Sound Off 942 - John Cena TAPS OUT To Gunther, The 15 BEST MATCHES Of His Career And More! - Solomonster Sounds Off

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Speaker 1 (00:01):
It's business time, baby. You are listening to Solo Monsters
Sounds Off. I love you so, Mama monster, dude, I
want your soulier a woman.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
You got grown ass wrestlers in the back going on Twitter.

Speaker 1 (00:16):
Come over here, hetday? Is that Pet Patterson? You have legs?

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Week? I was ninety nine percent positive it was just
chessed up.

Speaker 1 (00:25):
Now, congratulations. Who hasn't beat Daniel Barcia. Welcome to episode
nine two of The Solemn Monster Sounds Off for Sunday,
December fourteenth, twenty twenty five. I am the solom Monster.
This is the first sound off that I am ever

(00:45):
recording in the eighteen years that I have done this
show where John Cena is not an active professional wrestler.
It was the end of an era last night on
Saturday Night's main event, and I've got a lot to
say about that. We're going to talk a lot about
John Cena. Not exclusively, but we're going to talk a
lot about John Cena here on the podcast. I've also

(01:06):
got a countdown. I haven't done one of these in
a while, but I will give you what I believe
to be the fifteen best matches, all ranked, of John
Cena's career, So we're going to get into all that.
First of all, let me just say thank you to
those who have supported via PayPal this week. Our PayPal producers.
You may drop a dono if you would like to

(01:27):
the Solo monster dot Com right there at the top
of the page. I want to say thank you first
and foremost to Peb who dropped an absolute bomb on
me here for the holiday season, and I very much
appreciate that. I want to wish you a very happy
holiday and a very happy and healthy New Year. I
appreciate all of your support all throughout the year. It

(01:48):
does not go unnoticed, So thank you very much, Peeb,
the Portland pop Star, Paul Hamilton, Big b Bryant, Bessera,
The Diamond Dallas Dance Machine, Harrison so At, Velve Revolver,
Robert Murray, The Chicago Slayer, Willie Iichord, The Wichita Workhorse,
Clayton Nettleton, night Stalker nif Al Safar, and Killshot Keith Hart,

(02:12):
as well as the Georgia Nightmare Timothy Tillis and Shooting
Star Cynthia Taylor, who is a new listener to the show.
What's Up, Cynthia, I hope you enjoy and show your role.
Chris lu Deck you could check out his what could
have been in Wrestling series on YouTube. Some of his
recent videos include what could have been had Randy Savage

(02:35):
stayed with the WWF beyond nineteen ninety four, what if
Bray Wyatt had beaten Randy Orton at WrestleMania at thirty three?
And Rebooking WrestleMania eight, which I have done many times
here on this show. Just search for Chris lou Deck
Ludecke on YouTube and the channel should come up. You

(02:56):
could check out all of Chris's content. More reminder here
because there's been some new wrestling books released over the
past several weeks Audibletrial, dot Com, slash Solo Monster. I
know many of you took advantage when I mentioned that
Brett Hart's book had hit Audible. I believe, with his
own narration, one of the best wrestling books ever written.

(03:17):
Now you can get it for free in audio form.
But also there's a new book out on Guerrilla Monsoon
by Brian Solomon, The Irresistible Force, So you can go
on Audible and check that out. And again, if you
have not already used this link before, you can use
it if you are an Amazon Prime customer, you can
get two free books instead of just one. So if

(03:37):
you want to make at least one of them a
wrestling book, go ahead and use that link and take
advantage and enjoy this holiday season. You can go ahead
and listen to a wrestling book. To listen to it
on the bus, You could listen to it at the gym,
could listen to it at home, wherever you wish. John
Cena closed out a retirementur last night's so WWE sell

(04:01):
out the Capitol One Arena in Washington, DC over nineteen
thousand fans for the largest arena gate in the history
of pro wrestling, just based on the insane ticket prices
that they were charging well north of four million dollars
for an arena show. Now, that's following gate records for
Elimination Chamber in Toronto, WrestleMania in Las Vegas, SummerSlam in

(04:24):
New Jersey, and Survivor Series in San Diego, all records
for those events. Business Wise, the tour was a massive
success for WWE and TKO creatively. This tour will be
debated for years to come, right the good, the bad,
and the ugly of it, But for all the money
they made off of this retirement tour. John Cena is

(04:47):
now gone and in a few weeks the calendar will
flip to twenty twenty six, and the question becomes, what now,
What will they do now without a John Cena retirement
and tour to sell out all of those buildings, probably
eyeing that next big retirement run because there may be
a few of them next year, including aj Styles and

(05:10):
possibly even brock Lesner. Sena was a guest on Chris
Van Vliet's podcast, and he hinted that brock Lesner may
be retiring in Minnesota, and it just so happens WWE
is running SummerSlam in Minnesota next year. I mean, Gunther, Obafemi,
bron Breaker. They would all be great choices for a

(05:32):
final opponent for Brock and there'll be time to debate,
you know, who that should be and how that should
all go down. That was not the only thing that
Sina said during that interview with Chris. He was asked
what the original plan was for the heel turn at
Elimination Chamber and for the Rock and Travis Scott's roles
in it, which Sina waved off by saying, who cares it?

(05:56):
Doesn't matter. He's stealing the rocks catch he goes. We
can talk about what could have been until the cows
come home. And I think that's what's great about the
people who were left standing, certainly me and Cody. What's
the change this all right, let's go. I don't dwell
for one second on what could have been, because what

(06:17):
could have been is Brock doesn't leave for the NFL,
and there's no John Setam spoken like a media train muppet.
He doesn't want to throw Triple H under the bus.
He doesn't want to throw the rock under the bus.
And I understand it's in the past. There's really nothing
to be gained by doing it for him, But kudos

(06:37):
to Chris for pushing on it. He was asking the
questions that fans wanted answers to. He just wouldn't answer it.
But in not answering it, I think he said a lot.
You know, you want to know what the original plan was.
The original plan was that there was no plan. There
was no plan for the rock. It was done for
a viral moment. The answer is that Travis Scott was

(06:58):
training to wrestle and he pulled out when the going
got tough. Money in the bank. Was supposed to be
John Cena, Logan Paul, and Travis Scott against Cody Rhodes
and the USSOS. And it's for the better that it
didn't happen. But the biggest black mark on this retirement
tour will and maybe some people disagree and they think

(07:19):
last night was the biggest black mark, But the biggest
black mark on this retirement tour will forever be booking
John Cena's final year the way that Vince McMahon used
to write television on a Monday night, ripping up the
script and blowing up the show three hours beforehand, booking
for the moments and not for the story. Ruining Number

(07:40):
seventeen at WrestleMania, which should have been a Slam dunk
and instead ended up being one of the worst Mania
finishes of all time. Once seen a turnback Babyface the
night before Summer Slam. Okay, that's how haphazard that whole
thing came together. Once that happened, he went out and
had the match of his life with Cody Rhodes. We

(08:01):
got a good one with him and Logan Paul, We
got a great one with him and AJ Styles. He
won the Grand Slam and then he did the honors
for Dominic Mysterio at Survivor Series, and then we had
the Last Time Is Now tournament, which was bitten by
the injury bug. It felt very half assed regardless, but
it was a vehicle for Gunther to return. We had

(08:22):
not seen him since he lost the championship to see
um Punk at SummerSlam, and so it was a vehicle
for him to come back and assert his dominance right
and to restore him to that final boss status so
that he could go into Saturday Night's main event Last
Night as the classic movie villain right looking to kill
the all American hero and send him off in a
body bag. Wwe decided they only needed John Cena for

(08:45):
thirty six dates, even though he was willing to commit
to more, so we ended up with him not being
around in the lead up to some of these matches,
including this one, and instead it all came down to
one last performance in the ring to put a period
on what has been a very blessed career, a career
where he had more longevity on top than most of

(09:05):
their own Hall of famers. Now that doesn't mean that
business was always great with John Cena on top. It wasn't,
but it probably would have been worse if he had
not been on top, And there were records that were made,
especially when him and Rock had that first match in Miami.
So I'm not trying to make it sound like business
was awful when John Cena was on Top, but they

(09:27):
were not at the peak that they were once at.
But you look at some of these the biggest names
in the history of the company and in the business.
Even Hogan in his first real run there had nine
years on top, seen a head over a decade, Stone Cold,
Steve Austin. His run on Top was white hot, but
he faded faster than he should have because of the

(09:48):
neck injury. It forced him into an early retirement. The
Rock he only debuted at the end of nineteen ninety six,
five years later he was already missing time to film movies.
His run on Top was very short. I mean, now,
don't tell that to John Cena. He thinks it takes
five years to get a guy over, even though Rock
had already gone from heel to face back to heel

(10:09):
as a top guy, all in less than five years.
But WWE markets John Cena and they were doing it
again last night. He's the goat, right, They market him
as the greatest of all times, something even Cmpunk was
not willing to commit to in the post show last night.
He loves John Cena. But that's how they market him.
They market him as the greatest of all time. And
to some of you listening, he may be you may

(10:32):
have grown up with him. He may be your goat.
He's not my goat, but he may be yours. The
truth is, there is no greatest of all time? You know,
of all these questions that people will ask and even
I'll get questions about it sometimes, who's the best this,
who's the bestdad? Who's on your Mount Rushmore? And all
of this kind of stuff. The reality is the most subjective, polarizing,

(10:52):
impossible question to answer, because there really is no true answer,
is who is the goat? Who is the greatest of
all time? Because what are the metrics that you even
measured that by? Everybody? Who's going to define that differently?
You're just going by your own personal preferences as far
as in ring talents and best in ring professional wrestlers.
Are you talking about business metrics? I mean, what are

(11:14):
you talking about here? Right? It's going to be different
for everybody. There is no one, definitive greatest of all time.
You ask five different people who the goat is, you're
going to get five different answers. He was never the
flashiest wrestler, but he wasn't nearly as bad as some
people made him out to be. Over the years, he
even took the time to learn a few new moves
instead of just brushing off the criticism that he can't
wrestle on the microphone when he wasn't being over the

(11:37):
top goofy, which unfortunately was more often than not, there
were not very many guys at the time better than him,
and he was somebody that really, if you were going
to have a one on one with on that microphone,
you better bring your a game, because more often than
not he would probably leave you in the dust. But
the problem is he would never sell anything, and it

(11:59):
was one one of the things about John Scene over
the course of his career and this babyface run that
drove me absolutely nuts. Nothing ever bothered him. He could
lose the world title on a Sunday and come out
smiling on a Monday. If someone got a good line
in on him in a promo, instead of selling it,
he would laugh it off like it didn't matter and

(12:21):
that he would come right back and just verbally destroy them.
That was John Cena at his worst. That and burying
the nexus fifteen years ago. That will forever be a
stain on his career. Well, we talk about legacy now
that it's over, it can be a lot to talk about.
What is the legacy that John Cena leaves behind. His
legacy to me is threefold as I see it. He

(12:44):
was the first babyface that the fans really rebelled against
a in a very visceral way. Now, there may have
been times over the years where babyfaces would get some
booze from the audience. I mean even Hogan he started
to as a babyface, but I mean never anything on
the level of what Sina started getting in two thousand
and five. In two thousand and six, but Vince McMahon

(13:06):
was stubborn and he didn't have enough faith in anybody
else to bring in the kind of merch money that
Sina started bringing in, right, so got to keep him
in the baby face role. He'll also be remembered as
the ultimate company man who did everything they wanted him
to do, never push back on any of it. And
because of that we got a lot of really bad,
unfunny television that he was a part of in that

(13:26):
I would say, two thousand and eight to twenty ten period,
which not surprisingly coincided with the start of the PG era,
So I can't just blame Sena for it. But no
other top guy in the history of that company up
to that point would have done half the shit that
Sina did without saying, fuck this, I'm not doing that,

(13:48):
spray painting jbl is poopy on his limousine, boloney, fudge
and mustard. I mean, half the time I felt like
I was watching I did if I was watching a
wrestling segment or if I was watching skit from Saturday
Night Live where he was supposed to be over the top.
And I don't even know how much of that I

(14:09):
can blame on Vince because I know he was literally
writing promos for Roman reigns. When he uttered that infamous
suffering suck atash line and then he turned and he
winked at the camera, one of the cringiest things I've
ever seen, so like when he wanted to go hands
on with somebody. In more ways than one, he was
all in with Sina. I don't think Vince was writing

(14:30):
his promos as so much as it was just Seena
being goofy. But I think the fact that he didn't
push back on more stuff had a lot to do
with how much bad television we got with him during
that period, and I know it chased away a lot
of fans who stopped watching. That is part of his
legacy too, what the company may see as one of
his greatest assets, his deference was one of his worst

(14:55):
qualities for me as a viewer. And then lastly, you
know we talk about legacy. He was the ultimate ambassador
for them outside the ring, and when it comes to
their work with Make a Wish, you couldn't ask for
a better representative. That is the legacy that he leaves behind.
For every David o'tuga or JTG or Alex Reiley or

(15:16):
Tyler Rex with the Burninghammer story who has shared a
story that made Johnsen has sounded like an asshole, there
are five more stories about him being a quality human
being and very giving of his time, even lately dropping
in at the Performance Center to give counsel to the
NXT talents, or dropping by the dungeon to do the
same thing for Natty's students. Or Bailey seminar that she

(15:38):
hosted recently, showing up and imparting his wisdom on them.
That is his legacy, someone who wants to give back
as much as he can, someone who went from being
homeless and living out of his car when he moved
to Los Angeles to becoming a multi millionaire movie star.
There's a lot that he can teach people. He just
signed a five year deal with WWE to stay on

(15:59):
it as an ambassador. There's far more that he can
do for them now outside the ring that he can inside.
We look back at this retirement run. It started with
the Royal Rumble, came down to him and Jay Usso
in that match. They were in full yeap mode at
the beginning of the year. They wanted to put the
World Heavyweight Championship on Jay and I told you guys
before that show weeks before, don't count out Jay Usso

(16:23):
as a very real possibility. And it was smart the
way they did that finish, because it really could have
gone either way once it came down to the two
of them. But it was still a shock to a
lot of people when Jay actually won. I thought this
year is Men's Rumble was excellent and then came the
men's elimination chamber, where we got to see John Cena
and see I'm Punk mix it up for the first

(16:44):
time in twelve years, and it was great. Sena gets
the win. And then came the heel turn with Seena
kicking Cody Rhoades in the dick and leaving with the
Rock and Travis Scott and in a vacuum. Just looking
at the angle itself, looking at the turn itself, and
that shot of Sena and Rock standing side by side.

