Bang For Your Buck PPV Review: The 2014 Tables, Ladders, Chairs (and Stairs) WWE PPV

Weird Stipulation/Tables Match

Seth Rollins vs. John Cena

Worst Case Scenario: John Cena piles Rollins, J & J Security, Big Show and every heel authority figure over the last ten years on his shoulder and AA’s them through a table off a ladder.
What Will Happen: A John Cena victory, and very little else. It could be worse, it could be raining WrestleMania.

John Cena as Superman is something we’ve talked about repeatedly here in the Palace of Wisdom, but this match was perhaps the finest example of the problems inherent when the WWE has something written in stone involving his character. His overwhelming and singular type of stardom can leave him the same kind of lonely, isolated and most importantly, introspective, that characterizations in the best Superman stories focus on. It’s the same reason why Red Son is one of the truly transcendent bits of Superman outside of the man himself: when they use his “Super”ness against him to make him nominally the bad guy — as they did with Cena against CM Punk and Daniel Bryan — it makes his invulnerability a liability to his ultimate goals, and gives his character a three-dimensional emotional space to work in.

However, when the flipside of the Superman coin is played, and it’s simply an inevitable march towards him defeating General Zod/Seth Rollins or whichever villain stands in the way this month, it becomes almost unbearable to watch no matter what the quality of the performance. The reason Superman snapping Zod’s neck in Man of Steel works is not just because of the stakes but the decision he has to make, the proximity of its result to him (he literally has to kill Zod with his bare hands) and the psychic toll all of those things have on him.

Which is to say, the only thing that can save those bits of inevitable storytelling inherent in the story of an invulnerable hero overcoming the odds from falling flat is how he does it. And it’s why this match’s ending felt particularly egregious even for me: Even with Creative seemingly knowing that another story of overcoming odds when they aren’t even the most insurmountable odds he’s faced in the last six months (and that he hasn’t had to make a serious moral choice since WrestleMania) was a weak storyline, they decided to have overcome those odds via  his fellow good guy to beat up a different bad guy than the one he’s facing directly and then essentially finishing his primary for him. Which seems, at best, naive  to the current reality of the character and, at worst, lazy.

HAVING SAID THAT, the match still worked as it was, and the ever-incredible Seth Rollins really felt like he could win the match — especially considering he wasn’t directly promised the No.1 Contender’s spot that would have been vacated by Cena if he had lost — before Roman Reigns became involved. It will also be intriguing what happens to Rollins-Reigns and — in its own way — Show-Cena going forward.  Ultimately, though, this was the type of  match that Seth Rollins — as King Dick of Heel Mountain — should be winning, and the end result suffered for that.

Match +.5 | PPV 2.55

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