2012 Pro Wrestling Thread

Miz is going the route of (most recently) Sheamus and Swagger. Lose the title, slowly fall out of the main-event tier and end up as the guy other wrestlers beat when they need to get a meaningful win.

What's not clear is where he goes from here. Does he go the Sheamus route where he works himself back into the good graces of the WWE and the fans (face turn? Smackdown run?)? Or does he go Swagger's way, where he entrenches himself as an upper-mid carder who competes in secondary feuds and never gets a solid win over a main event wrestler?

 

From what I've read, Miz has a lot of heat backstage because his ringwork and promos have regressed in the last year, and botching the R-Truth catch didn't help matters. He's still valuable to WWE because of his doors his reality show fame opens, and WWE loves it some celebrities. But he's going to have to do some wholesale rehab on himself to make a go of it.

 

He was saying his notes were tattoed on his arm.

 

I don't recall Sheamus getting beat that much after dropping the title back to Cena. I recall them continuing to build up this badass Irishman who awesome.

 

That's what I thought but I wasn't sure. Very interesting.

 

While watching the Cena/Rock promo, all I could think about was what a shame it is that Cena can't be a heel. My god he's perfect for it. Everything about him screams heel. Even things he can't control. That smile you just want to smack off his face. His look of being a former frat boy who's still living that sort of ego driven life. Cena's bitching about a former wrestler coming back to help out the WWE also screams being a heel. If Cena was a heel, he'd have an easier time getting boos than Hitler walking in a synagogue.

Cena's role last night was perfect though. He came out, made a few lame jokes and then made it personal with the Rock with the notes line. Without a doubt, it was just a work though. The WWE is trying everything they can to get some people to either stop booing Cena or at least stop supporting Rock so it's less of a Rock majority reaction at Mania. The line was great with Rocky looking flustered and legitimately pissed off as Cena. It made the entire program more personal.

Regardless of what the WWE does, I can't imagine Cena will get anywhere close to 50% of the crowd at Mania. Still, they did a nice little job of increasing my interest with the promo. Both guys came off great.

 

You know, honestly, it wouldn't surprise me one bit if the Mania crowd actually pulled for Cena.

It depends, of course, on how the next four weeks are booked but crowds at Mania (At least the one I went to) are full of guys and girls like us who are willing to spend $2K to see the biggest show of the year because they grew up with this product and love it. Mania crowds are usually full of the smarks who pollute message boards and blogs and never go the way the WWE creative team want them to.

If they spend the next month harping on Rock's love of Hollywood and hype up how Cena has been "the" guy night in and night out, the Mania crowd might swing JC's way simply out of respect. It's what happened at WM18 when the crowd was HEAVY Hogan until the match progressed and it got into a 50-50 tizzy.

I wouldn't doubt it could happen. Especially since the "home town" fans are overrated and outpriced, by and large, at the big show.

 

No chance Cena gets a lot of cheers in Miami unless they can pull another Austin-Bret out of their asses, and that was at a time when Austin was on the uptick and Bret was getting to be old hat to fans. Rock could get the fans to call their mothers a bunch of diseased cocksucking whores without missing a beat, and even if the next month is devoted to beating it into their heads that Cena's the guy they should be cheering, that probably won't change that much.

Rock really should be the heel in this exchange as the guy who airdrops in from Hollywood, relies on a series of old and/or forced catchphrases and then disappears to shoot another movie. Say what you will about Cena or this angle, but strictly on the merits of the arguments, he really should be the face right now. His points, whether intentional or not, carry a LOT more weight than Rock's, especially last night. But unless Rock ass rapes Rey Mysterio and pisses in the IVs of one of Cena's Make-a-Wish kids in the middle of the ring on an upcoming Raw, he'll be the overwhelming favorite at WM.

 

MMII is right. IMO, it's a shame.

For the most part, I've *hated* Cena for 6 solid years since I got back into professional wrestling, mostly due to his in-ring work (the Hogan treatment, Five Moves of Doom, etc.) but, after Monday night, I'm rooting for him at WrestleMania.

Dwayne Johnson seems off. He seems out of touch. He seems to be more interested in starting chants/catch phrases and trending shit than, you know, beating John Cena in a wrestling match. The Rock's character absolutely sucks right now, and I'm not all that sure *he* hasn't completely lost touch...so maybe he's playing his role perfectly.

It seems like WWE is letting Cena be himself at the moment and, well, he has to be to keep up with (the past standard of) The Rock. And Cena is knocking it out of the park.

Will I forget I said all this when he's back to the "white-meat babyface" SuperCena by June? Probably. But right now, Cena is on point, and it's fun to see.

 

This obviously has to be intentional.

 

It's not different than the 20 references to him reading off a teleprompter last year.

I don't know though. I really think Cena is going to be the one traditional fans root for in this match. I really think this is going to be the moment where we all look back and say "Wow. Cena finally got the respect of the WWE Universe". Mark my words.

 

I've been liking what they've done with Cena the last couple of weeks, and when you think about it, they really needed to let him have a bit of an edge (no pun intended).

Last year, when Rock came back, he mocked Cena and basically buried him. And all Cena's character could do is smile and chuckle about Fruity Pebbles and basically defer to the big movie star coming back. Not only would Cena get booed in Miami, but they were basically killing his character as well.

The Cena of the last couple of weeks has shown that he has some self-respect and is willing to not only stand up to the Rock, but also throw some bombs as well.