John Cena Business Dinner

Best: John Cena Doesn’t Dress For The Job He Has, He Dresses For The Job He Wants

Nothing I can type here tops the gentle hilarity of John Cena wearing his “Rise Above Cancer” shirt on a date. It’s great continuity. As we’ve seen, John Cena only has three sets of clothing: a suit for formal events, a t-shirt and jorts for everything else and a basketball jersey with backwards hat in case somebody challenges him to a rap battle. That’s it. Every week we see him come to the ring in a shirt, take it off and throw it into the crowd, so it’s easy to believe he owns one John Cena t-shirt at a time and goes through them like paper towels. At least he took off his 8 wristbands.

I don’t know exactly what went on at that dinner, but I hope I started with John tipping the host and asking for a “nice table, preferably something near the fuse box”.

Worst: John Cena Can Wrestle Guys Without 1) The WWE Championship, 2) Backstage Romance Stories

All right, all right.

Look. You’re John Cena, right? You’re a 10-time WWE Champion or whatever. You’ve held every belt and done everything. You’re the only guy WWE employs who shows up to every show and puts butts in seats. You can do anything you want with your time as long as you show up, lead the fight against The Nexus and/or Breast Cancer and smile for photos near Kelly Ripa. You are a world-traveled millionaire, your body hasn’t completely fallen apart and you told Howard Stern that you once hooked up with six girls at once. You are living at least a portion of every person on Earth’s dream.

You are free to experiment artistically, you know that? Your dad’s a wrestling promoter and you’ve been doing this for a long time. You know how Triple H does those 30 minute epic cage matches where he bleeds everywhere and dresses like Conan the Barbarian and fights zombie gods with hammers? You know how The Rock only shows up to be the coolest and most popular person in the room and makes everybody else look like shit, because he’s the only one handsome and lucky and well-connected enough to get out of your business alive? Those guys got to the top and realized they had pull, so they pulled and pulled until they got what they want.

John, your only two stories are “I must win/keep the WWE Championship” or “STUPID AS F**KING BALLS NON-CHAMPIONSHIP STORY”. When you have the belt, YOU WILL DEFEND IT AT ANY COST. When you don’t, YOU MUST WIN IT AT ANY COST AND YOU WILL FIGHT RIGHT HERE TONIGHT. Neither of those is great, but they beat the hell out of any story you get into unrelated to the belt. It usually involves you being “fired” (which nobody believes ever) (ever), being the only one who can face a returning legend (Rock, Lesnar, Bull Buchanan) or getting into weird romances. Who told you that these are your only options? You could be emulating and redefining the moments that made you a wrestling fan. Did Ric Flair claiming he slept with Elizabeth and providing archaic ’90s photoshops make you want to be a wrestler? What about that story TNA just did about the lady who claimed she slept with AJ Styles? Is that what you want to see whenever belts aren’t on the line?

The last time you kissed somebody you weren’t supposed to we got six weeks of Zack Ryder having his back broken, Kane waiting patiently for cues by an ambulance and Eve Torres being brought to the ring and forced to bark like a dog. There are easier ways to get into pay-per-view matches with Dolph Ziggler. Here’s an easy one: Everyone says that beating John Cena is how you prove you’re the best, and people think Ziggler’s a coward for not cashing in Money In The Bank already and wants to prove he’s the best. Here’s another one: “We are having a wrestling match and the popular guy is in it.”

Best: Antonio Cesaro Hates Fat Power Rangers

He’s right. Halloween is gross and America is terrible. Is is terrible of me to recognize someone as my intellectual and physical superior and think, “hey, I should probably listen to this guy” instead of, “I HATE HIM FOR THINKING HE’S BETTER THAN ME”? I don’t like heels more because I’m a contrarian wrestling fan, I like them because they seem like dynamic, interesting people. I’d rather be Ric Flair than Ron Garvin, that’s all I’m saying.

Regardless, I hope WWE’s upcoming Scooby-Doo WrestleMania movie (which is real, I didn’t just make that up) is a huge success and lets WWE Superstars show up in other kids’ shows, because holy crap, how great would it be if Antonio Cesaro showed up in Angel Grove? He would give Bulk and Skull such a f**king browbeating. Also, I want to see if he can deadlift and Neutralizer the Dragonzord.

Worst: Middling 2-1/2 Minute Champion Vs. Champion Non-Title Things

I’m not going to hate on Kofi again, because Kofi had nothing to do with WWE’s tendency to put champions against champions in two-minute Raw things with terrible non-finishes that go nowhere, accomplish nothing and make everybody look worse, but I’ll say this: Antonio Cesaro had a great match with Brodus Clay, Tyson Kidd and Justin Gabriel, and this is the first time he’s looked assy on Raw. Just saying.

I’m very proud of Vickie Guerrero for not wandering out to a Vickie Guerrero rap song* and making it a TAG TEAM MATCH, though. Maybe she was the right choice for GM after all.

* ♪ “My name’s Vickie G and I’m here to say/Ex-cuse me in a major way!” ♪ etc.

Real Talk Worst: Jerry Lawler Returns In 2 Weeks

Truth: It is awesome that Jerry Lawler is okay, and I’m happy that he’s made such a quick recovery. I hope six months from now he’s totally fine, and it’s like he never had a heart attack.

Additional truth: The worst complaint I’ve had about the Raw announce team since Lawler left was Jim Ross getting Darren Young’s last name wrong and Cole saying “kiliman-jair-o”. Neither of them have made dirty Mexican jokes about Alberto Del Rio, condescended on the female wrestlers for being sex objects (aside from JBL’s weirdness at Hell In A Cell) or gotten into the ring to punch out champions despite being 60. The commentary team is better without him. A lot better.

I apologize in advance for two weeks from now, should I lose perspective.