(17:06):
It is one of the greatest heel turns of all time.
With the context of what followed, it is one of
the worst. Everything that got people excited about where this
could be going was nowhere to be found. The Rock
was nowhere to be found. And when you realize that
there was no plan to follow up on it, and

(17:27):
it was only done because Ari Emmanuel felt they needed
the Rock on this show to jazz up ticket sales,
and then Triple H thought he was the booker of
the year by suggesting, hey, what if we turned John
Cena heel right? Also they could get a viral moment
out of it. I would argue it's actually among the

(17:47):
worst turns in wrestling history. It's like the idea of
the Invasion in two thousand and one. It's so great
right until you see it in execution, and then you
realize how much money was left on the table. Then
came the match with co he Roades at WrestleMania. In hindsight,
they should have never turned him to begin with because
it was never going to work. The U people promos

(18:08):
were never going to work. In twenty twenty five, Sena
was beloved. It wasn't twenty twelve anymore. It felt forced.
They were forcing people to boo a man who they
wanted to cheer because this was their last chance to
pay to see him live doing the turn in the
match at WrestleMania. That would have been better if they
insisted on going in that direction and turning him. That

(18:30):
would have been the better way to do it. But
they have the match and it sucks. It sucks even
before we hear Fien and Travis Scott takes twenty eight
years to make his way down to the ring in
the middle of this WrestleMania main event. And as soon
as the people see Travis Scott, what do they assume? Right?
They assumed that the Rock must be coming out next,
But there's no rock, because he says on Pat McAfee show,

(18:55):
he didn't want to take away from seeing his moment
when he wins number seventeen. The minute you agreed to
be part of that heel turn, you were taking away
from John Cena's moment. There was no rock. And it
took a dick kick in a belt shot for John
Cena to break Rick Flair's phony record with seventeen world titles.

(19:15):
That is how they broke the record. You could have
asked a thousand people when the day comes that John
Cena finally breaks the record, how do you think it happens?
Book it out and how do you how would you
do it? How do you envision it going down? And
I guarantee you they would have never predicted that because
it's just so awful. No one would even think to

(19:36):
pitch it. But Triple H and his band of merry men,
they sat around the whiteboard and actually wrote that shit down.
They actually said, yep, this is the way we want
to end wrestle many of this year and break number seventeen.
Awful seeing his heel turn, it gave us one more
match with him and Randy Orton at Backlash, which was
better than I expected. It to be. Hardly a classic

(19:58):
or anything, but they had a good man match. I mean, look,
WWE pedals this narrative about them having a classic rivalry.
I lived through it. Okay, there was nothing classic about it.
Just because two people have a lot of matches together
does not make it a classic. We got a match
with our Truth on Saturday Night's main event that was
a complete waste of time. Their rematch on SmackDown was

(20:19):
no better. In between that, we had John Cena and
Logan Paul teaming up at Money in the Bank against
Cody Rhodes and Jay Uso, which again was supposed to
be a six man with Travis Scott involved. It was
better off for not having him there and Logan Paul.
He was the star of that match. You take Logan
Paul out of that match, you end up with a
pretty bland main event, but he elevated it from bland

(20:41):
to good. And then came John Cena against Cmpunk for
the first time since twenty thirteen, and it happens in
of all places, Saudi Arabia, and I like the story
that Sieda told of knowing Punk's past comments about Saudi.
If you want the match, if you want to shot
at the Championship, you're gonna have to be a hypocrite

(21:02):
and follow me all the way to Saudi to get it.
I thought that was clever. The match itself could not
live up to their past ones, but they still had
a good match. It was very overbooked with all the
run ins. This is a match that would have been
better without seeing the doing the heel stick. Like as
great as his baby face matches were this year, with

(21:23):
people like Cody and AJ, he should have wrestled Punk
as a babyface also. Instead, the face turn came right
after this, just in time for the rematch with Cody
at SummerSlam, and Sena was like a totally different person
out there. The guy who I thought was completely washed
proved me wrong and showed that he still had some

(21:44):
gas left in the tank even with all the finishers spam.
I mean, they went out there and there was a
lot of that. But these two had a fantastic match,
and I am glad that they did, because if all
they had together was that WrestleMania match, what a terrible
thing to remember them for. Instead, they went from one
of the worst matches of the year to one of
the best, and this was really a turning point in

(22:07):
this retirement tour. There was a throwaway tag match on SmackDown,
but then came Clash in Paris and a singles match
with Logan Paul that was very good. You know, in total,
five of John seen his last matches this year all
involved Logan Paul more than anyone else. And then came
the impromptu match on SmackDown, his final SmackDown match ever,

(22:29):
the show where he debuted. He debuted against Kurt Angle.
Writing in the Angles Little Open, challenged anybody in the
back that I've never faced before to come on out
and wrestle me. The very show where he debuted in
two thousand and two, he wrestled on there for the
final time against Sammy's Ain for the United States Championship
and the two put on a clinic until the terrible

(22:49):
finish with brock Lesner. I'm glad we got to see
it again ten years after Sammy challenged Sena for the
title in the Open Challenge. It was a very full
circle moment. The moment with brock Lesner at Wressell Palooza
that was not so much a full circle moment, as
it was a poor attempt at rehashing something they did
much better at Summerslim many years ago. This was mostly destruction,

(23:11):
with Brock killing him with sup Plexus and F five's
Galore and then just pinning him. They wasted a John
Cena match on elevating brock Lesner. I was floored when
Sina said this in the interview with Chris Well. I'm
on my way out, so how can we use this
to help get Brock over in his first match back?
Like as if Brock needs to get over in twenty

(23:32):
twenty five. The match was garbage, no story, no emotional investment,
no real interaction with them in the weeks leading up
to it. It was just it was two things. We
want a big attraction for our first ESPN show and
we got to keep Brock looking strong, So how can
we do that? I know we'll have him squash John

(23:52):
Cena again with one of the few matches the man
has left well done. Thankfully, we had the match with
aj Styles at Crown Jewel to wash the sour taste
out of our mouths, although it was more of the
same where they announced it, no real story to it,
and Sena wasn't around it promoted. They had seen a
post a tweet asking the fans if this was a

(24:14):
match they wanted to see, right, he tagged Triple H
and it just to let Triple H and the powers
that be, No, I let your voices be heard. Right.
The match was already planned, but Triple H wanted the
fans to feel as if their voice actually was being
heard and their voice made a difference. AJ Styles talking
about how someone in the back has it out for me.
Remember that little promo he cut during one of the

(24:34):
commercial breaks on Raw. No, I don't blame you. That
didn't go anywhere either. But the match they had in Perth,
it was a love letter to pro wrestling and all
of the different opponents that they've worked with over the years.
It was fantastic. It was a lot of fun. And
then came the match in Boston on Raw with Dominic

(24:54):
Mysterio where Sena finally won the Intercontinental title. He completed
the Grand Slam. The fans wanted to see this. He's
got to win the Grand Slam. You got your Grand Slam.
It made for a nice moment. And then in his
final match at Madison Square Garden, we got Sena tagging
with Seamus and raymus Stereo in a win over the

(25:15):
Judgment Day Total House Show match, But it was fun
for what it was. It was the only time we
got to see Sena and Seamus interact on this tour.
Then we get to Survivor Series, his final pl Sena
drops the belt back to Dom and we got the
return of liv Morgan. We had Riquel Rodriguez giving him
a Tehana bomb, we had Roxanne Perez giving Sena pop rocks.

(25:37):
He was putting everybody over in that match, and like
the Punk match, it was very overbooked, but the fans
had fun with it. More importantly, they got the belt
off of Sena before the match last night, which they
had to do, which brings me to last night, Saturday
Night's main event, a night that was supposed to be
all about John Cena, but Seena insisted they shine a

(25:58):
light on the next generation of stars, so we got
the WWE champion, Cody Rhodes taking on the NXT champion,
Oba Femi. They talked about how Cody is the hero
and now Oba is the future. No Oba should be
the hero and now too. Starting in the Royal Rumble,
it is time to elevate that man to Maine roster status.

(26:19):
Let him defend the NXT Championship at New Year's Evil.
Go ahead and book a triple threat match. Let him
defend it against Ricky Saints and Javon Evans coming out
of the angle they did on TV last week. He
doesn't even need to eat the pin to drop the
belt and then get him on up because that man
is ready to be one of the top three major players.

(26:39):
On Friday nights, You've got SmackDown expanding to three hours.
They confirmed it this week January second, SmackDown moves back
to three hours every Friday. The timing has never been better.
How can I sit here and bitch and moan about
how stale the shows feel and not endorse a move
like that. It is exactly what the show needs to

(27:01):
breathe new life into it. I thought Oba had a
great showing last night. Cody gave him a lot before,
of course, the predictable Drew McIntyre run in. They didn't
want to beat anybody, so that's the finish. We got
maybe even a little tease there for where they could
potentially go with Oba if he is up in time
for WrestleMania. Maybe we get something with Oba and Drew.

(27:23):
They put Soul Ruka over Bailey, which was the right move,
but again, in an effort to protect everybody, we got
to protect the main roster star. They couldn't just let
her win with the Soul Snatcher. They had to do
the roll up with Soul reversing into one of her own,
and then she gets to win. They should have let
her win with her actual finish, which that alone is
going to get that woman over in no time once

(27:43):
they call her up. AJ Styles and dragon Ly they
picked up the win over Javon Evans and Leon Slater.
I never expected them to put over the TNA guy
on the show. I mean, he's not even under contract
with them, but them boys made the most of the
limited time they had, which was not nearly enough. It
felt like maybe they're time got cut. I don't even
think they won a full ten minutes. AJ Styles had

(28:04):
a rare slip off the top rope on a phenomenal
forearm attempt, which I presume was going to be the
finish of the match. Leon Slater I thought he improvised
very nicely by immediately going over for the cover, but
then he ended up falling victim to the styles clash.
I am sure that AJ you could kind of see
it on his face, But I am sure that AJ

(28:26):
was fuming on the inside about that botch. I am
sure he's kicking himself over it. But this was fun
while it lasted. You know, we don't have AJ for
too many more of these, so we need to appreciate
them while we still have them and hope that they
do justice to him on his way out. They even
gave Joe Hendry a cameo on the show in a
segment with the Miz and Our Truth, which was nice

(28:48):
to see. Obafemi Joe Hendry, soul Ruka Javon Evans Right,
Maybe Javon takes a little bit longer because I would
strap him up with that NXT championship at stand intul
River first and then give him a run with it
before I call him up full time. But these are
some of the faces that we need to see up
on Rawn's SmackDown in these next few months, and with SmackDown,

(29:10):
we need to see them up there in a matter
of weeks. They took the time last night to shine
a spotlight on these people for a reason, and they
did a good job of that. Right for that, we
have John Cena to thank. And then it was Seena's turn,
and it was cool to see him shaking hands with
and hugging some of his past rivals at ringside. Rob

(29:31):
Van Dam was there, Booker t Mark Henry right. One
of the all time great raw moments that Sina was
a part of. What the Salmon Jacket. Kevin Owens was there,
Sammy's and Kevin Owens, by the way, one of the
new coaches for LFG the new season that's coming out.
I think it's Owens and Natty. I think it looks
like they're replacing Undertaker and Michelle McCool. So he was there,

(29:53):
Sammy's Ain was there, Trish Stratus, Eve Torres, even Hakou.
They had Hakku there just to make sure Sena did
business the right way on his way out. It's like
Undertaker taping up his fists in the back at WrestleMania
when Sewn Michaels wrestled Steve Austin. Got to have Haku
there just to make sure everything goes down the way
it's supposed to, and Sena had the perfect opponent for it.

