The Return Of John Cena

My reaction when I heard the news:

Last Night on RAW, it was announced that Alberto Del Rio would be defending The World Heavyweight Championship against the returning John Cena.

You know, I've said this before, I don't personally hate Cena, it's the way he acts on TV and how he's booked. It has not even been 2 full months and already this guy is coming back. WWE had the chance to make such great headway in his absence and build up their stars, but they have done none of that. They had the chance to make good TV and focus on the rest of their roster rather than ONE person. They had the chance to make a good storyline between Bryan and Orton for a fresh Championship scene, but who's commanded the show and the feud? Triple H. I've said this before. I like old Triple H, like Attitude Era and around 2004-2005. But he is taking too much time of something that is none of his business taking away time from Orton and Bryan. He's trying to Mr. McMahon, but there is only ONE Vince McMahon.

And now here comes Cena and he'll be ALL OVER THE TV. And he'll eventually run into McMahon-Helmsley 2.0. and who will come out of that angle as a winner? John Cena. They can screw Daniel Bryan 3 pay-per-views in a row, but Cena will win once clean and clear and that will be the end of that. Here come the bad promos, cheesy and goofy disposition, CONSTANT reminder on commentary and throughout the show and all of the above.

I'm hoping that this is a cruel joke and that Vince is trolling all the Cena fans, but I really don't think he'd joke about something like this.

I have a theory about this. People are saying that RAW ratings and pay-per-view buy rates are going down because John Cena isn't there anymore. They could not be MORE WRONG. A combination of poor storylines, bad entertainment & promos, over saturation of certain characters, and horribly bad booking are why the ratings are going down. This was happening even when Cena was there.

But here's my theory. What if WWE is purposely making bad TV so they have a reason to bring back John Cena early? What if WWE is purposely sabotaging Daniel Bryan's push making him look weak so that John Cena returns as the conquering hero? Could they really stoop that low? I know the first one is a little far fetched, but I have no doubts about the second one.

WWE Officials even said, a week or so after Cena went out, that this the time for WWE Superstars to "step up" in Cena's absence. I guess they didn't step up enough and they have to bring Cena back because the creative team isn't competent enough to make up proper storylines to get characters over. I guess ONE WHOLE MONTH showed that WWE can't live without Cena. I guess having Triple H dominate the majority of the show is the WWE superstars not stepping up. WWE has no faith in their roster. That's the truth.

But it begs the question, why is Cena wrestling for the World Heavyweight Championship? I have two theories about this:

1) Maybe they want to make the World Title relevant and prestigious again, making John Cena the guy to do it. But let's be honest, the World Title hasn't been relevant in years. Del Rio hasn't been doing squat with the World Title and he himself hasn't looked like a dominant Champion even in the slightest. Him losing the title was way overdue, but this way? Ugh.

2) This is the first step in unifying the World Title and WWE Title. I've been hearing rumors about this for a while, but they were only that: Rumors. Cena vs Bryan or whoever, Title vs Title, Winner is Undisputed Champion. And take a wild guess who would win that match? If Cena wasn't injured and wasn't on his way to surgery, no way Bryan wins the title at Summerslam.

Hell in a Cell is just a couple weeks from now. The Countdown has begun. For the Cena fans, be proud, your hero is coming back. For the people, like me, that don't like Cena, just try to breathe and take it one day at a time. We still have Bray Wyatt, The Shield, Damien Sandow, Dolph Ziggler, CM Punk, etc.



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By: Gerald "Showstopper" Prophete

WWE Hell in a Cell Reaction

Pre-show:

John Cena comes out and addresses the "scandal" between him and AJ that cost her the GM job. Anyway to get John Cena on WWE programming I guess. I wasn't really paying attention because this angle doesn't really interest me, but maybe RAW tomorrow will change my opinion.


Hell in a Cell opens up with a damn good intro which could've been better without Show and Sheamus in it, but I digress.

