a huge Hulk Hogan mark. Anybody that honestly believes John Cena is a terrible worker has very high standards and accepts the one style of wrestling or just doesn’t enjoy his style. That doesn’t make him a horrible worker. Just like Hulk Hogan we don’t see how good or bad John Cena really is, because they don’t show everything on normal television or your regular PPV.


Now I go to the John Cena character. Something that can turn into a totally different topic all together, but it is a large part into why John Cena is getting booed on a regular basis. A vast majority of wrestling fan are Rock and Roll music fans. Most hardcore Rock and Roll fans despise Hip-Hop in its many different forms. Now I am not going to tell you what type of music you should like and listen to, but don’t mix music with wrestling. They are two very different topics, but don’t let your taste for music dictate who you cheer, boo and/or ignore in wrestling. I don’t like a lot of Rock music but didn’t boo Chris Jericho when he shoved his band Fozzy down our faces. Jericho promoted his band as much as John Cena promoted his rap CD but didn’t get as much shit as Cena has gotten.


John Cena is a good worker and the WWE is trying to mould him into the future of the company along with Randy Orton and Batista. It is wrestling fans that don’t know what they want or choose not to see this that boo him. Offcourse there are a few with legitimate reasons out there. However if you don’t like John Cena I guarantee you either hate rap music, love mat wrestling and high spots or are just following the Internet trend.


Peace Out.
Shane Mead.