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WRESTLING COLUMNS

Why I DON'T Hate John Cena
July 6, 2006 by Neil Dimmick

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Ever since John Cena was traded to RAW the WWE fans have repeatedly booed him out of events. I would agree with them but I really have no idea why it's done. Cena is doing nothing that hasn't already been done before, for the more traditional wrestling fan that's a bad thing and I can accept the fact that you would like more wrestling than microphone promos but is that really an excuse to dislike any individual person so much" Professional wrestling may be about grappling and in some cases the now famous lucha-libre style but the WWE, ever since its old WWF days has always been about entertaining the crowd - both in and out of the ring. Hulk Hogan brought this style to the table, with a lot of help from guys like Rowdy Roddy Piper and Bob Orton. You could search entire wrestling arenas and barely find a group of people who disliked Hogan, the same can be said for wrestlers like The Rock and Stone Cold Steve Austin. Neither of those guys had an incredible move set but could entertain week after week and keep the fans coming back for more. That's where I'm beginning to get confused, the fans obviously preferred the Sports Entertainment over Professional wrestling otherwise they would have turned to the WCW, and when they did turn to WCW - That's right, it was because of Hulk Hogan.

Now, back on topic. John Cena is a Sports Entertainer, just like Hogan, Austin, Rock etc; he comes to work with one thing in mind; to entertain the fans. How do these fans repay him" Simple, by trying to boo him out of the arena. He may not be completely gifted in the ring but he has said time and time again that he still has a lot to learn. How quickly did the best in the business learn the ropes, anyway"

Ever since day one there has been something about John Cena that I have had a strong liking for, it can't be his hip-hop gimmick because I have absolutely no interest in that kind of music at all. I just really respect his style, he will get the job done in the ring while doing what he has to do, wherever that be putting over his opponent or winning the match cleanly, he will get the job done. He may not be the best but he has the attitude of the best. Even now, he is being booed out of arena's week in week out and he still doesn't let that distract him from doing the job he loves to do - Wrestle. He may not be an in-ring master, but he has done well to become a household name in such a small amount of time.

In many ways I actually prefer him over the ultimate Sports Entertainer - The Rock. Sure, Rock was exceptional on the mic but he got too repetitive, he would do the same thing over and over until eventually the WWE had to bring Stone Cold Steve Austin back in and push Kurt Angle a lot quicker to add to the title chase. With Cena, however he can carry the title and still bring new idea's to the table. There have been some terrible idea's what with his battle of the bands routine with Jericho and Fozzy but putting music aside, he has been and probably still will become a very entertaining WWE champion, with or without the whole arena crowds on his side.

Another thing that annoys me is how many "Internet wrestling fans" are making wrestlers of today look bad by comparing them to wrestlers of the 70s/80s, you don't realize that the reason they were so gifted in the ring was because they didn't have a guaranteed contract the following week. You have to accept that the business has been slowed down a lot since then. It is actually for the better as too many professional wrestlers are dying way too young.

by Neil Dimmick ..

FJ Parlan wrote:
I'm sorry my friend. I don't think you got it. The best reason, although many wrestling fans are somewhat being unreasonable these days, is that John Cena is overpushed, he held the title for so long that the fans got tired of him. Alright" =)

Jon Rosaler wrote:
There are a lot of columns on OWW that show reasons to hate Cena and to like him. I'm guessing you're 13, but I feel you have a right. I would have told my reason why I don't hate Cena. You know what" I'll do that, after part 2 of my OMEGA piece, I'll wright a lot of reasons not to hate Cena. As for you guys who are going to tell Neil how much you hate Cena and thinks he sucks, go ahead, This is much better than that John Cena: The Greatest column. Anyway, short, but nice piece, Neil.

Stephen Y wrote:
This was the worst article I have ever read. It did noting but make me hate Cena more. The Rock was repetitive. In what way" He came up with something different each week on the mic. Stone Cold was coming back anyway, and Kurt Angle was believeable as a main eventer, and he is one of te best wrestlers ever. In John Cena\'s matches they are all the same, he gets beat up, and then he makes a comeback with the worst moves ever, and then gets the win (unless he gets beat) There are lots of wrestlers who deserve the belt moree than Cena, like Edge, Kane, Kurt Angle, Booker T and Rey Mysterio (even though the last three aren\'t on Raw) John Cena can\'t wrestle, and his character is boring.

