It’s another piece of commissioned writing, this time again from friend of the program @beenthrifty on Twitter. You too have the ability to pay me to watch and write about whatever sort of wrestling you’d like, or I guess other stuff too, I’m not your father. Head on over to www.ko-fi.com/elhijodelsimon to do that. The going rate is $5 per match, with an extra $3 tax if you’re purposely trying to make me suffer and hate-write something, because that’s just not a fun thing to do. Hit the DMs if you have an idea more complex than just counting the number of matches you want.
This was for John Cena’s WWE Title.
It’s not the Cena vs. Umaga match, of course.
That doesn’t matter though, because this is still so god damned great. It lives in one of the biggest shadows in all of recent wrestling history, and it exists alongside a lot of matches like that. Usually, the matches that live in those shadows to this extent are rematches of these big iconic matches. Joe vs. Necro II, a Joe/Ki follow up years later in PWG, the “other” Punk vs. Cena matches. THINGS OF THAT NATURE. Usually, matches like that aren’t the sorts of things that we, or I, think of as tragically living in the shadow of another, because that shadow hasn’t been created just yet. This is a little bit different in that this not only comes first, but is also very much devoted to setting up the big one.
Usually, with a match that so obviously sets up another, it suffers from being held back and from obviously caring more about the future than the present.
Such is not the case with this match, which may be the most impressive thing at all.
The other most impressive thing here, on top of that, is that this match is clearly just their take on one of the oldest standards in the Great American Match Book, only to stand out because of the efficiency and force of talent that they play this particular edition with.
Nothing about this match reinvents the wheel.
Cena vs. Umaga is simply a modern re-emergence of the same medium vs. big match up that’s worked all throughout wrestling history. Lawler against all the Memphis monsters from Bigelow to Kamala to Gang. A billion Hulk Hogan matches. Bret Hart and Yokozuna. You might have a pet favorite here that you’d like to throw in, mine might be the brief CM Punk vs. Mark Henry series in 2012. The most famous example, or at least the most widely cited one, is the famous 1992-1995 series between Sting and Big Van Vader in WCW, given both the amount of times they got to have matches like this, the variety of different matches they got to have, and the regular quality of all of those matches (someone pay me to watch all of them and write about them on here).
So nothing about this is all that new or unique. It’s a wheel, innately, you kind of understand how and why it works.
This is, however, perhaps the best ever version of the wheel that we’ve ever seen.
You can argue Sting and Vader, for the reasons listed above. It’s an option I won’t dispute too heavily, although obviously the major Cena/Umaga match may be the best ever version of this sort of a thing, and this version of the Cena/Umaga match is still one that I think is better than almost every Sting vs. Vader match, save maybe one or two, and it’s not all that far of a gap. The Vader/Sting matches put an emphasis on excitement and action in a way that’s made them so durable, but also that sometimes undercuts the struggle of Sting, which isn’t so much the case here, in a match all about the struggle. Your mileage may vary on what’s better, but I prefer the struggle. I’m not quite ready to say Umaga is better than Vader, but in this series, he puts forward a better performance as a pure monster than I think I’ve seen Vader ever give, or that I’ve seen almost any wrestler in history ever give.
It’s all quite basic, what they do here, but I loved it. Even more than I remember, which was already quite a lot. I would have already gone to bat for this as one of the more underrated matches of the 2000s, but I came out of this second watch an even bigger fan of this iteration of the classic pairing.
The thing that works so well about this is how well they commit to every inch of it, and how much they get out of every single piece of the match. It’s a match in which all the pieces matter, and the sort of match that still floors and astounds me fifteen plus years later, because of all the things they did right or all the little extra touches that they put in that nobody would have ever expected or demanded out of them. It’s a match up that, based on their other work together and the work of both Cena and Umaga in matches like this, is probably always going to be great. The sheer EFFORT of this one in particular though is what makes this such a special match, despite the monolithic shadow it lives underneath.
If we can go back to the idea of this being a tried and true thing, there are certain beats you’re always going to find here. A struggle to lift the monster, a series of cut offs, Our Hero outmaneuvering and dodging the big guy, things of that nature. You’ll find all of that here, but it’s just so much tighter and done with so much more conviction than usual.