(30:14):
You know, there was a lot of repetition in some
of the spots, but you know he gave the people
the chance to do that. You can't see me two
or three different times. We had the usual multiple attitude adjustments,
including one last avalanche, one one last one through the
announced desk. But the story coming into this match was
Gunther promising to not only beat Sena, but to make

(30:35):
him give up, to do the one thing that John
Cena has not done in more than twenty years now.
I was hoping in the end, and I said this
coming into last night, that they would give the fans
that happy ending after a run this year that has
been filled with lots of not so happy ones as
a fan, as a viewer, and if you were one

(30:57):
of the nineteen thousand people who paid that record gate
to be at the SHO show last night, you were
hoping they would buck the usual trend of retirement matches
and not end things on a downer. There is precedent
for it. Undertaker in the Boneyard match, Trish Stratus winning
the world title from Leda in Toronto and her last
match staying in aw Even though he wanted to lose,

(31:18):
they wouldn't let him, and he ended up having one
of the greatest sendoffs that any wrestler has ever had.
But I understand that probably was never going to happen, right,
There was a little chance that John Cena was going
to advocate for a show built around the future and
advocate for NXT stars to be on the show and
then not go out on his back. And it wasn't

(31:39):
that John Cena lost to Gunther in the sleeper hole.
He fought out of it multiple times. He kept finding
himself trapped with nowhere to go. It was the way
that he lost, which a lot of people are They're
calling it poetic. It's poetic, it's cinema. It's John Cena
at peace with him his fate, putting over the next generation,

(32:02):
even though I mean technically, gun There was very much
a part of this generation. He's not the next generation,
but he was resigned to his fate. Right. Oh, it's
the perfect ending. I disagree, and I think it was
the wrong finish. I think it was the wrong finish
to have John Cena flash that smile and give that
half hearted tap out the way that he did. I

(32:24):
think it's okay to give the fans something. It may
not be a win, but I think you let those
Scena fans hang on to the one thing that he
stood by and preached for twenty years. Never give up.
Don't ever give up. Scene of fighting and scratching and
clawing and trying everything he could to escape the hole
but failing, and then realizing this was probably the end.

(32:48):
He has that moment of clarity that we saw last night. Right,
there was a moment there where they did the arm
drop two times and then on the third time the
arm stayed up and he had the okay sign and
everybody cheered. Right. You had the crowd literally begging him
not to give up, chanting for Supersena, which is a
chance that blows my mind if you were watching John
Cena during the actual Supersena years, that we would wait

(33:09):
long enough to have people chanting for Supersena here at
this match. But he flashed the ok sign after the
arm dropped twice and he started to fight out of
it again. I think that's where the finish should have
been done. You have that man acknowledge you know what
it's going to be. Okay, right as he starts to
fade and the lights go out and the referee calls

(33:30):
for the stoppage, so Sina may have gone down, but
he went down fighting until the very end, and he
stayed true to his word for all the T shirts
and the hats and the wristbands and the Make a
Wish appearances and everything where he would always say never
give up. I mean, Helly had it written on his
goddamn socks last night after he took his tennis shoes
off and he left his shoes in the ring. He

(33:52):
should have taken those off too, But maybe he's saving
that for all the foot people, for the only fans.
I don't know, but I just think that that's the
one thing you don't do, you know, Like he was
still a heel, sure, because as a heel he betrayed
most of what he stood for. Anyway, he was kicking
people in the dick. He was hitting them in the
head with the belt. But when you preach something for
so long and you know that you're going down as

(34:15):
it is, and people are going to be upset, I
think you give them something to hang their hat on
where they can still be upset with Gunther for beating you,
or upset with the booking because you're lost, and look,
Gunther is going to get massive heat regardless when he
walks out on Raw tomorrow night. I don't know if
it's going to be Roman Reigns heat coming out the
night after WrestleMania at thirty three, where they boot him

(34:37):
for eight and a half minutes straight and would let
him speak. I mean, that was something, but you can
at least say the man stayed true to his word
all the way until the bitter end. It's the way
that they did it that was not how John Cena's
final match should have ended. In the eyes of a
lot of fans who were upset, that's how they feel.
That's how I feel. You could have gotten the same

(34:59):
result with gun Third doing it the other way without
pissing off the fans so much that one of the
things that John Cen's final match will now be remembered
for are the chants of bullshit and you fucked up
and fuck Triple H. Boy did they not like Triple H.
The heat was more on him last night than it
was on Gunther. The biggest heel in that building in Washington,

(35:21):
DC last night was the booker. That's what happens when
you plaster yourself all over the place, all the advertisements
and WWE unreal and all the media appearances and you
open up all these shows, right, you want your face
out there. Everybody knows. Now, it's no secret that Triple
H is the puppet master. He's the one pulling the
strings behind the scenes. Right when you get praise for

(35:44):
something like I'm sure he did an elimination chamber. I'm
sure it's a great feeling. When shit goes sideways, you
get the blame for that as well. I will say
about Gunther, though, he did get a lot of heat
leaving the building. I don't know if you saw the
cell phoned video of him walking to the outside and
the fans mobbing him, just saying fuck you, Gunther. They

(36:05):
had to double up on security just so the guy
can make it to the bus in one piece. See,
that's old school. He'll heat right there. And I think
he would have gotten that heat regardless, even if he
would have put Seena out the way he did Goldberg.
The people are going to say, well, it was John
Cena's idea. First of all, we don't know if the
finish itself was John Cena's idea. Sina absolutely wanted to lose.

(36:28):
There's not a doubt in my mind about that. You
go out on your back because they're staying and you're
leaving right. You go out on your back the way
that most people come in right as a rookie on
their back. You go out the same way. But Triple
H was on the Post Show last night and he
was blasted with chance of you fucked up and a
w which was kind of funny. He said, look, there

(36:52):
are time honored traditions in our business. There's a way
that you handle your business. John has said the right
thing his entire career that it's about leaving this place
better than you found it. You do what's right for
the business. You do what's right for this industry. John
has done that his entire career, and I'm going to
do that my entire career. What I believe is right
for this business. It just is what it is. And

(37:14):
I understand that's tough for people to understand. But it's
part of what we do. That is the role we
have chosen. Take a shot. He said, the thing, it's
what we do. It's what we do. He says it
the way that Russo says bro can't help himself. It's
what we do. It's what we do. When asked if
there was ever a question in his mind about the ending.

(37:37):
He said, yeah, that is if you were to say,
what will John Cena do on his way out? Take
the emotion out of it and ask people what would
John Cena do? I'm talking about the character his entire career.
Some that all up and say what would he do
on the way out? Right? If we want to talk
about behind the scenes, he will put over somebody on
the way out. He will leave this place better than

(37:58):
he found it. He will go into the ring and
he will make somebody on his way up. That is
what John does. It's what John has always done. I
know people will criticize this, people will talk about this
moment right here, I've got big shows. I'm good with it.
Whatever that means. I mean, yes, what else is he
going to say? John Cena wanted to leave the business

(38:19):
better off than he found it. Right. WWE today is
a much bigger, more lucrative company than it was when
John Cena won his first championship. To that end, he
left it better than he found it. That has little
to do with the actual finish of the match. Was
it seen as idea? Is it the way that he
envisioned his final match ending? Did he have that finish

(38:40):
in mind from the beginning of this whole thing. If
we come to find out that it was, then I'm
happy for him that he got to go out on
those terms that he set out for himself. That does
not mean that everyone needs to like the way the
finish was done, Like, I don't understand the warped logic
behind this idea of that. Well, if Sina wanted it
that way, then we all have to like it. No,

(39:00):
we don't. The fuck are you talking about. That's like saying, like,
if we were to come to find out that it
was actually John Cena's idea to turn heel and for
the heel turned to go down exactly the way that
it did, and it wasn't. But let's just say it was.
Does that suddenly change how you feel about the heel turn?
Does that suddenly change how bad that heel run was? No,

(39:24):
it still sucked. It doesn't change anything. I've heard people say, well,
Sina got to go out on his terms. No he didn't.
He has literally said he is not going out on
his terms, that if he could do this forever, he would,
but his body simply will not allow him to do so.
So this is the way it has to be. The

(39:47):
fans have every right to be upset if that's how
they feel, and Triple H will get the heat that
he deserves for it, because it was either his idea
to do it that way or he approved it. But
either way, he's taken a lot of shit for it,
deservedly so he made more than a few missteps this
year with this retirement run. Okay, he deserves the heat
for it. As soon as that match ended, the faces

(40:08):
and the looks on all those people's faces, it was
the closest thing to the Undertaker streak ending of WrestleMania
that we have seen since then. That was worse as
far as the reaction, but this was the closest thing
to that that I can think of. And they love it.
They love those viral moments, They love all the engagement
that this is getting on social media. They live for
this stuff. And so now the hope is that they

(40:31):
can take all the heat that Guntherro is going to
have coming out of this as the man who retire
John Cena, and they can use it for good. If
that's a match with brock Lesnar at WrestleMania. You know,
brock almost has to be the babyface. If you do that,
because you just had guntherer tap out John Cena. He
can't be the babyface. It would squander all the heat
that he's going to have. Now. Maybe it's Brock, maybe

(40:52):
it's Aj Styles. If Styles chooses to retire at WrestleMania,
I don't know, there will be time to debate that
and litigate that. Gunther's story is an interesting one. He
went from the guy who never wanted to come work
in the United States, specifically because he was not a
fan of the product that Vince McMahon used to put out,

(41:12):
to becoming one of their biggest, most protected stars and
the man handpicked to retire John Cena. It has been
quite the turnaround. That has been quite the journey for
gun There. It's actually nice to see. I may not
have been a fan of the way they did the finish,
but hopefully they at least use it for good and
for Sina. He gave it everything he had. He went

(41:33):
from looking completely washed to proving a lot of people wrong,
myself included, and having some of the best matches that
he has had in more than a decade. I'm glad
he got to work with some old faces again and
even a few new ones. We can pick nits on
other names that we would have liked to have seen
him in the ring with. We got a mix of both.
A lot of legends never get a retirement tour, They

(41:55):
never get a retirement match, they never get to write
that closing chapter. Good for him that he got the
chance to do that. And always remember, kids, never give
up until your last day at work, then it's okay
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(44:46):
since we're talking all things John Cena this week, with
his career now in the rear view, I thought it
would be a good time to put together my own
list of what I believe to be the best matches
of John Cena's career. Now, your list is going to
look different than my list. It's all very subjective, but
his career spanned over two decades, and for someone who

(45:07):
supposedly couldn't wrestle and got a lot of you can't
wrestle chance, he had a lot of great matches and
you can't just credit his opponents for him. You've got
to have a good dance partner. Sina was very fortunate though,
to work with a lot of great wrestlers. And so
I've narrowed my list down to fifteen. But first I've
got six honorable mentions for you. So basically twenty one
matches in total, but these six they didn't make the countdown,

(45:30):
but they are still great matches that are worthy of you.
Going ahead and checking out John Cena against Eddie Guerrero
in a parking lot brawl from the September eleventh, two
thousand and three episode of SmackDown. This was heel doctor
of Thuganomics Sena, who stole Eddie's Lowrider which led to
this match, and it was pretty brutal. I mean, lots
of cars got smashed up. They had all the cars

(45:52):
in a circle in the parking lot and wrestlers were
all gathered around. It's like something out of a movie.
And the cars got all smashed up up, Their bodies
got smashed up. At one point, Eddie even put the
windshield wipers on the scene, a windshield wiper fluid in
his eyes. This was the first really great thing that
I can remember Sena doing or being a part of

(46:13):
this early in his career and working with someone like
Eddie obviously was a big plus for him. John Cena
against Rob Van dam ECW One Night Stand two thousand
and six. The match itself, bell to bell, It's solid,
you know, it's fine, but it's all about the atmosphere
inside the Hammerstein Ballroom that night. It was like few

(46:36):
matches that I have ever seen before. I mean, you
talk about walking into enemy territory. That is what Sena
was doing that night. And the image of him tossing
his T shirt to the crowd and getting it thrown
right back at him is maybe more memorable than the
match itself. That and the if Sina wins, we Riots
sign up in the balcony. And then to top it
all off, Vince McMahon has RVD go over on his

(46:58):
Top Star to WINWE Championship. RVD was a double champion.
He had the WWE title and he had the ECW title.
He was on top of the world. This was the
peak of his career, and then three weeks later it
all came crashing down and he shot himself in the
foot and he got arrested with Saboo on a drug
charge and WWE suspended him, but not before allowing him

(47:20):
to defend the title on Raw so that he could
drop it in a triple threat match to Edge, and
the very next night he dropped the ECW title to
the Big Show. One thing Vince never had to worry
about was John Cena being pulled over and arrested. RVD
has no one to blame but himself for that one.
John Cena against Randy Orton in a sixty minute Ironman

(47:44):
match at Bragging Rights in two thousand and nine. You know,
it's hard to go sixty minutes in the ring. It's
even harder when you know that the match can't end
until you go the full sixty. People tend to tune
out for the first half, right It could be boring,
so it's very important to keep things moving and exciting.
It's one of the reasons I'm not a big fan
of that first iron Men match with Brett Hart and

(48:06):
Shawn Michaels WrestleMania. I think it's overrated and I think
the iron Man stipulation worked against them up until we
got Brian Danielson against MJF and AW. I had Rock
and Triple H A Judgment Day is my favorite iron
Man match. This one is not my favorite, but it's
similar to the Rock and Triple H one and that
they kept the action moving and we got a lot

(48:27):
of falls. You know, Triple H beat Rock six falls
to five in their match to win the WWE Championship,
and here John Cena beat Randy Orton six falls to
five to win the WWE Championship. So they followed the
same blueprint. This is the best of all the matches
that John Cena and Randy Orton ever had against each other.
I put it slightly above their match the month before

(48:50):
Breaking Point. That was the I quip match Team Sena
against Team Authority from Survivor Series twenty fourteen. The Authority
dominated WWE television for quite a while and this was
the culmination of this big Survivor Series traditional elimination match.
John Cena leading his own team, and the stipulation was

(49:13):
that if the Authority team won, Triple Ah and Stephanie
would continue running WWE and every member of John Cena's
team except for himself would be fired. But if Team
Cina won, then the Authority would lose their power and
they had one of the best Traditional Survivor Series elimination
matches of the decade when they were still doing them.