Ernesto Diaz wrote:
I am not the person who boos Cena out of arenas or watches him on t.v. in disgust but you have to admit, yes The Rock and Stone Cold did have better move sets than Cena and they were still grat on the mic. Cena isn't all that on the mic and needs to sharpen up his wrestling skills. I don't hate Cena but I don't want to see the exact same moves everytime he counters a move and then comes back. Who wants to see a clothesline, running shoulder block, spin out powerbomb, 5 knuckle shuffle, FU, and then if he wants to the STFU every single time he comes back. I know he is a sports entertainer but there is more than just making raps and callng somebody gay while you are on the mic. You also have to know how to wrestle.

Jack wrote:
Hey, sorry to say but i think u dont know a shit abt wrestling, the reason why they hate him is because of his lengthy title reign, his turn to Babyface and his sucky inring skills. He would be successful in the 70s or 80s because todays wrestling fans are more smarter and want more of techincal wrestling.. like before superstar Billy Graham and Hulk Hogan relied more on their built but today is different.... fans want more of Chris Benoit, Chris Jericho, Michaels, Angle, Guerrero, Randy Orton, Angle. This is the reason why ppl hate John Cena...he definately has no ring skills.... and plus hasnt been in the company long enough to have such a long title reign

Thomas Busutti wrote:
The only reasons I hate Cena is 1.Him with the title got boring. 2.He has the shortist Move list. E.g closeline, 5-knuckle shuffle spinnig powerbomb, STFU, FU.

Ashley Istria wrote:
What everyone above forget's is that they aren't speaking for the majority when they say "everyone" hares Cena. The majority want Cena and I'm all for it. The guy is a genuine great bloke and if the majority want him then we have to suck it up and leave the majority get their way. Let's be honest the number 1 song on the charts maybe shithouse but what right do we have to bitch over the net and get it changed" You want things to change then get behind and support your designated superstar and buy their merchandise, also don't jeer Cena fucking give him no reaction! It works wonders for Charlie Haas! Sure Cena won't ever reach the Wrestling Great's of Benoit, Hart, Steamboat and Malenko but honestly how many people in that list do people care greatly about. The fact that Cena is becoming a houshold name intimidates some people as the "big thing" in wrestling isn't their pet star. In closing to my rant Cena will reach the status of Hulk, Flair, Rock and Austin as far as superstardom goes and anyone who disagrees is an ignorent fool.

Tyler Keef wrote:
Reading this, it's obvious that you're one of the new wrestling fans because your friend told you how awesome John Cena was, or that you're still in middle school, or both. You surely don't know crap about what "skill" looks like. Your first mistake was when you said : "He has said time and time again that he still has a lot to learn." You and him are both wrong. In the summer of 2002, John Cena made his debut, and he looked like the next Kurt Angle. But in late 2003, he turned face, and from there his skill and his raps began to detiorate. He went to doing exactly what he does now, with a suplex every now and then, and then making overused poop and gay jokes after that. Nothing about John Cena is entertaining. Let it be his talking or wrestling. "Oh my God, he said B****, how entertaining." You could probably go to the local elementary school and find a kid who could do a promo just as well. "He will get the job....wherever that be putting over his opponent..." Yeah, he sure does a good job at that, seeing how every match he's in his opponent has to carry him through the match, until the same old monotonous end : counter, shoulder block, Five Knuckle Shuffle, spin-out powerbomb (which by the way is a lot cooler and powerful when I do it), FU. Yeah, I didn't see that coming, which also explains why his reign was so boring. Look at this Monday for example. Cena gets knocked out of the ring, RVD and Edge go at it for 10 minutes, John Cena comes back. Then Edge ruined another title reign for Cena, and thank god for that.

The KASS wrote:
I sort of agree. I see the points other people made. His title reighn may have been too long, but who else would you like to see" HHH, please if I see another game title run I'll stop watching wrestling. Edge" Mabye Orton. There is really no one else who could fit the bill. Cena is probably the only one who can hold the title until a good rivalry comes along. The business is just in one of those boring transitions. Can people stop complaning about Cena's move set. I mean come on, EVERY SINGLE WRESTLER DOES THE SAME 7 OR 8 MOVES IN EVERY MATCH, WHY IS CENA SINGLED OUT" Really look at your favorite "5 star" performers they all do the same shit in every match. With all that said I really like Cena, he's the perfect "underdog" character. He's not the best, but he shows heart, and hard work. I cant see where all the hate is comming from.

