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Post by fxnj on Mar 15, 2019 17:21:28 GMT -5
Just misses the cut for my list, but well worth checking out. Not far behind Eddie/JBL for me.
20050522 Cena vs JBL
Thanks to shodate for reccing me this. I was kind of surprised I couldn't find any glowing reviews as I've got it pretty close to the Eddie/JBL match from a year prior. Whereas Eddie/JBL is a classic for how it combines the visceral hatred of class differences a sick as fuck bladejob, this one takes that and throws some bells-and-whistles into the mix. Since it's an "I Quit" match, they're able to make excellent use of the mic to tell the story, and there's also a nice variety of weapons that come into play as the match progresses. We see things like Cena's chain, JBL's limo, wires, and a flat-screen TV all worked really well into the match. I talked in my Eddie/JBL review that Eddie's odd-looking punches took me out of it a bit, but all the strikes in this looked snug and the presence of the mic seemed to add a nice and audible thud to everything. The match makes excellent usage of sound overall, not just in JBL's mid-match promos but also in how hearing things like the static sound from the mic shots and Cena's sick gurgling sounds in the choking spots give the match this raw feel.
Similar to the Eddie match, probably the most memorable part of this is when JBL nails Cena with a hard chairshot from behind the announce table and Cena ends up hitting a gusher of a bladejob. I kind of wonder if that was meant as a callback to the Eddie match. Anyway, Cena's bladejob isn't quite on that level, but it's pretty memorable in its own way for how the blood spurts all over his body. I love Cena's comeback as well. Hell of a visual of him smiling with his face covered in blood while he has JBL in the F-U position. Cena does some really good punch-drink selling for JBL's offense, and I dug how the announcers worked in the idea that Cena might have to quit just from the blood loss.
The finish seems like it could be a love it or hate it thing. I personally loved it, but to explain why I need to back up a bit. A common dynamic in wrestling is a younger wrestling getting forced into the deep waters by a veteran. Usually, we either see the younger wrestler digging deep and finding the strength to pull through, or the younger guy unable to handle it and folding. This match plays that dynamic a bit differently. JBL is the wealthy veteran who's proven himself both in the ring and on Wall Street, having gone through his fair share of bloody wars in his career. To JBL, Cena is some random thug who doesn't even deserve to be regarded as champion despite having already won the belt at Wrestlemania. JBL goes in knowing that he's going to punish this kid and make him bleed, but then a funny thing happens. Instead of Cena folding as the match goes on, him tasting his own blood only seems to make him grow stronger. JBL's mid-match end up promos tell a story of JBL shifting from blind arrogance to shock at the brutality of the match. JBL's limo serves the book-end to all this. In this beginning, JBL is so confident that he's going to wipe the floor with Cena that just having Cena walk on the limo is enough to piss JBL off. By the end, JBL is so desperate that he doesn't seem concerned about destroying the whole thing. For the finish, JBL's ego has taken such a beating that he manages to act smug about quitting just for how it stops Cena from inflicting further damage on him. ****3/8
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Post by Cap on Jun 6, 2019 7:09:29 GMT -5
See, I like this match, but I don't love it. To me, this is a contrived version of Eddie/JBL, a case of them trying to recreate something that happened organically the year before and it falls well short of the mark. While it has all the makings of a match I would like a lot and I don't think there is anything particularly "wrong" with it, but it fails to develop that it factor. Its no more than the sum of its parts, which is - again - still quite good.
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Post by superstarsleeze on Nov 17, 2019 20:47:42 GMT -5
100% agree with Cap. This feels too cinematic at times. The biggest problem with Cena's push in 2005 was they were trying too hard. Nobody likes a try-hard. Just like Cap, I do like this and there is a lot to like, but ultimately it falls short of being one of the best WWE matches of the 200s.
WWE Champion John Cena vs John Bradshaw Layfield - WWE Judgement Day 2005
Classic booking of a white meat babyface proving his mettle in a bloody brawl. I do mean bloody. John Cena was wearing a full Crimson Mask, five alarm blade job here. Two JBL matches in a row at Judgement Day where buckets of blood were spilled. I forgotten how damn good a promo JBL was both in the pre-match package. He is such a good bully. Really puts over the gravity of I Quit really well in how you lose your dignity and manhood by uttering "I Quit". Cena was pretty good in standing up to the bully. Liked the clips of Bradshaw bullying Scotty 2 Hotty into saying I Quit.