(49:35):
This was an excellent match, and the story they told
it was very dramatic. Came down to Dolf Ziggler having
to fight three members of Team Authority all by himself
at the very end of this basically fighting for his job.
This was the match where Big Show turn heel for
Oh my god, don't even know how many times it
would have been at this point, but he turned heel again,

(49:55):
causing John Cena to be eliminated, and he ended up
joining the Authority to keep his job. But Ziggler was
really the standout here in this match, and then the
big moment at the end of course, Sting makes his
WWE debut, puts down Triple H with a scorpion death drop,
places Dove Ziggler on top of SETH rollins, and Ziggler

(50:16):
gets the win for the Babyfaces. Wouldn't she know? Big debut,
big crowd pleasing moment here at the end, and everybody
was really more than anything. They were happy that the
Authority was officially disbanded after this, or so they thought,
because it was only a few weeks. They ran an
angle where the Authority was threatening to break Edge's neck

(50:40):
if John Cena did not reinstate them, which he did so.
After all this, John Cena was the one responsible for
reinstating the Authority, who then proceeded to fire a whole
bunch of the wrestlers, including Dolf Ziggler, who were in
that match. Anyway, we had John Cena again, AJ Styles

(51:01):
for the first time ever. This was Money in the
Bank twenty sixteen. This is the weakest of the three
matches in their trilogy, but still a very good match.
The screwy finish it brings it down a bit. Still
a match worth going out of your way to see
if you've never seen it before, just to complete the
trilogy if nothing else. And lastly, here with these honorable mentions,

(51:24):
the elimination chamber match from twenty seventeen, John Cena, Bray Wyatt,
Dean Ambrose, AJ Styles, Baron Corbin and the mizz This
is one of the better chamber matches that they've ever done.
And this is when they debuted the new Chamber which
had all the padding and it just wasn't as menacing
as the old one. Safer, but just not as menacing.

(51:47):
This is the one where bray Wyatt won the WWE Championship,
which was really the pinnacle for him, as it turned out.
I mean, he didn't have it for very long. I mean,
I guess you could say the fiend stuff maybe with
the pinnacle, because that was a whole different character and
he won the Universal title. But you know, as as
bray Wyatt as himself, this really was the pinnacle for
him in WWE, and he did not have the championship

(52:09):
for very long. He dropped it to Randy Orton in
their terrible match of WrestleMania. But this Chamber match was
excellent and Sina was a part of that. So that's
my list of honorable mentions. And with that out of
the way, let's get to the countdown the top fifteen
greatest matches in the career of John Cena. I'm going
to start with number fifteen. We're going to work our

(52:31):
way all the way up to number one. Number fifteen,
John Cena against brock Lesner at SummerSlam twenty fourteen. This
is the greatest squash match in WWE history. In twenty
fourteen was a very big year for brock Lesner because
that is the year that brock Lesner beat the Undertaker

(52:53):
at WrestleMania and ended the streak, which I disagreed with
a lot of people did, but then they had to
do something to keep him strong after that and not
waste it. Yeah, there are a lot of people who
think the streak never should have ended. I think, you know,
the bigger issue also was if you're going to break
the streak right, and this is kind of a timely
since we're talking about John Cena and putting over you know,

(53:14):
the next generation of stars and all that. Would it
not have been better to have the Undertaker lose the
streak to somebody on the rise, like a Roman reigns
right before everybody turned on Roman. Would it not have
made more sense to do something like that. Was it
something that brock Lesnar needed. The answer is no, brock
didn't need it. You could have taken a different path

(53:36):
to really getting Brock over as an unstoppable monster, him
being able to go around and have Paul Hayman go
around and say I'm the one in twenty one and one.
It just it became part of the gimmick and it
was very effective. Did it have to go down that way?
The answer is no, but they did it, and so
if you did it, you better not waste it. Daniel
Brian won the WWE Championship or WrestleMania on that same show

(53:59):
that same night, and unfortunately he got hurt and he
was forced to vacate the title, which Sena ended up
winning him money in the bank, and that was his
fifteenth World championship. His reign was short lived, and I
do believe that had Daniel Brian not gotten injured, the
spot that ended up going to John Cena as the

(54:22):
victim at SummerSlam, that spot was meant for Daniel Brian,
and Daniel Brian would have been just torn from stem
to stern by brock Lesner and left for dead in
the ring in that Summer Slam Man. That massacre was
intended for him. It was not intended for John Cena.
But that massacre would not have been as impactful if

(54:42):
it happened to anybody but John Cena. Sixteen German sue
plexes there was a regular one too. I think set
seventeen sue Plex's total in the match. It took some
brass balls on their part to do that finish, to
do that match in the way that they did. There
was no fifty fifty booking here. This was as decisive
and one sided as you will ever see in a

(55:05):
pay per view main event. It was like, I compared
it at the time to Doomsday beating Superman to death
in the comics. That's what this was, and it was
a novel thing at the time. It was like, how
do you even rate a match like this, right? I mean,
you don't rate it in the same way that you
rate most other matches in terms of work rate in
the moves. But they told a story and it was

(55:27):
one that was uncomfortable to watch. It was one that
was completely unexpected. And one thing you can say is
that they didn't take advantage of Lesnar being the one
to end the streak. They went all the way with him.
He didn't just end the streak. He murdered John Cena
in a way that no other main eventor in the
history of that company has or would have allowed themselves,

(55:48):
frankly to be portrayed so we talk about how giving
Sina was with many people. There's prime example number one
when it comes to that, like, can you imagine any
other main event attraction in the history of up to
that point, whether it's Hogan or Savage or Warrior or
Brett or Shawn Michaels or Steve Austin. I mean maybe

(56:10):
the Rock, because the Rock tended to be pretty selfless.
I mean he put Brock over at SummerSlam himself, but
very few of any would have done what John Cena
was willing to do in that match. That's what makes
this match special. Number fourteen John Cena against Kevin Owens

(56:32):
from Money in the Bank twenty fifteen. Kevin Owens didn't
have a long time as the NXT champion before we
saw him pop up on Monday Night Raw. This was
during the period where John Cena was the United States
Champion and he was doing his open challenges and Kevin
Owens came in one night and laid him out and
it led to a match at Elimination Chamber which took

(56:53):
place in May that year, and Kevin Owens beat John
Cena clean in the middle of the ring. There was
no outset interference, there was no cheating. There was no
debate about, oh, you know, look what he did to win, like,
he beat him. He beat him clean just a few
weeks before this, and that was shocking at the time.

(57:13):
This was the match where John Cena got his win back.
But this was the better of the two matches, and
this was the best match in the trilogy of matches
that they had that year. They established Kevin Owens as
someone credible right out of the gate. This was Sena
in his prime, you know, seen in his physical prime,
and Kevin Owens beating him decisively which led to this match,

(57:34):
and you know, yeah, they went I can't even say
fifty to fifty because again there was another match, and
I believe Sena won that match as well, But right
out of the gate, they made you kind of sit
up and take notice that, hey, this guy is someone
to pay attention to. That's how you get somebody over
Number thirteen, John Cena against Cody Rhodes at WrestleMania forty right,

(57:56):
you can give me a fucking break, Give me a break,
SummerSlam twenty twenty five. I said it earlier, I said,
how do you go in one year? How do you
go from having one of the worst matches of the
entire year to having one of the best, such as
the case with John Cena. It's like, how do you
go from having a heel turn that in the moment

(58:17):
felt like, man, this is one of the greatest things ever,
and then having it ended up being one of the worst.
It was quite the year for John Cena. It was
very up and down. This match though, was to me
the marquee match that will in ring will define this
retirement run. And some people may say it was the
match with aj at Crown Jewel, and that's fine, that
was fantastic also, but this right here was Sina turning

(58:41):
around dropping the belt back to Cody, which always felt
like it was the plan, but it ended up being
Babyfaced against Babyface. They bumped up the in Sena's own words,
they bumped up the timeline on that a little bit
more than they had expected. But they went out there
for well over thirty minutes. It was actually closer to
forty minutes. I think this went thirty and they wrestled,

(59:03):
They brawled into the crowd, they brawled back to the ring. Yes,
there was a lot of finisher spam from both of them,
but they had the crowd in the palm of their hand.
This was the match that really opened up my eyes
as far as like wow, Like I didn't know that
Scena still had a match like this left in him,
and it took Cody as the first one this year
to really bring it out of him. This was an

(59:24):
excellent match, the complete and polar opposite of what we
got at WrestleMania from these two. So I'm glad they
had the chance to at least a little bit wash
the stink off from what happened in Las Vegas and
go out there in New Jersey and have a match
of the Year candidate. And I think part of the
reason I also ranked this in his top fifteen is

(59:45):
that as great as the match itself was, it was
what it represented. It represented the fact that John Cena
still had a match like this left in him, and
that's what we got here between him and Cody. Number twelve,
John Cena, And I know this is a favorite of
many of you, and you would probably have this a
lot higher, but I have this in number twelve. John

(01:00:06):
Cena against edge, tables, ladders and chairs at Unforgiven two
thousand and six. Yeah, there were debates about who John
Cena's greatest rival is a lot of people say Edge.
Some people say Randy Orton, I say CM Punk, I've
got Punk, and then Edge right behind him. But either way,
either way, Edge is way up there on the list.

(01:00:28):
This is their greatest singles match right here. They were
in Toronto, so naturally it was a very pro Edge crowd,
very anti Sena, although a lot of the crowds back
then were anti Sena until he would win and then
they would cheer. This was a TLC match, so it
was a lot of spots. It was very slow early on,
a lot of setting up those spots. I think people

(01:00:49):
more than anything, they remember this match for the finish,
more than the match itself. That was a very crazy
bump at the end that Edge took. As TLC matches go,
I think it's a great one, but it's still more
a collection of spots and big bumps than anything else,
you know, story wise or anything like that. So up
against a lot of other matches on this countdown, I

(01:01:11):
cannot rank this above those. It makes my top fifteen though,
but I just can't put it higher than this. And
where this match was more about the spots and the
crazy bumps, the next match was the opposite still doesn't
rank in my top ten, so this may upset some people,
but coming in at number eleven. John Cena against Sewn

(01:01:34):
Michaels on Monday Night Raw from London, England, April twenty third,
two thousand and seven. One of the greatest matches in
Raw history, but also one that I think people overrate
because of how long it was. This was a rematch
from their WrestleMania twenty three main event, which Sena won.
Here they went fifty five minutes on a taped show

(01:01:57):
from London, which was marred by commercial breaks. When you
have a match that long, it's just the way it is.
It's kind of like when Kurt Angle and Brock Lesner
had their Iron Men match on SmackDown when SmackDown was
on upn You know, having a sixty minute match on television,
what do you expect? You know what I mean, You're
gonna get a lot of commercial interruptions. It was better
than their WrestleMania match, and it was a test for

(01:02:18):
John Cena. This was the first time he really silenced
some of the people who didn't think he could wrestle.
He went out there for almost an hour and he
wrestled his ass off as best he could against maybe
the greatest of all time in ring right, who could
do this in his sleep. But a lot of the
match had them working over body parts to no real effect.