Randy Orton vs Alberto Del Rio

Orton and Del Rio kick off Hell in a Cell with a average match. Not one of their best encounters, but it was still solid, yet sloppy. Del Rio was the aggressor telling a story and really going to work on Orton's arm selling that point. The match ends with Del Rio scaling the top rope, but landing into an RKO. Pretty sick spot. Orton picks up the win.

WWE Tag Team Championship Match 
Daniel Bryan & Kane vs Cody Rhodes & Damien Sandow

Great tag team match between two great teams. Sandow & Rhodes did the traditional tag team wrestling with quick tags, teamwork and everything in between. We saw some great ring action with Daniel Bryan and Damien Sandow who seem to work well together. But let's get to the meat of the matter. The end of the match sees Kane going completely ballistic and hammering away on Sandow and Rhodes so furiously that the ref has to call for the bell. Kane and Bryan seemed to "self-destruct" during the match as well. So, Kane and Bryan lose the match, but they keep the titles because of the disqualification. Didn't think they would go this route. The feud between these two teams is going to continue, but does this mean Rhodes and Sandow are going to capture the tag titles soon, or is this just something WWE came up with so that Kane and Bryan don't get old?

WWE Intercontinental Championship Match
Kofi (c) vs The Miz

So far, this match is the Match of the Night. It was fast pace, back and forth and so fluid. Miz and Kofi have tremendous chemistry in the ring with each other and despite having no story going into this one, this match was great. In the end, Kofi hits Miz with the Trouble in Paradise for the win retaining the IC Title. I really do hope the IC Title launches Kofi's career. He deserves it. I feel like this is just the beginning.

WWE United States Championship Match
Antonio Cesaro (c) vs Justin Gabriel

Well what do you know? The United States Champion does have a match..

GREAT match. Wow. I never really watched much of Justin Gabriel in singles competition, but on a pay-per-view stage, this kid can GO. By go, I mean he's a great wrestler and phenomenal athlete. Despite the crowd being dull as dishwater since the opening of the show, these two guys put on a great match. I already know how good Cesaro is in the ring, but Gabriel is so agile, making him so mobile and his moves look so fluid, especially working with a guy like Cesaro, they can make each other look good. But getting off that, Cesaro picks up the win the Neutralizer and retains the US Title. What I noticed is that he didn't have Aksana at ringside? Cesaro isn't the best on the mic, so he needs some sort of mouthpiece.

Rey Mysterio & Sin Cara vs The Primetime Players

Nothing really special. Haven't seen PTP in a while, and they're really trying to push Mysterio and Cara as a legit tag team as the new school version of Mysterio and Guerrero, but those are HUGE shoes to fill. Better yet, their teamwork reminds of Brian Kendrick and Paul London. Never heard of them? Of course not. Look them up and educate yourselves.

Getting to the match, I didn't pay much mind to it. I've seen these teams wrestle before and this really was nothing new. Maybe this should've been.....I don't know....a #1 Contenders match? But nonetheless, it was an enjoyable match. Mysterio and Sin Cara get the win.

On another note, Cara took what looked like a sick bump to the outside landing on Titus and he looks to have injured himself.....again. But he got up and celebrated with Rey. I guess we'll know more later.



While we have some time, let's recap so far. 3 title matches, all 3 Champs retained, the crowd sucks which further proves how some crowds can affect a pay-per-view. You would think after WrestleMania 27, WWE would know Atlanta crowds are bad WWE crowds. But meh. At this point, Kofi and Miz had the Match of the Night so far. The only thing, on my mind at least, is the WWE Championship match.