Really though, again, this match goes from “great” to “really really really great” because of all the small touches throughout the match. This is, as expected, where John Cena shines and really elevates the material. Between Umaga’s nerve hold and his work in the body, Cena is given so many chances to get creative with his selling, and it’s one of my favorite Cena selling performances ever. The way he sells nerve damage in the left shoulder minutes after the nerve hold is great in an obvious way, but the gem is the way he specifically sells the shoulder in the process of being hurt, showing it starting to become less useful, and trying to fight it, but ultimately not being able to. The joy can come from seeing the result of something, but there’s even more of it to be found in the process itself, and that’s maybe the most beautiful part of this match.
Somewhat less flashy is his response to the body work, but there’s something so charming about the way he repeatedly takes moments where the big guy is down to stretch on the ropes or walk around weird. It’s not exactly the old Bret Hart thing, but there’s some shared DNA to it, going about the motions without making a huge show of it, but communicating in a relatable working-man sort of a way that you are not healthy at all.
Both of these aspects contribute greatly to the one overarching theme of the match, the thing that this match commits its whole entire ass to, and that does so much for them as a result.
John Cena cannot handle Umaga.
That’s the story of the match, it’s what they come back to time and time again. A lot of other wrestlers and matches would betray that so as to try and have a Great Match, but thankfully, someone realized that with wrestlers this great (and also this over in their roles), that you can have an actual great match simply by letting it be. Commit fully to the bit, and achieve something wonderful.
Cena never even makes a real comeback, at least in the way that we have this idea of the John Cena comeback. He lifts him once for the Proto Bomb, but never for a slam, and never for the Attitude Adjustment, then the FU. There’s this great thing they do where Cena’s hope spots become bigger and longer, but still always get cut off, and in increasingly brutal ways. It’s not a unique idea for John Cena, it’s a formula he’s employed to greater success than most, but it’s done especially well here. Not in all the most creative ways exactly, but in the most effective ways, so as to illustrate the severity of his challenge and the steep climb ahead of him just to avoid losing.
Umaga isn’t quite as great as Cena in 2007 — really only the greatest of all time and a handful of others were — but he is remarkable here. He stumbles, staggers, and eventually bumps without losing anything. His offense is nasty as hell, real crisp, but also interesting. Never repetitive or dull, and really incredible at selling on Cena’s occasional comebacks. He immediately seems to get Cena’s mindset of always doing more and more with the hope spots, always selling just a little more each time, before an even bigger cut off.
Two perfect performances that match up this well together is a rare thing, one that I think John Cena’s only ever found once or twice outside of these 2007 Umaga matches, and it leads to a kind of perfect synchronicity here. Two wrestlers, at the peaks of their powers, with the same exact ideas and visions, coming together to create something really really special.
At the end, removed of the full use of his left arm, and with his ability to lift PERIOD hindered, Cena is left with only his wits about him. One might not expect much in the moment, after Cena’s career so far has been largely predicated on strength and power, but he’s able to dodge Umaga once in the corner, kick him back again, and get a real high stack roll up to just barely survive.
The perfect ending to a match like this, adding a new dimension to the superhero babyface.
You can craft a thousand stories to tell me someone is tough and powerful and cool, but what a hundred other things couldn’t do, this match does. It’s one thing to be shouted at that John Cena is this or that, but this is a match that actually bothers to show it. He’s a survivor, not because he took a lot and fought back and won with what he always wins with, but because he was outmanned and slowly had all of his weapons taken from him, only to not give up and to find a way in spite of that. As opposed to so much other early Ace Cena booking, this is one of the first signs of the sort of real and genuine heroics that would go on to make him one of the best of all time.
It’s not the best version of this. You went into this review knowing that, I went into this viewing knowing that. That’s not the end of the world. Given how great the follow up to this match was, all that really means is that on this night, a near-perfect pairing simply had a really great match and not, you know, one of the greatest matches in wrestling history.
HANDWERK 