Bang For Your Buck PPV Review: Extreme Rules 2014

CAGE MATCH FOR THE SOUL OF THE WWE UNIVERSE

JOHN CENA VS. BRAY WYATT

This may be the largest variation of miles for any match we will ever review here, but it — if nothing else — speaks to the larger “problems” surrounding John Cena, or more accurately, people’s perceptions of what John Cena is “supposed” to do, what matches are “supposed” to be and how characters are “supposed” to work in the WWE universe. It’s never our goal to tell people “how to watch”, but there’s something larger going on with most common interpretations of this match.

There are more measured approaches, like Bill Hanstock’s look at the supposed inanity of the cage stipulation, and his belief that it is to be used to keep cowardly heels from escaping or having their cohorts interfere. He also allows for the idea that this has shifted, while still managing to point out that — especially when the stipulation is introduced by the guy with out the stable of goons to do his bidding — trying to escape the cage as quickly as possible makes little sense given the specific storyline that they seem to be working with for this particular cage match. There are slightly more hysterical ones that borderline on “overthinking John Cena’s character and professional wrestling as an artistic medium/it’s not a movie, guy”, but still manage to be articulate in an interesting and dynamic way because of the person writing it, like Brandon Stroud’s belief that this was “the Worst Match of the Year“.

These are the type of things where reasonable people can disagree without being disagreeable. But, then there are pieces like this bit on John Cena as Superman, which become less about what John Cena did than how we feel about John Cena as a character and even as a person. Pieces like this — and to be fair, the writer of this piece isn’t a professional, as this is what they call a “fanshot”, or user-produced piece, over at Cageside Seats — highlight the somewhat depressing disconnect people have between “things they like” and “good” or “badness”. Much in the same way Tea Party Republicans, as is their RIGHT AS AMERICANS TO DO, have a very specific idea of what “America” is, so do many fans and unfortunately, commentators, regarding what they think “should” happen.

There’s always a sliver of personal preference involved in any of this, but there should be great care taken to separate our “fandom” from “things being good or bad” like we should with any other artistic medium and/or our entire worldviews. This is especially true when “reviewing” things, or trying to articulate what was the “best” or “worst” of a particular show. Roger Ebert was a fan of movies, yes, but he didn’t think that every movie that Vincent Gallo made was bad simply because Gallo said he hoped he died of cancer. Someone said they wanted him to die of cancer, and Ebert was still able to maintain some bit of objectivity. And when people — like this commenter on the Superman article — react this way to things that happen on professional wrestling shows, it’s clear some sort of sad, sad, sad bridge has been crossed by adults watching a show that’s ostensibly made for children to believe and “grownups” to enjoy:

Cena is really a heel. The worst heel ever. His character is just like so many people I know who think they are awesome and special because they work out and are in great shape or because they do nice things for people. But they are really an asshole and they are hollow and fake.

It’s this type of, well, personal feeling about someone who is a cartoon character that specializes in looking very strong and being nice to children that make it so difficult to talk about wrestling with people, whether it be fellow fans or people who haven’t joined the cult. There’s no effort made to disconnect how we feel about a given performer because of our own prejudices regarding how we were treated by “the cool kids” or something more innocuous like “what type of cage matches we watched growing up”  as it relates to the overall quality of the show for everyone watching. There’s nothing wrong with feeling one way or another, or course, but it’s a continuous problem that fans of wrestling feel the need to articulate what they believe something should be as what the thing should be, period.

Your correspondent, for instance, thoroughly enjoyed this match and mostly found the seemingly never-ending attempts to keep Cena in to border somewhere between “good fun done to pad out a show that’s going to be about 10-15 minutes short” and “an interesting meditation on the limits of John Cena’s powers”. It’s not that the other people are wrong, just that saying things like

“There are always apologists out there. Guys who watch a 30-minute pile of horse garbage like this and do the, “I don’t know, I thought it was alright … the ending was cool!” Those people are either the happiest or the saddest people in the world, I haven’t figured it out yet.”

implies that it’s impossible to watch something like this match and not be just “pretending we liked it because we aren’t looking at it more critically.”

And, of course, there’s the expertise of someone like Jim Ross saying that he — and should be noted he made it clear it was his personal preference — found the finish/half hour spent getting to it to be problematic. But it still doesn’t mean liking this match is something to apologize for.

Match +.7 | Overall 3.15

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