(01:02:39):
Like they uploaded this match, what was it to the vault?
I don't know where I watched it recently, but I
went back a lot of these matches. I went back
and watched it because you kind of look at it
a little bit differently through twenty twenty five eyes than
maybe you would have in two thousand and seven. There
was a lot of working over, you know, body parts
in this match, but no real outcome from it. It

(01:03:00):
was more just to kill time than anything else. None
of it ended up playing into the latter part of
the match. So I think with this match, you had
a strong open, you had a strong close, but a
lot of dead time in the middle. Certainly one of
Seena's better matches and one of his more memorable ones,
but it doesn't crack the top ten for me because
I just don't think it's as good as the other

(01:03:20):
matches that I have in here. And to that end,
let's get into it. These are the ten best matches
of John Cena's career number ten, John Sena against Umaga
Last man Standing at the Royal Rumble in two thousand
and seven. So this was a few months actually before
the Shawn Michaels match, and like Gunther last night, Umaga

(01:03:43):
was the perfect foil. He was the perfect monster foil
for John Cena in this match, And this was only
weeks after Sena had gotten pinned on television by Kevin Fetterline.
Mister Britney Spears at least for a few more months
thanks to an assist from Umaga and seen a Pindumaga

(01:04:03):
with a roll up at New Year's Revolution. He was
pretty pissed off about that. This was great stuff, Sina.
He survived him more than anything else. And he chokes
the monster out with the ring rope wrapped around his neck,
legitimately choked him unconscious. He choked him out. He tried
to get the words out. Umaga was trying to get

(01:04:24):
the words out to tell Mike Kyota, but he couldn't
do it, and he went out and Kyota started to
panic and the match ended, and so Umaga starts coming too,
and Kyota is like, you know, you passed out, Are
you okay? What happened, and he's like, oh, I was like,
you know, oos, I passed out. I passed It's like, no, shit, Yeah,

(01:04:45):
it was pretty fucking scary there. You could kind of
tell too if you watch back, like the expression on
Umaga's face, it's like, oh man, he's selling it really well.
Like no, the man's being choked unconscious. It's about as
real as it gets. But this was a war, a
battle between these two, and not only one of the
best matches of the early part of seeing his career,

(01:05:07):
but even still to this day, one of the best
matches of his entire career. Number nine, John Cena against
John Bradshaw Layfield. I quit at Judgment Day two thousand
and five. JBL was a great heal. They turned him
the year before out of necessity. I mean, you talk

(01:05:27):
about turns that came out of nowhere. He went from
being I mean, he went through many different gimmicks over
the years. Right, he came in as Justin Hawk Bradshaw,
but he went from being you know, Bradshaw of a
tag team, Bradshaw of the APA, Bradshaw of the Ministry
of Darkness, and then one day we tune into SmackDown

(01:05:50):
and he's standing in the ring with a cowboy hat on,
in a suit and tie, holding his book. You know,
he had a finance book and now he is JBL.
He's John Bradshaw and they changed him up more than
anything because they needed a fresh heel on SmackDown and
he ended up becoming a very important part of getting
John Cena over as a main event player in two

(01:06:11):
thousand and five. JBL is the guy that's seen a
beat to win his very first championship, his first of
seventeen world titles, in a very underwhelming match at WrestleMania.
But then they came back with this I quit match
at Judgment Day, and this is the match that I
remember them for. It may be the best match of
JBL's career. It was brutal, it was bloody. The blade

(01:06:34):
job that Sina did, it was very reminiscent of Eddie
Guerrero from Judgment Day the previous year. One of the
bloodiest matches this was in the history of the company.
I mean, for aw it's just it's called Wednesday. But
in WWE you will not find very many matches that
were as bloody and gory as this one. But exactly
the kind of match that John Cena needed early in

(01:06:56):
his title run. The only mark against it the finish
where jbl the way he quit, He quit by cowardice
before Scena could hit him with a giant pipe like
that was a little deflating the way they did that,
but it didn't take away from how great the rest
of this match was. This is one of those turning
point matches and seeing his career where I think people

(01:07:16):
looked at him differently after it was over. Number eight
John Cena against Sean Michaels against Edge against Randy Orton
at Backlash two thousand and seven. Sena and Michaels, they
were coming off their WrestleMania match and the hour long,
almost hour long UK match. Actually I think that fifty

(01:07:39):
five minute match was less than a week before this.
I think it was the go home raw to this
pay per view, So this was pretty much the end
of their feud. Edge and Orton they had been tag
team partners previously as Team Rated RKO, so there was
some history there. But obviously Sena and Edge, you know,
they had their share of battles before this. You include

(01:08:00):
their TLC match the year before, so all four of
these guys had history with each other and they all
worked very well together. Lots of action here, really great
finish too. Sena shoved Orton into a spear by edge.
Sena then immediately picks up edge. He hits the fu
so Edge rolls away. But then as soon as he
turns around, Shawn Michaels catches Sena with sweet chin music

(01:08:21):
and Sena falls backwards on top of Orton and he
scores the pin to retain the title. Sean was just
a split second too late in breaking up the pin.
A great finish to a great fatal four way match.
Number seven John Cena against AJ Styles at the Royal
Rumble in twenty seventeen. This was the finale of their trilogy,

(01:08:47):
one that saw AJ come into this undefeated against John
Cena in their previous two matches. It is the match
that will be most remembered for John Cena winning number
sixteen and tying Rick Flair for the most World championships.
They were at the Alamodome for this one in San Antonio,
fifty two thousand fans. And the cool thing about this match,

(01:09:08):
it's the thing I love the most. A little fact
about it is that not one time did these two
guys leave the ring. Not one time did they fight
into the crowd, did they grab a weapon, did they
put someone through the announced table or do a dive
out over the top rope. For twenty five minutes, they
kept the action in between the ropes because they didn't

(01:09:29):
need to do any of that other stuff. They let
the wrestling speak for itself. This was a great match.
Number six John Cena against Seth Rollins against Brock Lesner
at the Royal Rumble in twenty fifteen. Rollins came into
this holding the money in the bank briefcase, which he

(01:09:50):
would end up cashing in at WrestleMania that year. Lesner
by this point, now this is the beginning of the year,
after he beat the Streak and he squashed Sena, He's
just in full monster mode. He was the unstoppable beast right.
His title, though, is in real jeopardy here because it's
triple threat rules, which means he doesn't have to get
beat to lose the belt. Rollins putting him through the

(01:10:13):
announced table with the diving elbow, and then Lesner rising
up later in the match because that took him out
of the match for a while, but then later on,
out of nowhere, he just re enters the Fray out
of nowhere and starts to destroy both guys, and then
the finish was great too, Like everything about this match
was just great. Everybody had a chance to shine one
of the best triple threat matches in WWE history on

(01:10:36):
one of the worst pay per views that WWE has
ever produced, Like, how does that happen? How does that actually?
You know what? It kind of reminds me of SummerSlam
in nineteen ninety five, definitely one of the worst Summer
Slams that they've ever done. And yet on that show,
you have what I would argue is the better of
the two ladder matches that Sean Michaels and Razor Ramon

(01:10:58):
ever had. Actually the only reason they even put that
match on the show. Originally they were going to do
Shawn Michaels against Sid for the IC title on that show,
and I think they looked at the card, especially with
that Diesel Mabel main event, and they realize, you know what,
I think we need some help with this show. So
why don't we just run back the ladder match again
between these two because now they're babyfaces, We'll just run

(01:11:21):
the ladder match back. It's a good thing they did.
The only saving grace of that show, and this triple
threat match is the only saving grace of that pile
of shit that is the Royal Rumble in twenty fifteen,
Number five. Now we're in the top five. John Cena
against Brock Lesnar at Extreme Rules twenty twelve. You've noticed

(01:11:46):
I've mentioned Brock's name several times already. There was a
certain chemistry that these two had that unfortunately was not
replicated this year on this retirement tour. But they were
part of a lot of classic matches together and this
was one of them. This one is my favorite out
of all of them. Brock had just come back to
the company in twenty twelve after eight years away. Showed

(01:12:08):
up the night after WrestleMania twenty eight So Sena had
just lost to The Rock the night before, and I
was in the building that night when Sena came out
for that closing segment. He was coming out and I
think he was asking for The Rock to come out
or to come back out, and so everyone's waiting around
for I'm trying to remember if I knew in advance

(01:12:29):
that Lesner. I probably did hear something about Lesner, because
by that point. It was probably known before that show
was over, but I just remember being in the building
and they hit the music and the reaction that Lesner
got when he came out, it was a monster pop
that he got. I mean you could just watch it
on television and know and Brock comes out. He was

(01:12:50):
coming also off the UFC run as the UFC Heavyweight Champion.
He came back into this company with a credibility that
even before, as great of an athlete as he was
NCAA and all that stuff, it was a level of
credibility that he did not have when he left the
company in two thousand and four. He was a totally
different person. Now, we never saw that version of Brock
Lesner from two thousand and four ever. Again, like he

(01:13:14):
never addressed the same way, he never wrestled the same way.
This was a new Brock Lesner. He had wrestled John
Cena previously. That was very early in seeing his career.
They even had a pay per view match at Backlash.
But he comes out and he circles the ring like
a shark and he lays him out with an F five,
And then they announced that at Extreme Rules they were
going to have a match his first match back, he's

(01:13:36):
wrestling John Cena and they go out there, and what
they proceeded to do was have a match unlike any
other main event that we had ever seen before on
a WWE pay per view. Now today, if you were
to go back and watch this match, I can understand
people watching it and going, well, it's a brock Lesnar
match with blood, But it's a brock Lesnar match. It's
like every other Lesnar match that we've seen since he

(01:13:57):
came back. At the time, though, this was like, Wow,
I've never seen anything like this before. Right out of
the gate, he takes seeing it down, dude, it was
not longer than the first fifteen seconds of this match.
Twenty seconds. He's dropping elbows on this man's skull and
he cracks him open and John Cena is bleeding, which

(01:14:19):
is something you did not see a lot of back
then on WWE television. He's already bleeding and the referee
calls the doctor over. The doctor comes in and Lesner
is bouncing up and down. It feels like this is
a fight that's about to be called off and seen.
It just keeps fighting him and it felt like a fight.
It didn't feel like a wrestling match. It didn't feel

(01:14:40):
like a WWE pay per view main event. That's what
made this so unique and so to me anyway, so exciting,
is that it was different. It felt like a fight.
It felt like a battle, and there were some cool
spots in the match. There was one of the scariest
spots I've ever seen where Lesner at one point had
brought the ring steps into the ring. Sena was out

(01:15:02):
on the apron and Lesner he comes off the ropes.
He leaps off the steps with like a diving I
don't know what he was trying, diving elbow, a diving forearm,
but he got so he got such a height on
this jump, he not only knocks Sena off the apron,
but he went over the top row. His legs clipped
the top rope and he flipped and he damn near

(01:15:23):
landed on his neck. As it was, he was teasing
that he hurt his knee. I thought he tore his
knee out, and he's kind of shaking it off and
he bounces up and he's laughing because that wasn't supposed
to happen. So you know, they redid the spot. See
it hit him in the head with a chain. Scena
ended up winning, and I vehemently disagreed at the time

(01:15:43):
on the podcast with that decision. I still to this
day I look at that and go, I cannot believe
that they had John Cena win this match. This brock
Lesner's first match back. He's you know, this killer from
the Ultimate Fighting World, and you beat him in the
very first match. I think that was their way of
umbling him. I think that was their way of like, Okay,
we don't know necessarily how long we have this man

(01:16:04):
back for and it's been you know, eight years, and
maybe this isn't going to work out, so let's just
get out of him what we can, you know, and
see how he reacts to it. Evidently he didn't react well.
I remember the stories about what happened backstage that night
coming out, and I think what it was is he
was very upset about seeing and not selling the beating.

(01:16:25):
When the match was over. Seena cut up very bizarre
promo when that match was over, to the point where
it was like something you would expect him to say
to the house and not people watching at home, or
at the end of it, he's like, all right, drive home,
get home safe, you know, and all that, but like
he's talking about how he's going to be going away
on a vacation. He's acting like his arm is gone.

(01:16:46):
He hurt his arm, but he's like, no selling everything
that he just went through here. And I think that's
what got Lesner. As I recall, he was very upset
about this, But just everything about this match I love,
even going back and watching it again. There's there's a
level of excitement to it that a lot of WWE
matches they just they can't replicate it, you know, they

(01:17:08):
just can't do it. This is still, to this day
one of John Cena's greatest matches. Number four John Cena
against cm Punk February twenty fifth, twenty thirteen on Monday
Night Raw. This was the last match that these two
men had in twelve years until they wrestled in Saudi

(01:17:32):
Arabia this year. This is the famous pile Driver match,
as it has come to become known. This was Cmpunk's
WrestleMania main event at a time when he was not
getting a WrestleMania main event, and I would argue that
he deserved to be in the WrestleMania Maine event. But
from a business standpoint, WWE says, well, you can say
that so and so deserves this, and so and so

(01:17:52):
deserves that because they have great matches. But the reality
is they were doing twice in a life time between
Rock and Scena that year, and they were going to
make a whole boatload of money, and they didn't give
a shit what the fans thought about whether or not
Cmpunk belonged in the WrestleMania main event. So instead they
went out there on this show and they worked it
like a WrestleMania main event. Cmpunk had the WWE Championship

(01:18:16):
for four hundred and thirty four days. That rain came
to an end at the Royal Rumble at the hands
of the Rock. He proceeded to lose to The Rock
again at the Elimination Chamber back to back pay per views,
and they had this match on Raw with the stipulation
even though Sena had won the Rumble. I don't remember.

