A few weeks ago, when it was first announced that Cena would be back for Hell in a Cell, I tried to offer up the idea that this was not necessarily a bad thing and could in fact be a very good thing for the long-term status of the WWE. Creative could use Cena’s status to bring prestige back to the World title, back to the Smackdown brand, and quite possibly back to the whole Smackdown roster. Of course the other option is what we saw on Monday, which may be the best example I’ve ever seen of Cenawinslol!
But before we get into the bitter complaining, segment though, lets try to say a few good things about Monday’s title match. Mostly the fact that despite the best efforts of those backstage who booked this match, Sandow still managed to look really good in the match. Sandow had an opportunity to put his in ring talent on display against a top competitor this Monday and he took full advantage of it. A specific high moment of the match involved Sandow yelling “Rise above this!” to Cena after attacking the Champion. And people have noticed. For example Hall of Famer Mick Foley tweeted “One year from today, I will remind all of you that I declared October 28,2013 as the dawning of the age of @TheDamienSandow-mania!” after the match.
But now lets get to the bad. First and foremost, Damien Sandow ended up losing the match. And I’m not saying that a loss is automatically a bad thing for a wrestler. To continue to mine Foley’s twitter feed for gems, a little bit later Foley tweeted this: “You guys realize that I hardly ever won, and I’m in the @WWE HOF, right? Pick out your favorite Foley match & chances are, I lost it.” And those who know my personal feelings toward Mr. Foley know that it is a great and personal struggle to disagree with anything that he has to say. And I see his point I really do. My personal favorite Mick Foley match (and I’m sure the favorite of a lot of people) is his famous Hell in a Cell match with Undertaker, one that he did indeed lose. But the problem that I saw this Monday wasn’t just that Sandow lost, it was so much more than that.
See Sandow was a Money in the Bank winner, and ever since Edge cashed in the very first MiTB contract all those years ago, that title meant something. It meant that you were more or less guaranteed to be a champion sometime within the next year. And yes Sandow isn’t the first person to unsuccessfully cash in, that honor goes to Cena’s cash in on Punk last year, but Sandow is the first person to cash in and be defeated by the current champion without any outside interference. Big Show interrupted Cena’s cash in attempt, and it was clear that his brief time with the briefcase was nothing more than a minor plot point in the whole Big Show/Cena/CM Punk/Rock storyline that was going on a the time. Sandow, on the other hand, is the first person in history to say, “I believe that I can win this match.” and just flat out be wrong.
In different circumstances I could get over Sandow losing the match, I really could. After all, somebody, someday had to lose, they way that Sandow did on Monday. And hey, it’s still possible that this could lead to bigger and better things for Sandow. Who knows what the next few weeks and months have in store for the guy. But there’s just one thing that really makes the whole ordeal continually problematic.
See, when John Cena left, we knew that when he returned he would get a fairly big pop as all returning Superstars do. Sure there would be some boos in the crowd, that’s just the kind of reaction Cena gets, but for the first time in a while the cheers would most likely be substantially greater than the boos were. This was a chance for WWE to really do something new with Cena. A guy who has far too long been stuck in the same stale gimmick, feuding with the same small group of people, with the same handful of storylines repeating over and over again for the past several years. This was WWE’s chance to really take a left turn and garner new, renewed interest in Cena once again. And for a moment, one shining moment, it really seemed like that might be happening with Cena going after the World Heavyweight title instead of the WWE one. But then we got that match on Monday.
First of all, we’re told time and again by commentary that Cena is more than likely not fully recovered yet. Then we see him in a match on Sunday that we’re told probably took a lot out of the guy. So when Sandow comes out to the ring, he’s coming out to face a worn down superstar who was probably never even at 100% to begin with. But even after all that, Sandow gets to savagely attack the injured arm for several minutes before the bell actually rings, just so that there is no possible misunderstanding that Cena is supposed to be the underdog in this match. And what does perpetual underdog John Cena do? The same thing we’ve seen him do for the past several years. Never give up, kick out of finishers, and trying to convince us that these are insurmountable odds that he’s overcoming before our eyes.
The long and short of it is this: I like Cena, I really do. I’ve never felt as compelled to hate the guy, as a large portion of the Internet seems to do. Is he my favorite? No? Does he crack the top five? Probably not. But I was happy that he was coming back and was excited to see him again. But as much as I like Cena, while he was gone, there were new things happening in the WWE. Whether you thought they were good or not, the fact remains that the stories we were getting were new and different. And if Cena being back means that we’re going to crush any story and any future star that could have been different, then I’m not as excited to see Cena today as I was earlier this week.