World Heavyweight Championship Match
Sheamus (c) vs Big Show

Well, I was wrong on two things:

1) I actually liked this match. It didn't go as long as I thought. They made it short and sweet. Well, sort of. A good portion of this match was DOMINATED by Big Show. I mean pure domination. Sheamus got beat down to the point where he had welts on his chest. This match told a great story of how dominant The Giant really is. It took a while for Sheamus to get his offense going, but when he did, the match really picked up. Sheamus got Big Show up for the White Noise move, and even kicked out of Big Show's KO Punch which FINALLY woke the crowd up a little bit. But he didn't do it again. Sheamus geared up for the Brogue Kick, but Show hit him with the KO Punch in mid-motion and won the World Title.

2) I was wrong about Big Show and the World Title. Upon Big Show's return to the WWE, they were really pushing the fact that he's a Giant and since they don't want him carrying the WWE Champion, the World Heavyweight Championship seems more his game right now because who's going to take him down? Obviously, Sheamus is going to want revenge and has a rematch clause somewhere, so this feud isn't over. And no Ziggler cash-in, so we'll still have to wait on that.

Good match. Really surprised me. Hope Big Show has a good reign with the World Title this time around.

Triple Threat match for the Divas Championship
Eve (c) vs Layla vs Kaitlyn

Despite the crowd being dead as usual, this match was pretty solid. Even though the division has been so bad, there have been some good divas matches. In this match, Kaitlyn really shined. We know how good Eve and Layla are, but Kaitlyn had some pretty good ring time in this match and showed people what she can do and she's improved in the ring in the last few months. But even after all that, Eve retains the Divas Title. Not too surprised there.

Hell in a Cell Match for the WWE Championship
CM Punk (c) vs Ryback

This was it. The Main Event. The Big Fight. THE MATCH. CM Punk vs Ryback for the WWE Championship. After the well done video package highlighting their feud, CM Punk makes his way out first, followed by Ryback. This match had a great big fight feel and they really sold the fact Punk was staring death in the face. The match started the way I figured. Punk was avoiding Ryback until he finally got caught and beatdown. He waited for the right distraction and pounced on the opportunity. This match was moving at a slow pace which was just fine for me. In a match of this magnitude, you didn't need to rush anything. This match told a good story that Punk needed to do more than usual to take Ryback down. Punk needed to depend on multiple weapons to bring him down and for short amount of time was in control of the monster Ryback. You can't make Punk look like a complete rag doll. The man is the WWE Champion so it was only a matter of time until he started dominating for a little bit.

And now, we come to end of the match. Punk was hitting Ryback with a Singapore cane, but Ryback had enough, grabbed the cane and tossed it out of the ring. He did the usual moves which included his meat hook clothesline. He got Punk up for the shell shock, but was stopped and low blowed by.......wait for it..........THE REFEREE. Yes, Ladies and Gentlemen, the referee stopped Ryback and dropped him with a low blow. Punk rolled him up and the ref fast counted Ryback's shoulders down. Punk wins and retains the WWE Championship.

But wait, there's more! Punk and the crooked ref try to get out of the Cell, but the referee outside was fumbling with the keys and couldn't unlock it in time. Ryback got up and he made both men pay. The referee took quite a bump. Ryback brought him into the ring and tossed him outside the ring right into the Cell. Punk climbed to the top of the Cell to get away from Ryback, who followed. I was going through every possible scenario in my head of what they were going to do up there until I remembered that WWE is PG so, instead of somebody flying off, or going through the Cell, the best we got was just a simple shell shock onto the top of the Cell. The show ends with Ryback literally with his foot on Punk's chest doing the "Feed Me More!"



Ok, so Brock Lesnar didn't show up. Let me get that out of the way right now. But this match did what it had to. Punk kept the WWE Championship and Ryback's character wasn't damaged. As a matter of fact, after his actions after the match, his Monster character grew immensely and looked every bit as strong as he did before the match. It looks like WWE did create that new star that they wanted.