Tommy Green wrote:
"he got too repetitive, he would do the same thing over and over" This sounds Exactly how you would describe Cena. But your exactly describing the Rock. Strange isn't it. I'm only 13 and I know that Cena has minimal Wrestling Skills, is decent on the mic, and is not even close to being in the same league with The Rock.

Corbin wrote:
I gotta agree with the people above, this article almost made me puke. I'm not as big of a Cena hater as most, but I couldnt stop laughing at reading this. I respect your opinion, but back it up with facts. You're saying The Rock got boring yet people still want him to come back and he was good as a heel and a face" Also, as for your little "They made Austin come back because Rock got boring" Give me a break! Austin had a serious neck injury and had surgery, that's why he took a break. He was going to come back anyways he never wanted to leave. It had nothing to do with the Rock getting boring. The Kurt Angle statement may be true, but it doesn't really matter because most consider Angle to be a future hall of famer and his in ring ability and mic work when he first came to the WWE is better than Cena's at any point.

The author acts like Cena is only hated because of his lack of wrestling ability. Please. While that may be a reason, I guarantee 60% of the reason of us "internet fans" or "wrestling marks" hate him because of his title reign. It's more of WWE ruining Cena than really Cena himself.

zuhaib khan wrote:
I agree with the article. Cena is still learning and despite that already hes really good. As far as his title reign being too long we have to remember the "brains" of the WWE, the creative team make up the storylines. Cenas just doing what he has to do and hes doing it good. As far as his mic skills goes they were good too but he has less and less time on the mic now. I cant speak for the Rock or Stone Cold as unfortunately I only started watching wrestling at the beginning of 2005 so I cant compare. However ive seen Cenas debut match and he was good in that. The Cena vs HHH storyline was good and hes only gonna get better. If it was because of his long title reign that people booed him why is he still getting booed" In closing I realise I used the word good a lot but the only other way to describe cena would be 'going to be GREAT!'

Max Uranus wrote:
I think neither Cena nor his character suck. I believe it's his physique that allows him to maintain the same "5-6 moves" over and over again. If you watch his matches closely, you'll see it's not 6 moves, the shuffle, the F-U and the pin (I find the shuffle very very amusing and well done). The opponent usually gets a lot of their usual moves in as well, for example, during his feud with Angle I saw at least 3 ankle locks, 2 angle slams and a good 10 german suplexes. He kicks out of big moves and even finishers and they can sell this because Cena (shades of his old gimmick, "Prototype") is a genetic mastermind. Children and women cheer for him because his good looks, yes, but also some men cheer for him. I think possibly the booers of Cena are jealous of his hype. Its just a side-note, but have you ever seen a Cena-hater that looked like they could beat him up" I also believe that anyone that says Cena's in-ring ability sucks hasn't paid attention to him quite enough. In his first match, in fact, he executed a few moves perfectly that I think a good handful of wrestlers might slip up while performing. I think the only improvement they could make to Cena would be a greater variety of moves. This is because I know he can manage them easily. Maybe throw in a dropkick and a few more of the now-elusive back body drops, and see what happens. Mainly I want to point out his in-ring skills are above average (maybe not incredible like Mysterio).

DRC wrote:
My first column: I really dont know why anyone ever booed cena he has beaten such great wrestlers as Kurt Angle, Triple H, Booker T,Chris Jericho and also survived an elimanation chamber (which only three men have ever done) and no one ever booed the rock when he was face, and who cares if he is no good on the mic, this is wrestling, or its supposed to be.

Rocky786 wrote:
Anybody claiming that Cena is talentless is merely blinded by the general trend to dislike him. His moves are repetitive but no more repetitive than hall of famers like Bret Hart and Cena is probably better than Hart was on the mic. Don't get me wrong, Hart is one of my favourites but the amount of times Hart told us he was the excellence of execution and the 'best there is...was etc' and at the beginning of his career Hart was not even confident on the mic - Neidhart used to do most of the talking and Hart even used to wear Sunglasses to hide is discomfort in front of the cameras duringpromos. Bret Hart also had repetitive moves in every match, russian leg sweep, elbow of second turnbuckle, sharshooter. My point is not that Hart was boring, even the Hulkster had similar repetitive moves the shake of the head getting up on one and then his feet, then the boot to the face and the leg drop. With the division of the WWE into two brands there were very few people who could hold the Belt on Raw which is the main reason why the wwe chose to extend Cena's run with it. Angle may have been better overall and much more naturally gifted but the HEAT Cena was getting made it more entertaining for him to keep the belt. So all those who booed him and didnt want him to have the title only extended his title reign! Feel stupid now dont u"!