(01:18:36):
I'm trying to think it might have just been a
case we're seeing to put a shot on the line.
I don't know, but the winner of this match was
going to go to WrestleMania to challenge The Rock for
the WWE Championship, So they were out there and they
were fighting like there was something really important on the
line in this match, and for Punk especially there was.
And it was actually, like from an n ring standpoint,

(01:19:00):
probably the best match bell to bell that they have
ever had. If you just look at it as just
like strictly a wrestling match. Punk actually ranks this match
higher than Money in the Bank. To him, this is
the best match the two of them ever had. And
I will not disagree with anybody who says that this
was an excellent match. Again something they uploaded in full

(01:19:21):
to the Vault channel not that long ago. I went
back and watched the whole twenty six minutes of it
or so fucking awesome. This match was great now, the
finish was never in doubt. That's one of the strikes
against it though. The finish, even though there were some
dramatic near falls, John Cena was not losing this match
like CM Punk had just lost to The Rock back

(01:19:41):
to back pay per views. They were not running back
the Rock against CM Punk. Now, what they could have done,
what I think they should have done, They should have
made it a triple threat match because Punk wasolved as
involved with The Rock as Sina was. Like storyline wise,
it would have made sense for all of this to
culminate with the three of them in the together, and
you do sena Punk Rock for the WWE Championship. Take

(01:20:05):
some of the stress off the Rock right because it's
a triple threat match, and I promise you it would
have been a far better match than the one that
we got to WrestleMania twenty nine. Right, hindsight is twenty twenty.
But this match right here, I can't praise this match enough.
This match is one of the greatest matches in Monday
Night Raw history. I could see why Punk ranks it

(01:20:26):
as his best match with Sina, and you should all
go and watch it because it is awesome. Top three,
here we go, Number three John Cena against Daniel Brian
at SummerSlam twenty thirteen. Daniel Brian was on the ascent.
Daniel Brian was beloved by the fans ever since they

(01:20:49):
screwed him over with the eighteen second loss to WrestleMania
twenty eight. I think it created a ground swell that
even they weren't expecting, or if they were, I don't
think they were expecting it to be quite as vocal
as it was. So now we're that was in twenty twelve.
Now we're in twenty thirteen and John Cena chooses Brian

(01:21:12):
as his opponent. Triple h ends up as the guest
referee for this match. I don't remember exactly why he
became the referee, but he's the referee. There was another
element to this match though. John Cena was hurt. He
had a very real injury. He had suffered a triceps
tear and his left elbow it filled. It looked like
the size of a tennis ball, like it filled up

(01:21:34):
with fluid. It swelled, it was disgusting, but he put
a rap on it. He went out there and he
wrestled Daniel Brian at Summer Slim And not only did
he wrestle Brian with a bad arm that was going
to end up, you know, keeping him out of the
ring for a few months, but he went out there
and had one of the best matches of his career
against Daniel Brian. Now he's in there with with you know,

(01:21:55):
Brian Danielson, so of course it's hard to have a
bad match with him. But they went out there. You
would know seen it was hurt. Again, they worked just
this incredible match. The crowd was super into it. And
then Brian beats him clean with the running knee, the
busaiku knee. It might have been the first time he
actually used that as his finish, because I remember thinking, man,
that was sudden, that came out of nowhere. But he

(01:22:16):
hits the running knee and he pins him and the
building comes unglued, and everybody is happy and he's celebrating
with the championship. And Randy Orton had the money in
the bank briefcase, so we hear the music and here
he comes, and he's teasing that he's gonna come in
and cash in, but then he has second thoughts and
he turns around. But then he stops and he does

(01:22:37):
the slow turn to look back at the ring, and
that was the cue for Triple H to come up
from behind. Brian, spin him around, kick him in the gut,
and deliver a pedigree. Now Randy Orton comes in, he
cashes in his money in the bank, doesn't hit any move.
It was the pedigree, and then Brian laid there for
like three minutes and then Randy Orton just covered it

(01:23:00):
and he pinned him and he wins the WWE championship
for him. I don't know, it's probably number six or seven,
I think seven. At that point, this was the beginning
of the authority. This is really where this gave birth
to the authority. And it's crazy because you watched this
and you would think, Okay, they've got a plan in
mind here for Daniel Brian to fight and scratch and

(01:23:22):
claw and struggle his way all the way back to WrestleMania,
and they're going to belt him up at WrestleMania, right
And to think that that wasn't even the plan. In
Brian's own words, that is not what the plan was.
It just ended up that way. It was kind of
a happy accident that it ended up that way, in
part because Cmpunk walked out. But it's just crazy to

(01:23:43):
me to look back on it. The story was right there.
It should have been the easiest story in the world
to tell, and it almost didn't happen. But this match
right here is excellent, and Sina taking a clean loss
to him was just the biggest win of his career
up to that point. That's where a star like Sina,
you know, in twenty thirteen, in the position that he

(01:24:04):
was in having just beaten the Rock at WrestleMania, going
in there and not just doing a job for someone,
but doing a clean job to their finish in the
middle of the ring. It just meant the world, you know,
for Brian's career. And then at that point, you know,
they went with the authority storyline and we all know
what happened next. You know, the crowd they wanted Daniel Brian.

(01:24:24):
They didn't want Batista, poor Dave, he didn't do anything wrong,
but they wanted Daniel Brian and they got him at
WrestleMania number two. John Cena against AJ Styles at SummerSlam
twenty sixteen. I mentioned the trilogy that they had for
a Money in the Bank to SummerSlam to Royal Rumble
the following year, all excellent matches. Of all three matches,

(01:24:50):
the most historically significant one may have been the Rumble
one because of number sixteen. The best match was this one.
This match right here was the best the bunch and
they went in there. It was a clash of style,
no pun intended a clash in styles in many ways,
because obviously we know how great AJ is. John Cena

(01:25:11):
will never be mistaken for the in ring you know,
to have the inn ring caliber of an AJ Styles
when it comes to his move set, But the thing
about Sena when you look at his career, He's been
in the ring with so many different people of different
stripes that were very different than him. Whether it was
someone who came up on the independence and was known

(01:25:31):
for their great work rate, like an AJ or a
Daniel Bryan, or he could be in there with a
monster like brock Lesnar or Omaga, or he could be
in there with a brawler like JBL and then do
the blade job. Like different matches, different periods of his career,
he tended to excel. I feel like against people who
were very much not like him, he could adapt to

(01:25:54):
their style. Part of it was them also carrying him
and bringing him up to their level. But I I
think he was very good at that. Him and AJ
just had a certain chemistry that some people don't have.
He and AJ had a chemistry that he and Randy
Orton didn't have. That's what I mean when I talk
about him and Orton and their rivalry. Oh it's you know,
classic feud, It's really not. And I never felt like

(01:26:17):
they had a chemistry the way that Sina had with
an AJ Styles or a CM Punk or an Edge
just wasn't the same thing. But of the matches they've had,
and the one this year was excellent too, But this
right here is the best of the bunch. And again,
as was the case with Daniel Bryan, how does it end.
It ends with Sehn Cena taking a styles clash and

(01:26:40):
then a phenomenal forearm and doing a clean job to
the man and his finish, and what a shot in
the arm in terms of credibility, not that he needed
a whole lot of credibility, but still being you know,
in the ring with John Cena and beating him clean.
That was a big boost. And in fact it was
such a big boost I think it was the very
next month, was it not? Whatever that pay per view was,

(01:27:01):
I think he wrestled the Ambrose and AJ won his
first WWE championship right after this, and number one, the
best match in the career of John Cena, John Cena
against CM Punk in Chicago Money in the Bank twenty eleven.

(01:27:25):
This match right here, to me is the definitive John
Cena match. This match right here is why CM Punk
is John Cena's greatest rival, because it's like oil and
water opposites at tract. These two define that to a
t opposites a trait. You cannot find two personalities more
diametrically opposed to each other at that time than John

(01:27:46):
Cena and Cmpunk. Cm Punk was punk rock, John Cena
was not. Cmpunk was the guy out there with the
piercings and the tattoos. John Cena was clean shaven, clean cut.
I mean, he was just like mister America in that ring, right.
He was just the quint essential white meat babyface. He
was the polar opposite of cmpunks. John Cena was the
quintessential company guy. Cmpunk was anti authority. John Cena was

(01:28:11):
everything Vince McMahon saw on a top star. Cmpunk was
the exact opposite. That's what made their feud work so well.
That and the promos between them. But the story going
into this match is also what helps make this match
because Cmpunk he was done. He wasn't happy with his position.
He just wasn't happy in general with what they had
him doing. He saw himself being higher in the pecking

(01:28:32):
order there they did not. He knew he had some
enemies behind the scenes. His contract was coming up on
July seventeenth, and he said, you know what, I'm done,
But then he ended up in this championship match against
John Cena money in the bank, which just so happened
to coincide with the exact day that his contract was expiring,
and by all accounts it was a very legitimate situation.

(01:28:53):
He didn't actually sign the new contract until the day
he got to the building there in Chicago. Maybe they
agreed to it days earlier, but he put pen to
paper that night before the match. That's how down to
the wire it came. He was one foot out the
door and they threw a bunch of money at him
and probably made some promises and Vince said, will put
the belt on you and Punk ended up staying. But

(01:29:13):
we didn't know that. So the story going into the match,
I mean, it was really art imitating life. Punk said,
I'm leaving WWE, like this is my last match. I'm
gonna beat you and take the WWE Championship and I'm
gonna leave with it. That's where the whole pipe bomb
came from. Maybe I'll bring the belt with me and
go to Ring of Honor or New Japan Pro Wrestling. Right,

(01:29:37):
What a trip that would have been had he actually
done that. But that's where the pipe bomb came from,
and we got. There's a great video package too. Actually,
you know what, somebody asked me about that on the
stream last night. What's like my favorite all time or
John Cena video package? It might be that one. It
might be the one they put together for the match
shit Money in the bank. I remember that one being

(01:29:59):
well done. I think it ended with Punk going, do
I have everybody's attention now? From the moment Punk came
out here, I mean the entrances. Punk is a fucking
hero walking out there in Chicago. John Cena's music hits.
Punk is sitting cross legged in the ring. They hit
John Cena's music. I've never heard a crowd in Unison

(01:30:23):
boo the way they booed this man when he came
out to the ring. I mean, you could picture the
Hammerstein Ballroom at one night Stand when he came out
against RVD, but in a bigger building like That's the
reception that you talk about enemy territory. That's the reception
that John Cena got here in Chicago. And then they
went out there and the match they had was just

(01:30:44):
tremendous trum then. I mean, Punk may say that the
raw match was the better match in ring. Bell to
bell probably yeah, I would give that the edge. But
this was an excellent match all by itself, and the
dramatic near falls because of the story, because oh my god,
of this. I wins the championship, He's gonna take the
belt and leave. We can't allow that. Michael cole Is

(01:31:04):
on commentary being completely biased. Like tap out Punk, tap
out Punk. The story helped elevate this match to another level.
The story, the setting, personalities, the title being on the line,
everything about this match was magic. This was magical. I
don't use that word very often terms of wrestling. Magic,

(01:31:26):
That's what this match was. Now, you had a little
screwiness there towards the finish when Vince McMahon came out,
Laura and Iis came out, but that aside. He gets
back in the ring, punk scoops him up, gts and
he pins him and he wins the championship and Vince

(01:31:46):
tried to screw him out of the title. He called
out Alberto Dell dipshit to come down and cashing money
in the bank. That didn't work. And the parting shot
of cm Punk in the crowd holding the belt up
high and then leaving like through the concourse and the
fans were all around him, and he leaves everything about
this was five stars all the way, pitch perfect. It
was a perfect combination of match and story and it

(01:32:10):
just came together in the best possible way. This is
John Cena's greatest match. Now you'll notice no Randy Orton
matches outside of the Backlash four Way. I had the
Iron Man match. I mentioned that in the Honorables. Again,
most of their other matches just were not that good,
certainly not all time worthy. Also missing. I did not

(01:32:32):
include either of the matches with the Rock, and I
was there live for both of them. The first one
had a very epic feel to it, but then the
bell rang and there really wasn't a whole lot to
that match, and then the second one. The less set
about that one the better. It didn't help that Rock

(01:32:52):
tore half the muscles and his body in that match,
but you get a little bit of everything. I think
on this list. I think it's a nice mix. I
will say this though, I think twenty fifteen, probably fifteen
into sixteen, was John cen his best period in ring,
starting with that Rumble triple Threat right on through the
US Title Open Challenge and the matches he had with

(01:33:14):
Sammy Zain and Neville and Cesorrow, and I think he
had two of them with Cesorrow, the trilogy with Kevin Owens,
the matches with seth Rawlins, and then the following year
his matches with aj Styles. That period, right, there is
peak John Cena in ring. All Right, a few more
notes and some AW stuff and we'll wind this thing down. Andrade,

(01:33:36):
who we have not seen on AW television since his
one and only appearance at the beginning of October when
he laid out Kenny Omega. He is the brand new
WWC Universal Champion. He won the title Saturday Nights at
their show in Puerto Rico, and he had revealed hours
before the show that his lawyer had gotten a letter

(01:33:56):
from WWE granting him approval to perform at the event.
Even though they're in the midst of talking back and
forth about this twelvemonth non compete clause in his contract,
he did clarify the letter only cleared him to work
this specific show. And this is the second world championship
that he has won since leaving WWE. He also won

(01:34:19):
the Crash Heavyweight title at the beginning of October. Then
all hell broke loose and he hadn't worked anywhere since,
although he has said that he hopes to be back
in AW soon once the contract stuff with WWE has resolved.
Tony Kahn revealed prior to Saturday's AW collision in Cardiff,
Wales that AW Dark is coming back for one night only.