Now, I bet people are going to complain about the screwjob ending. This tells a few things. First of all, people were going to complain no matter how that match ended. Second, WWE backed themselves into a corner and had no clue how to really end this match, and that was the best they could come up with. But the ending really isn't as bad as people are saying. Let's be honest, did any of you see the referee screwing over Ryback? Better yet, did you call it a few weeks ago? If you did, you can either see into the future, or you're a damn liar. People are always saying that the one thing WWE doesn't have anymore is unpredictability. I certainly didn't predict the referee getting involved. If you didn't like how it ended, then please enlighten me on how you would've ended the match given the complications going into it.

I don't like the referee screwjob either, but I give them points on the swerve I guess. CM Punk needed to win and Ryback couldn't become the WWE Champion. Like I said in my last blog post, I don't think he was ready, but I also said him winning the title down the road won't mean as much if he were to win here.

Overall, this show was ok. I wasn't really expecting a stellar show, but it wasn't bad. Miz/Kofi had the best wrestling match of the night, the Show/Sheamus match shocked me not only by the way the match went, but with Show winning the World Title, and Punk retains his title, Ryback is still the Monster. Everybody goes home happy. The only problem I had was the crowd. They were AWFUL.

I'll score this show a C+. The only reason I tuned in was to see Punk vs Ryback and while that match didn't disappoint me, I can't say the rest of the show filled me with joy either. Today's new WWE PG fans are going to remember Ryback standing over Punk on top of the Cell for quite some time. It would be interesting to see how they follow up with this. Do they go back to Punk/Cena or is Ryback going to get his rematch?


Feel free to Comment.



By: Gerald "Showstopper" Prophete

CM Punk vs Ryback: Final Thoughts and Analysis

Well.....this is it. This is the ONLY match that I am looking forward to tonight. Because let's be honest, this WWE Championship match is selling the pay-per-view. Wrestling wise, there's gonna be some great wrestling. No doubt about it. But as far as storylines go, as always, there's not a lot of intrigue in any match on the card besides CM Punk vs Ryback. I'm not invested in the other matches, and this card has been so rushed and so poorly built, the wrestling and this match is the only thing that can save it. But I will be fair and give my predictions on the rest of the matches before I address the BIG one. I'll make them short and sweet.

They tried so hard to build a story between these three divas, but because the division has become so horrible and storylines cease to exist with the divas, it's hard to be invested in this. Eve is somewhat over, Layla isn't, and Kaitlyn is just fluttering around. I would say give the title to Kaitlyn since she got "taken out" at Night of Champions, but I see Eve retaining.

The match is going to be great, but there's no story. Why does Del Rio hate Orton? Why does Orton have to fight him? Why do I even have to care about this match? There has been no story built to make me invested. Orton wins, and Del Rio continues to flutter around just like Kaitlyn.

They've worked extremely hard in re-building the tag team division and even harder building credible tag teams. They have two winners right here. Kane and Bryan dominated the end of August and all of September with their chemistry, but does it end here? I don't think so. I like this team of The Rhodes Scholars. I'm a fan of Cody Rhodes, and an even bigger fan of Damien Sandow. But Bryan and Kane are way too over to not win.

This is another match that's going to be fun to watch, but again no story, no investment. They started out good building one up on Miz Tv a few weeks ago, but they haven't carried it and extended it. Kofi won the title on WWE's Main Event for god sakes, and since there's been no promo exchanges and no storyline progression to make me care. The Miz didn't do much with the IC Title when he had it, and Kofi will probably do even less. Kofi just won it, so he's gonna retain.

Oh boy...*sigh* I don't know where to start with this one. You talk about a match that I absolutely do not care about. The only thing they've done to somewhat build this match up is the Brogue Kick vs Big Show's KO Punch. While that's a starting point, that's not a good enough reason to make me care about this match. Sheamus' title reign in general has not been interesting and his character doesn't help that much either. What can you say about Big Show. He's been doing this for a long time. There's not much else he can do to make me care any more. Obviously Sheamus is going to win, cause what reason is there to put the title on Show? Maybe unless Dolph Ziggler comes out to cash in the briefcase? That's a factor worth mentioning.