kyle Gurrent (canada born baby) wrote:
Before I begin I would like to say I don't HATE cena but im not crazy about him either. And im not going to lie about his flaws or skills in an attempt to be biased. First of all just so its clear the rock was and never will be, boring. Granted if it had not been through his family connections it would have tooken him a lot longer to make it to wwf in his time than nowadays. And that is becuase simply nowadays if you have the right ''look'', you have a better shot at making it to the big time(which in itself is sad that truely talented athletes may never make it). But the main purpose why the fans boo cena and they cheered the rock was

1.) The rocks family's history ( granted this was one of the main reason why the puritian wrestling fans (or internet fans) accepted him, out of respect).

2.) gimmick, accept it or not, cena has been able to go far with a career killing gimmick ''rapping wrestler'', now the rock's gimmick was simply a fed up,cocky somaon wrestler. The people boo cena partly becuase they don't like rap, Now if someone who didn't care about the rocks family history, and just wanted to boo him becuase they hated his ''gimmick'' it would mean they would be a raciast plan and simple(and if they tried to boo him calling the rock raciast names they would get kicked out the arena,by not just security, but 99.9% of the fans). Rock had a simpler gimmick to get over with the fans than Cena does, which is why the 10% of the fans who boo cena only (emphisis on only) becuase of his rapper gimmick would have booed the rock if it were not for his family history simply becuase they are raciast.

3.)Mic skills, lets face it John cena is a normal human being, he's just not funny. He'll never write sitcoms, he'll never be dave chapell, chris rock, adam sandler,or jim carry. He's a normal guy, and ''normal guys'' aren't funny, it's not his fault, its just genetics. No matter how hard he trys he just won't be funny, he might say funny things from time to time( but anybody can do that). Some people (very few) are just born funny, not becuase there better, just becuase either there mom or there dad was funny and they past that trait on to them, simple as that. The Rock was one of those people, now granted the rock hasn't been the only wrestler who's been charismaticly gifted, but.............

he had good looks too, which go a long,long way(especially in america). So even though the rock and cena were both equally repeatative ring wise, it was the rocks looks,and charismatic mic skills(which is just to say how funny one is) that kept him over with the fans heel or face, not ''ring skill'' (which incase you haven't got the memo boys doesn't mean much in ''sports entertainment'').

In closing I have to things to say to both cena-lovers and cena-haters and they are that cena is not good looking, his looks are average (I repeat average) but not ugly either so whatever starstruck girl said that his looks are what got him over with women and children are either

1. Blinded by the hype, and the starpower surronded by his name that they refuse to belive anything negative about there idol, becuase they have no one to look up to at home.

or its the most common.... 2. Are an emotionaly unstable person, or too young to truely no what there talking about, which I am also young (so for you cena-lovers trying to use the ''yeh well your old, so your just jealous he's younger and richer than you!'' excuse, its not going to work on me ,becuase Im just as old as you, and Im more mature mentaly and physically than you 10 year old www.obsessedwithcena.com subscribers) Hopes this clears the argument's forever becuase IM SICK OF SEING THIS NEVER ENDING CENA-HATERS VS CENA-LOVERS ARGUMENTS ON EVERY WRESTLING WEBSITE I GO TO. They should just put all the cena-lovers and all the cena-haters in one cage so you guys can just kill each other off and do the rest of us a favor.GEES.

Alex wrote:
I respect both oppinions of the people that like Cena and who do not like him. I am entertained by Cena when he comes out, and the last thing i think about doing is booing him. People complain how he is boring because he has the same move list and because he went for the title to long. True i think Cena needs a brake for the title but thats no reason to hate him, he didn't write the script, don't hate cena, hate the writers. As for...Clothsline...5 knuckleshuffle....FU...STFU move list, yes i agree its the same over and over, but how many years has he been around" give him time to devolp his skills and learn from people like the game. Boo him if you want but please don't say you don't repect this man, can anyone of you say you can FU you bigshow" i siriously doubt that, can u catch a 200 pound man in mid air" No, can you hold HHH and Edge on your shoulders at the same time, no. Respect Cena for what he can do, don't be so shallow and hate him cause of lame writting and a developing style. I'm no member of the chain gang, but i am a wrestling fan. Its in your oppinion watever it is that you hate about him, his hip-hop style (i don't care for really) or his title run but understand this, i'm sure most people in this world would rather Cena...than Edge.

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