(01:34:41):
Oh boy. The tape matches following collision. They are set
to air on aw's YouTube channel on Tuesday. And he
was out there and he said, because I love Cardiffs
so much, I went to the great executives at Warner
Brothers Discovery, the great company that powers the engine that
makes AW possible. It's laying it out a little thick there,

(01:35:03):
but these days I guess he has to given everything
that's in flux right now, he said. I said to them, please,
it's a holiday season for one night only. Because there's
hardcore AW fans in Cardiff this holiday season. Tonight, I
want to bring back, for one night only, AEW Dark.
And you know what they said. They said yes, and

(01:35:26):
everybody cheered and so Airing on YouTube this Tuesday is
AW Dark stocking stuffer, which has the Death Riders John
Moxley Wheeler Da m Pac taking on the grizzled Young
Veterans and Nathan Cruz I completely forgot the GYV. We're

(01:35:47):
still employed there. Orange Cassidy, Roderick Strong and Mascerridrata take
on Mark Andrews, kid Liicos one and kid Lycos two,
and Marina Shafir takes on Eli Dawn. So all UAW
Dark fans one night only, you get it back. On Tuesday,
we had Eddie Kingston and Samoa Joe for the AW

(01:36:07):
World Championship as part of Winter Is Coming this past Wednesday,
and even Joe had a little salute during that match
to John Cena when he trapped Eddie in an STF
and literally saluted the camera. It was very straightforward stuff.
There was really no interference from the ops. Once Hook
got ejected in like the first thirty seconds of the match,

(01:36:28):
they had a match. You know, they basically beat the
hell out of each other for however long it went,
and Samoa Joe beat him just like that. And now
Samoa Joe is going to defend the AW World Championship
at worlds End. We now know not just against one person,
but he's going to be defending it against two people
because on Dynamite Hangman Adam Page made it very clear

(01:36:49):
that whoever walked out of Winter is coming with the
belt they would be meeting him next. And then last
night on Collision, Swerve Strickland beat Josh Alexander and he
revealed that he was also his sites on the AW
World Championship. So we're getting a triple threat match. It
will be Samoa Joe defending the title against both Hangman
and Swerve. They were tag team partners on Wednesday against

(01:37:11):
the Ops and now they're going to be in the
same match challenging for the world title. And also on Collision,
I should mention it was announced that Chris Statlander is
going to be defending the AW Women's World Championship against
Jamie Hayter at World's End. They were successful last night
beating the Sisters of Sin, and then backstage after the match,

(01:37:32):
Hater issued the challenge for World's End and Statlander accepted.
So that match is a fit. I mean, I thought
we would build up to it a little bit more,
but okay, I guess we're getting it at World's End. Now.
I'm curious if they keep it one on one or
if they add somebody like Tecla, because I just think
I don't know Techla's been involved with them, and I

(01:37:53):
could see them maybe they don't want to do two
triple threats on the same show, but I could see
Tecla being added to that match. It's a little weird, though,
I will say, because Hayter, of course, is from the
UK and they're going to be in Manchester for Dynamite
this week, and so why if she had the chance
to kind of shoot her shot, why wait until World's End?

(01:38:15):
You know, why not ask for a championship match when
you're in your home country. But she opted for World's
End because I figured I'm thinking about them, like, if
they were going to add Tecla, this makes me think
they're not going to. They could have had her say, hey,
what about Dynamite this week right in her home country,
and then Techla gets involved and screws up the finish

(01:38:35):
and then they just run it back and maybe in
triple threat form at World's End, but I guess they're
just going right into World's End with it. So that
match is official. We have new women's tag team champions,
Tony Storm and Mina Sherikkwa. They lost to the Babes
of Wrath, Willow Nightingale and Harley Cameron. On Wednesday, we
had more matches in the Continental Classic. It was a

(01:38:56):
fucking awesome match with Kyle Fletcher and Speedball My Bailey.
That's Speedball won. And then on collision Claudio and Takesha
they fought to a twenty minute draw last night, which
you had to expect. Giving Claudio as the CMLLL World champion,
Taqusha's the IWGP World champion. That just sounds like a
political nightmare, so of course we weren't going to get

(01:39:17):
a clean winner in that match. And in the Battle
of the Partners, Speedball beat Kevin Knight, coming off his
big win over Fletcher on Wednesday. So those are the
key updates as far as the tournament is concerned. Of course,
the two league finals and then the ultimate Final will
all be taking place at World's End on Dynamite this

(01:39:38):
coming week. We're gonna get another million dollar trios match,
aren't you excited? The million dollars is on the line again.
It's gonna be the Young Bucks and Kenny Omega taking
on Kazuchka Okata, Kenoski, Takeshta and Hetcha Sero, and we
have an eight woman tag team match. Willow Nightingale Harley Cameron,
Tony Storm, and Mina Shirakawa are gonna be taking on

(01:39:58):
Mercedes Monet, Marina Shaffir and Megan Bain. So that's some
of what's coming up this week. And then MVP announced
on Collision last night that Bobby Lashley is injured and
there's no news that I've seen about what the injury
is or when it would have been sustained. The last

(01:40:19):
time we saw him in the ring would have been
the Casino Gauntlet at Full Gear. I guess he has
not been in action since then. But MVP said that
Shelton Benjamin will participate in the Dynamite Diamond Battle Royal
that is taking place in Manchester on Dynamite this week,
and the two remaining wrestlers will then meet the following week.
Now I don't remember, do they meet the following week

(01:40:41):
for the ring or do they meet the following week
to find out who then wrestles MJF. I think they
wrestle for the ring, but I would expect so if
it's not. If it doesn't work that way where the
two men wrestle and then the winner gets MJF, then
MJF has got to be in the Battle Royal. I
would expect him to be in there. He's got to

(01:41:01):
have something to do with this. I mean he's had
that ring for six years now, so we should be
getting MJF back as soon as this week. And two
of Aw's partners have reached some major milestones. Wressell Kingdom
twenty is coming up on January fourth, and it was
announced this week that tickets to the Tokyo Dome show
have officially sold out. New Japan sent out a message

(01:41:24):
thanking the fans for making this happen. They did not
provide the exact number of tickets sold, but it's expected
to be over fifty thousand. They said, the January four
Tokyo Dome show has sold out every possible ticket that
they could sell. This is from the Observer here. It
already broke the attendance and gate record for a Wressell

(01:41:45):
Kingdom show. From a legitimate attendance mark, it would be
the biggest since the Antonio and Oki retirement show in
nineteen ninety eight. So that's a big deal for New Japan.
I mean, their business has really been pretty cold the
last few years, but built around this Tanahashi retirement match,
the debut of Aaron Wolf, who is a former Olympian,

(01:42:07):
A very big deal over there. He's in his first
wrestling match on that show. He's wrestling Evil I think
for the never open Weight title. Takesha is going to
be defending his IWGP title on that show against Yotasuji.
But it really is all about Tanahashi and Okada. I mean,
that's going to be the big attraction. That's really what
sold fifty thousand tickets for this show. Meanwhile, CMLL they

(01:42:29):
hit one million tickets sold at Arena Mexico in twenty
twenty five. Last week they hit the mark a week
or two earlier than they originally expected, and they presented
the winning fan who bought the one millionth ticket in
the ring with a commemorative CMLL championship belt. That's not
one million tickets for CMLL, it's over a million at

(01:42:51):
Arena Mexico alone. I think total for the year they're
going to end up around a million and a half
or so. But that's very impressed of Arena Mexico. Will
end the year with the most tickets sold in a
calendar year at any arena in the world in the
history of pro wrestling. That is very impressive. They run

(01:43:13):
shows at Arena Mexico three times a week on Tuesdays, Fridays,
and Sundays. Fridays is really their big weekly show where
they typically do the most fans. They can routinely put
fifteen sixteen thousand people in the building almost weekly. Mysticoh
is probably the biggest reason why he is by far
one of the most popular wrestlers in the history of

(01:43:36):
that promotion. He is one of the most popular wrestlers
in the world, and he is one of the biggest
drawing cards in the world, has been for a few
years now, so he is as much a part of
the reason why they sold a million tickets in that
building as anything else. I should also mention the Bad
Bunny and some of his friends. They were in attendance
at the Arena Mexico show last week, I think last Tuesday.

(01:43:59):
They apparently were snuck in. They had seats in the
front row, and they wore masks, so he was wearing
a Mystico mask. He didn't want to be seen, but
I guess word got out pretty quickly that he was there.
So he's doing concerts right now in Mexico City and
has shows every Friday, so Tuesday was the only date

(01:44:20):
that he could attend. Even Bad Buddy couldn't resist checking
out a show at Arena Mexico. Let's get some of
your mailbag questions. You could email me the Solo Monster
at gmail dot com. Please include your name of where
you are from when you write in. This comes from
the Diamond Dallas Dance Machine Harrison Soap. He's got a question,
says read this after seen his last match. He sent

(01:44:42):
this to me a few weeks ago. I would love
to hear your thoughts on Seena's farewell tour. Personally, I
feel like he took on most of what the fans
wanted him to see or people he wanted to face
one last time. Punk Orton styles Cody. His heel run, however,
felt a bit underwhelm. His match with Brocket wrestled Palooza,

(01:45:02):
and this year's WrestleMania main event against Cody might be
considered among the weaker main events in many A history.
What is your take? And as far as Sena as
the goat, I know that's subjective. If you ask someone
eighteen to twenty five, it will probably say Sena putting
my childhood aside. I do think he's either the goat
or at least on the WWE Mount Rushmore. He is

(01:45:23):
larger than life, his accomplishments always getting a reaction, love
or hate, sales merch is a great ambassador for the company,
can hold his own on the mic, and consistently puts
on solid matches. So, as far as the first part
of your question, I thought the farewell tour was a
very mixed bag. If you want my full thoughts, you
got them. I mean we I mean, there's not much

(01:45:43):
more I could say that I didn't already say earlier on.
I spent the first ninety minutes talking about John Cena,
so hopefully that answered your question. But it was a
very mixed bag. As far as his position is the goat, again,
there is no goat. He's pretty high up on the
list when you just factor in his accomomplishments, his longevity,
the quality of his matches, because he did have some

(01:46:04):
great matches. Yeah, the stuff about him being an ambassador
for the company and all that that doesn't necessarily matter
to me. On like a Mount Rushmore type list. That
might matter to WWE, but that matters less to me.
Everyone has their own criteria, so He's not the goat
as far as my list would be concerned. I don't

(01:46:27):
have him in my top three. I don't have him
in my top five. I don't know exactly where I
would rank him in terms of top ten or fifteen
or twenty. I'm sure he's in there somewhere, but he's not.
He's not in my top mix. Part of that is
that I didn't grow up watching him. I don't necessarily
have the same emotional attachment to him that some other
people might have. There have been other stars, there have

(01:46:49):
been bigger stars in wrestling. He wasn't the end all
be all for me, so my perspective is just different
than yours might be. I don't know exactly where he ranks.
I don't have is the goat he was. The company
was very lucky and blessed to have him, especially as
again easy as he was to work with by all accounts,

(01:47:11):
doing whatever they wanted him to do, never getting into trouble.
Those are all things that matter to w W To
me personally, it's like, oh, that's nice to read about,
but I don't factor that into who I think is
my greatest of all time. There have been a lot
of wrestlers that are jerks or might have been difficult
to work with. I don't tend to factor that into

(01:47:34):
where they rank on my list either. To be fair,
James from Staten Island never thought I would say this
because I vehemently dislike the man, But I have to
thank John Cena. I have to thank him for revealing
something that I suspected for quite a while and can
now confirm. In his recent interview with Bill simmonsa revealed
that a large part of the reason they broke the

(01:47:55):
Undertaker's streak with Brock Lesner was with the intention of
feeding Brock to Roman Reigns. Upon hearing this news, I
grew angry that they would sacrifice the legacy of one
of the greatest, if not the greatest character in the
history of the business, all for someone that was a
maybe at the time. Daniel Brian wrote in his book
that a week after Wrestlemanni at thirty, Vince sat him

(01:48:17):
down and told him that he was dropping the belt
to Lesnar, who would then drop it to Roman, who
was going to be his next John Cena, Vince had
the most organically over babyface, staring him in the face
that the fans rebelled for, and yet all he could
think about was a man who was still part of
a faction and not a proven commodity. Yet he was
going to give him the honor of beating the guy

(01:48:38):
who ended the streak. It is just astounding to me
how much of the deck was stacked in Roman's favor
for him and only him to succeed, no matter how
bad he flopped as a babyface, no matter how much
the fans cheered for other people like aj Styles or
Dean Ambrose or Samoa Joe or Daniel Bryan, no matter
how or no matter what, they were bent on Roman

(01:49:00):
being the guy. Was Vince McMahon right to do all
of that to ensure that Roman succeeded If he felt
that Roman Reigns was going to be the next heir apparent,
if he honestly and truthfully believed that this was his
next guy, then yes, you could argue that he was
right for doing all that he could to try to

(01:49:23):
make sure that he gave him every opportunity to succeed.
There are people who get over organically on their own
in spite of the booking. There are other people who
just need a little bit of a push, just a
little extra push. Maybe on their own. It's going to
take longer than the company wants, so they give him
a little bit of a push, and what ends up
happening is sometimes they go overboard and the fans end

(01:49:44):
up feeling like, oh man, you're really force feeding this
guy down our throats. We don't like this boo right,
and they rebel, which is what happened with Roman. Roman
didn't do anything wrong. It was just that it was
too much, too soon. They had a vision for him
as a babyface, right down to the stupid contact lenses,
those blue contact lenses that Vince had him wearing. He
had this vision for what he wanted this guy to be,

(01:50:06):
and it was completely the opposite of what got him
over in the Shield, where he came off as cool.
There was nothing cool about big dog babyface Roman reigns.
I'm sorry. So he went about it all wrong. He
took things to the extreme and it blew up in
his face, and it took a lot longer for Roman
to get to where I think he always envisioned Roman being.
So on the one hand, no, he wasn't wrong. If

(01:50:28):
you truly believed Roman was going to lead him to
the Promised Land and make him a lot of money
and he could build the company around him for five
to ten years. Well, then you do what you need
to do to make that guy the success you need
him to be. Unfortunately, what ends up happening is you
feed a lot of other people to him. Will We're
never going to know any of those names that you mentioned.