Antonio Cesaro will defend the United States Championship against.....oh wait. The United States Champion doesn't have a match on the card. Go figure.

And for all the little kids, age 8 and above, John Cena will be on the pre-show. Even when he's not on the card, we still need to see and hear from him.


And now onto the MAIN EVENT. The match that will sell this show: CM Punk vs Ryback for the WWE Championship. This match has got a lot of people talking. WWE will once in a while get back that shock value where you never know what's going to happen, and they've done it again with this match. People may have an idea of what may happen in this match, but they don't know for sure. We don't know which way WWE is going to go with this one. We really don't. And that's what makes this match so appealing.

But I'm gonna break down this match, scenarios and give my final thoughts on what'll happen.

You cannot harm CM Punk's current title reign. If not for the fact that The Rock has a WWE Championship match waiting for him at the Royal Rumble, then by all means, I would say Ryback would be the new WWE Champion tonight. But if you keep the title on Punk until the Rumble extending his current reign past a year, his match with The Rock means a lot more that way if Punk were to lose tonight and regain it at Survivor Series, or at TLC. Punk's 1-year title reign vs The Rock pretty much sells itself.

Ryback cannot lose clean. Ryback's character since his debut has been a MONSTER. That's what he does. He comes in, destroys his competition, and leaves. You cannot have your Monster lose clean without any type of interference because that makes him look weak. CM Punk's title reign has certainly made him the alpha dog in the WWE, but he cannot beat Ryback clean. Same reason why Goldberg never lost a clean match. To beat a Monster, you're going to need a little help. You can't do it on your own. Ryback has gained so much momentum in the last few weeks and if he loses clean, you take all the wind out of his sails. But at least if takes a mounted effort to beat him, you know the Monster still is strong because it took a lot to put him down.

And also, for some odd reason, this match is inside the Hell in a Cell. So you can forget about ending the match on a DQ, or any sort of countout or double pin nonsense to keep the title on Punk like they did at Night of Champions. There MUST be a winner.

Can Ryback work a long match? The biggest problem with Goldberg was because he was so dominant, he was used to the short, quick matches, but when the matches got longer, you saw that he was average at best, but got better as his career moved on. Ryback's matches have not even exceeded 5 minutes. And you can't have a 5-10 minute Main Event Hell in a Cell Match for the WWE Championship. That just won't do. This match has to go 15 minutes or longer.

Do you take the chance? Is this the night where you make a new star in Ryback? A lot of people, myself included, have complained about Cena constantly being the main event because there's nobody else at "that" level. Now due to Cena's injury, there's a new face in the main event. Do you pull the trigger and give Ryback the title? All these months of hype and squash matches won't mean jack if he doesn't win the WWE Championship. But is Ryback the superstar of the future? Is he ready? Can he carry the WWE as its Champion? Can WWE survive the backlash if Ryback turns out that he's not ready? Will Lesnar interfere? Will Cena have a role in this match? You only get one shot at this sort of thing. If Ryback wins the WWE title somewhere down the road, it won't mean as much. If you're looking for that moment to make a new star, it would have to be tonight.

Ryback can't lose, CM Punk can't lose. If Ryback is going to get beat, it's going to take numbers. I said it before, if Ryback is going to lose, Brock Lesnar will be the reason, unless WWE pulls something completely out of left field. If CM Punk loses, then you have a star for the future, but you have to think about the booking going forward and how things will be when The Rock comes back to hype his Royal Rumble match.  Recently, WWE has never thought of the long term effects of some things.

I say CM Punk is going to retain the WWE Championship. CM Punk's title reign has been very good, almost a year now. If you want his match with The Rock to have that extra something, he needs to keep the title and milk his reign for all its worth so when he faces The Rock, it's BIG. Ryback has to lose, and I hate that it has to happen, but I just don't think he's ready to be the WWE Champion.

Tonight is the night. Do you have your WWE Champion end the unbeaten streak of the Monster that you've pushed so much, or do you look toward the future and make this Monster the Champion and prove that you don't need John Cena on the marquee every pay-per-view? Tonight is going to answer A LOT of questions. I can't wait to see how it turns out.

Punk vs Ryback: My thoughts

CM Punk vs Ryback for the WWE Championship has been set in stone for WWE Hell in a Cell. Before I comment on the match itself, I just wanna make some quick points about last night's RAW.


1) The Sheamus/Big Show feud is boring. Sheamus is boring, Big Show is boring, there's been no build, and no story. Yet, it's inside the Hell in a Cell. I remember when Hell in a Cell was used solely to put an end to feuds.

2) AJ has had 3 months to win me over as RAW GM, but she hasn't. Her character has gotten boring to me too. She can't control her show, her delivery on the mic takes away from certain promos, and I just can't take her seriously.

3) If they're really going to push Rhodes and Sandow as a legit tag team, give them some mic time. This is just telling me that they're only together to job to Bryan and Kane at Hell in a Cell.

4) Miz vs Kofi. Tonight was a good start to what could be a good feud if built up correctly.

5) Antonio Cesaro is exceptional athlete, but sometimes I forget he's the United States Champion. Maybe if he.....I don't know......DEFENDED the title sometimes and actually had somebody to FEUD with, rather than beat down Jobbers all the time, I'd be more invested in him.

6) Nobody cares about the Divas anymore which is sad. It's like nobody even cares about this division anymore and the crickets during the divas match last night only continues to show how far the division has fallen.

7) I thought this hugging nonsense was through. I guess not.


Ok, now let's get to Punk vs Ryback. The contract signing to end RAW pretty much went down like this: Cena gave up his title shot to Ryback and Ryback dropped Punk. All this because John Cena had to have injury on his shoulder. They've done a good job working Ryback into this story. His staredown with Punk a few weeks ago was intense.

I think this match will work and will draw in a lot of people. The pops for Ryback have gotten bigger and bigger each week and every moment he's in the ring with Punk is must see. But what kind of match is this going to be. The monster has to dominate, but this is the WWE Champion we're talking about. He shouldn't be destroyed. It makes the mechanics of this match very interesting.

But now that this match is set, what do you do? Who wins? There's no DQ or count out finish to be done here because the match is inside the Hell in a Cell, so somebody has to win. CM Punk has to leave Hell in a Cell the WWE Champion. Here's why:

Ryback CAN NOT be pinned clean. That's out of the question. His momentum will die right there. If CM Punk beats Ryback, Ryback loses A LOT of steam that he picked up during this feud and then what? People won't take him as serious and he's only going to go down from here. Also, let's be honest, Ryback is not ready and not established enough to hold the WWE's top Championship. I don't care how over he is, he's not legitimate enough to hold the title. The only way Ryback loses the match without losing any momentum is if Punk has some help. And by help, I mean somebody interfering on his behalf and costing Ryback the match.

You can't put the belt on Ryback either. If WWE are really pushing for CM Punk to face The Rock at The Royal Rumble, you can't kill the champ's momentum and drop the belt to Ryback only to regain it later. The booking there makes no sense and a loss to Ryback will only kill CM Punk's credibility as Champion. You've gotta make Punk look as strong as possible so that when he does face The Rock, it's a BIG moment.

The only other scenario they do now is, if healthy, add Cena to the match. If Cena isn't 100% ready to go, make things really interesting and make Cena the guest referee.

Either way, if it stays Punk vs Ryback, Punk HAS to win. The only way that happens is if somebody interferes and that somebody will be Brock Lesnar. Lesnar costs Ryback the match, Punk retains the title, and nobody loses any momentum.

Lesnar doesn't half to interfere for Punk. You forget Punk is aligned with Paul Heyman. So is Brock Lesnar. Keep that in mind.


Feel free to Comment.


By Gerald "Showstopper" Prophete