(01:50:49):
We're never going to know if they would have gone
on to become a world champion, top made event guy
in WWI. We're never going to know for sure. You know,
Samoa Joe, he also had injury issues that helped derail
his run there. But clearly Vince was never going to
look at him as that guy anyway. And when you
are building people up, there are other names that are

(01:51:11):
going to be fed to you. I disagree with some
of those names. Again, we don't know if they would
have gone on to be a big deal for Vince
or not. I just think there's certain people he never
saw at a main event level. So was I happy
about some of the people that had their legs cut
off from underneath them when they could have been a
bigger deal? Of course not. I thought it was bullshit.
But if there was a guy, and I looked at
him and I said, Okay, you know, I know his background,

(01:51:33):
and he's been in developmental for a while, and he's
got all the tools, and I'm getting these reports from
the producers and the agents, and we really think this
could be the guy, just like Pat Patterson once upon
a time told Vince, Hey, this guy Rocky my Via,
he's a blue chip or he's going to be our guy.
And if I had people in my ear and I
felt like this guy was going to be that person,
then yeah, I would do everything in my power to
make sure he succeeds. Doesn't mean I have to agree

(01:51:54):
with every movie he made, you know, with The Streak
and everything else, but I can at least understand the
logic behind it. And if that's how he felt, then hey,
you do what you have to do to make that
guy the star that you think he could be. The
way he went about doing it was all wrong. Roman
needed a good heel run as a singles guy before
he could become that ultimate babyface. He never had that,

(01:52:17):
so when he finally did go heel in twenty twenty,
people ate that shit up, but that's what should have
happened years before. Molly from Toronto. I don't know if
you saw the David o'tunggan interview with Chris van Vliet,
but he said that when they put him on commentary,
you have to be careful on how good of a
job you do. The reason for that is because you
can be pigeonholed in that role and it's difficult to

(01:52:39):
come out of. You've mentioned many times with Dolph Ziggler
because he was so good at selling that they used
him to get others over. So why is being good
at your job sometimes what holds these guys and girls back?
Who else can you name that got held back like
Dolf because he or she was very good at their job. Well,
I used Dolph as an example because his selling was

(01:53:01):
so good. I mean he's even said there were legends
who used to tell him, hey, stop selling people's finishers
so well, it's going to work against you. And that's
the thing, Like, if you're really good at making others
look good, it can work against you and it might
make the people in charge think that those other guys
are better than they really are. It's a famous story
of Brett Hart and Tom McGee. Brett Hart had a

(01:53:23):
match with Tom McGee back in nineteen eighty six and
Vince McMahon sees this match and he is just head
over heels because he has found the replacement, the future
replacement for Hulk Hogan. He has found his next Hogan
because he just thought McGee looked like a million bucks
in that match, when in reality, it was Brett who

(01:53:44):
brought him to a match that good, and he never
was able to replicate that in the ring with anybody else.
So there are times where a lot of it falls
on the person you're in the ring with making you
look better than you really are. That can work against you,
and then they'll get pushed at your expense. That was
one of the problems that Zigler ran into Kurt Headache

(01:54:06):
that you could say the same thing for all the
success that he had, right, he had a pretty good
career for himself. He was so good at making others
look good it probably worked against him. And for every
Kurt Hennach or Nick Nemeth, there's a Jake the Snake
Roberts who also major wrestling star. But he was so
over at one point that he gave Hulk Hogan a

(01:54:26):
DDT and he got cheered when he wasn't supposed to,
and it spooked Vince McMahon enough that they never aired
the footage, not widely anyway. It may have aired in
some local markets. He was so over and good at
what he did, it worked against him and he probably
lost out on a very lucrative program working with Hogan.

(01:54:47):
At Hogan's peak, there is such a thing as being
too good at your job. I mean, it sounds counterintuitive,
but that's a real thing, and it could also make
you a target like I would imagine when Triple H
was sitting in those production meetings, there were a few
people that he saw as threats and he talked about
behind their backs to Vince and others in management. Zach

(01:55:10):
from Liberty, Kentucky. I've started falling asleep to the WWE
vault and I woke up at four o'clock in the
morning to Undertaker against Sewn Michaels inside Helen is Cell
and it got me thinking. Nineteen ninety seven had some
great matches by Sell and rent On. These classic nineteen
ninety seven matches Eddie Guerrero against Raymisterio at Halloween, Havoc

(01:55:31):
Stone Cold, Steve Austin against Brett the Hitman heard at
WRESTLEMANI at thirteen in the submission match an Undertaker against
Shawn michaels a Bad Blood inside Helen is cell Well.
First of all, they're all five star matches in their
own ways, and don't forget that's not even all of them.
The ten man tag at Canadian Stampede was also in

(01:55:52):
ninety seven, Owen Hard against the British Bulldog on Raw
in the finals of the European Title tournament. That was
in ninety seven. They filmed that in Germany. Ninety seven
was ninety seven was a great year just in general.
I'm going to buy on Stone Cold and Brett Hart
at WRESTLEMANI at thirteen, one of the greatest matches of

(01:56:13):
all time. I'm going to rent on Undertaker and Shawn
Michael's of Bad Blood. I always struggle with this because
they happened in the same year. It's like, man, you
can't go wrong with either one of those choices. But
I'm going to rent on the Hell and a Selle.
I'm going to sell on Eddie and Ray at Halloween Havoc.
If you forced me to do it, That's what I'm

(01:56:34):
gonna do. Kennedy from Orlando, Florida. Can you name some
wrestlers who you thought were given the world title but
never fit the role? Sure, David Arquette, Vince Russo, Jack Swagger,
Ginder Mahal and you know what I mean. The story,

(01:56:57):
the story was great, but Kofi Kings, I'm sorry, never
fit the role as a WWE champion. Daniel from Hamburg
was the Undertaker supposed to win the world title from
Swagger in twenty ten had he not gotten injured. I
don't recall ever reading about him having a plan run
with the belt after he beat Shawn Michaels or WrestleMania.

(01:57:21):
I think he did later that year with Cain when
they feuded, but I don't think so. I've never heard
that before. Near from Israel, quick fantasy match, buy or
sell Gunther against Samoa, Joe Man or AJ Styles against
Will Ospray. I'm going to go AJ Styles against Will Ospray.

(01:57:45):
We're talking like modern day Will. Let's say, prior to
the neck injury Will Osprey and then AJ from like
mid twenty tens, like New Japan Bullet Club AJ against
modern day Will Osprey. Signed me the fuck up? And
Joshua from Rochester New York By or Sell. You're forced

(01:58:08):
to either watch the June fifth, twenty fourteen episode of
TNA Impact. There is a YouTube clip of you dunking
on this show for thirteen minutes. Yeah, well that sounds
about right. Or the November twenty sixth, twenty eighteen episode
of Monday Night Raw. You've got to watch for twenty
four hours straight. Which one do you choose? Neither neither.

(01:58:35):
I would rather invite John Moxley over to stick my
head in a fish tank. How about that? Those were
two of the biggest piles of shit that I have
ever seen, and I have watched a lot of wrestling
on television, So I had to go back and remind
myself which episode of Impact that was Almost a million
people watch that episode, if you can believe it, and

(01:58:57):
that was considered a bad number for the back then
this was right before they got dumped by Spike TV.
I can't imagine why. And Gunner in the psych Ward,
you had Robbie E's Afraid of Clowns. You had more
of this who has the power in TNA stuff that
they were doing at the time with Dixie Carter an MVP. Yes,

(01:59:20):
who has the power in TNA between these two heel
authority figures as if any of us are supposed to
care about who has the power, Like, what is this
fucking he men? Who has the power? But as bad
as TNA was back then, WWE was worse because with TNA, like,
it's TNA, dude, like you come to expect it, and

(01:59:41):
it made for some entertaining rants on the podcast. But
with RAW like there was no reason for the show
to be that bad, like top to bottom, the worst
episode in the history of the show and probably my
all time greatest rant. I think it got like one
hundred and sixty thousand views on YouTube or something, just
in terms of like a singular or video where I

(02:00:01):
just popped off on something that was an emergency podcast.
I wasn't even doing live reviews on Mondays at that point,
but there was no way that I was waiting until
the weekend to eviscerate that show. This was the episode
where Dean Ambrose went to his doctor's office to get
vaccinated against all the dirty, disgusting fans. I wish I
could have gotten vaxxed from that show back then, it

(02:00:23):
was so bad. I'll take Triple Ah Reign of Terror
episodes of Raw over the stuff that that old fucking
geezer was putting out back then. So if you forced
me to answer, I'm gonna watch the TNA episode on
a loop because I feel like I can laugh at it.
You know, the other show is just boring and offensive.

(02:00:44):
I could barely stomach two hours of it, let alone
two hours twelve times over. What are you trying to
do to me? Anyway? Keep emailing me the Solo Monster
at gmail dot com and I'm gonna be back with
you next Sunday for episode nine forty three of the SoundOff.
I believe that might be the second to last episode

(02:01:05):
here in the year of twenty twenty five. Is we
wind down the month of November, the month of November,
the month of December. I don't even know what fucking
month it is. We wind down the month of March.
Next week I'll be live for the Raw Post show
on YouTube tomorrow night. We have three hours of Dynamite

(02:01:27):
in Collision. But they're in England though, so they should
have a hot crack. I think they got ten thousand
tickets sold for that show, so that'll be on Wednesday night.
Friday night. There will be no SmackDown post shows, so
just be aware of that. I will be at the
NYC Arena because we got a big house, a glory show.
The final Hog show of the year, Winter Warfare, is
coming up at the NYC Arena in Queens. That's on

(02:01:49):
Friday night. You should try to buy your tickets now
because we're getting close to a sellout of We've already
sold out the first four rows and the stage. We
added a fifth row day too long if you want
to get your tickets hog Wrestling dot Net. If you
can't be there live, you could watch live on Triller TV. Plus.
We got the Hardy's back for the first time, defending
those Hog Tag Team championships that they just won against

(02:02:12):
Zillafa two and Lance an Owaii as a team for
the first time. We have Charles Mason putting the hog
World Championship on the line against Moustafa Ali. We've got
Matt Cardona back on the show. Amazing Red is going
to try to murder Darren Richardson, who's been tormenting him
this entire year. It's gonna be fun times. So that'll
be on Friday night, and then back with you here

(02:02:34):
for SoundOff episode ninety three next Sunday, So until then,
be well, stay safe. Go check out the full video
review of Saturday Night to Main Events. It's up on
the YouTube channel right now. We had close to four
thousand people live at one point last night for the
post show, so if you missed it, go back and
check it out and I will see you back here

(02:02:54):
for more SoundOff next Sunday. Until then, take care, guys.
The solom Monsters sounds off. So you got Moxley on
one side, you got Darby on the other. Moxley said, look,
I did what I could for Danielson, but this is
a war for the future of the sports and for
their craze. You know, they're running what is it with
these Shield guys. You know here on this show you've
got John Moxley forming his own faction, coming out every

(02:03:16):
week and talking about the future of the industry, the
future of the company, the future of the sport. You
got Seth Rollins on the other show forming his own
faction and coming out and basically doing the same thing.
I'm fighting for the future, right everything is so epic
like this match that you and I are about to have, Cody,
It's a fight for the future of this company, Like, aw,
what is this nonsense? I don't recall like Stone Cold

(02:03:37):
or The Rock or The Undertaker coming out of television
every week with John Cito or Randy Orton, even if
you want to use a different era as an exam,
coming out on television and cutting these fucking boring promos
on television every single week, over and over and over
again about the same fucking shit. We gotta save the
future of the company. How about you worry about yourself?
How about worrying about the here and now and not
fucking five or ten years from now? What is it

(02:03:57):
with these Shield guys? At least Roman Reigns doesn't give
a fuck about the future he comes out. He just
cares about himself. I respect that, fuck everybody else.

Speaker 2 (02:04:04):
The Solo Monster sounds off bringing you the good, the bad,
and the ugly. Check out the weekly live streams bonus
content for subscribers, and follow The Solo Monster on Facebook, Instagram,
and Ax.

Speaker 1 (02:04:17):
The Solo Monster. I love you so long.

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Sound Off 942 - John Cena TAPS OUT To Gunther, The 15 BEST MATCHES Of His Career And More!

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Sound Off 942 - John Cena TAPS OUT To Gunther, The 15 BEST MATCHES Of His Career And More!