This match got kinda rep after one really glowing review. Did not hit that mark for me, but still thought this was awesome and was very effective in getting over John Cena's Never Give Up attitude. I think it kinda failed at getting over as an asskicker as they relied on too much crowd brawling and strange weapons. That is where my criticism lays. Really strange start very 1980s gimmick match start. They do a pin attempt just get over there is no pinfalls and lots of headlocks and shouldertackles. Cena even has a good armdrag. It was not bad, just strange. JBL was great at talking a ton of trash. Loved the hope spot with back drop on the table to stop powerbomb. Great cutoff with the chair leading to a ton of blood. JBL delivers on his pre-match promise to split Cena wide open. Cena's selling was great and Bradshaw was a great bully heel. Once they started brawling up the ramp, they lost me. A swinging neckbreaker on the car, suplex on the roof, really? That does not have feel like hate, more like being too cute The TV monitor spot to bust open JBL was good. JBL is bleeding. I don't know if I am putting over just how much Cena is bleeding. I really enjoyed Bradshaw going into the compressed gas cylinder since I work in a lab and that would be a major EHS (Environmental, Health, Safety) Violation. I like choking in these matches so Bradshaw is good at that.
Liked the finish with Bradshaw too much of a coward to let Cena hit with a smokestack so he pussies out and says I Quit. So Cena hits him anyways. I think that or the jabbing someone is the best finishes to these. You cant KO your opponent so does reduce some of the typical finish options.
I just was not feeling the hate at times. Strange opening. Took a little while to get going. Once it did, I was getting into that and then we up the ramp and it was a real mix bag. In getting over Cena's resilience and Never Give Up Attitude, this was ***** and blood helped a lot. Bradshaw was a great cocky bully and like most bullies turned out to be a coward. Finish came off as cartoony. I thought it failed in being truly hate-filled and making Cena an asskicker. Great, but not a classic. ****
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Post by elliott on Jan 11, 2020 13:36:26 GMT -5
Watched this for the first time in forever because we were talking about it elsewhere.
Problematic for me stylistically and not close to the Eddy match, but still something I'd consider great for the style. A few thoughts...
Cole's ability to regurgitate what Vince is screaming into his ear while still talking and sounding professional is actually a pretty impressive skill.
One thing that I've come to think over the years is that "I Quit" matches are actually really annoying. They spend way to much time asking each other if they quit, the heavy breathing into the mic etc. THat isn't specific to this at all. Its literally a problem for me with every I Quit match. I think those spots are always really grating. The one in this match where JBL threatens to powerbomb Cena through the announce table if he doesn't quit was particularly terrible.
Speaking of grating, I completely blocked out just how embarrassing Cena's white rapper gimmick was. That shit was awful.
I do think its worth pointing out that the crowd isn't split on Cena here, they are fully behind him against JBL. The "Wooos" from the women in the crowd when Cena took his shirt off was also hard to miss.
I understand Caps point about trying to recreate the Eddy match, but I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing. It would be more annoying if it was someone like Edge or Orton instead of JBL who is the same guy who split Eddy's head open with a chairshot at Judgement Day the previous year. So it works on the level of JBL having a history of causing galling head injuries with out of nowhere chairshots. JBL also promised blood leading up to the match so they kinda needed a lot of blood. Everybody marks out over "callbacks" to prior matches and that's what it was. JBL also controls more of the pre-blood match than he did against Eddy. Against Eddy, the chairshot completely swung the tide and momentum towards JBL who had largely been getting his ass kicked prior to that. The early portion of the Cena match is worked more evenly so the chairshot doesn't reek of desperation as much. At some point JBL really needed to bleed all of his blood in a match as payback for doing this to people.
The way Cena bleeds is fucking insane and I don't understand WTF is happening. His throat and chest are covered in blood way before his face. There are moments where it legitimately just looks like Cena's throat had been cut. It was bizarre and uncomfortable.
With all the shit on the ramp and with the limo and truck, this really wanted to be Austin/Dude Love as much as it wanted to be JBL/Eddy. They didn't want this just to be memorable because of the blood. Bradshaw's head going through the TV, all the stuff with the limo and truck etc are built to and worked to be memorable spots.
I really liked Bradshaw quitting right before Cena's killshot. Nice classic heel move, but then when they did the spot anyway it looked pretty crappy.
I'd probably rate it like sleeze.
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Post by makaiclub on Feb 2, 2021 12:33:53 GMT -5
Speaking of grating, I completely blocked out just how embarrassing Cena's white rapper gimmick was. That shit was awful. I like the gimmick myself but it does baffle me that a lot of fans think that he should've kept the gimmick once Cena turned into THE GUY. Anyway, I thought this was excellent. Graphically bloody. Great selling. Great character work by JBL who could dish it out but not take it. First flipping off Cena and trying to run away once he lost control and then quitting before Cena even touched him with the pole. |
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Post by mjp7798 on Feb 17, 2021 21:25:55 GMT -5
Really good match but it's difficult not to compare to the prior year's match w/ Eddie. This does feel a bit like a more manufactured redux minus the emotional punch that the Eddie match brings
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Post by nintendologic on Feb 18, 2021 10:13:42 GMT -5
I've always really liked this match, and I was pleased to find it still held up when I revisited it last year. It's just outside the range for me where I'd give it serious consideration for my list, but I think it blows a lot of matches people will have on their lists (including Eddie/JBL) out of the water. Needless to say, I think most of the criticisms in this thread are completely off-base. For one thing, I'm kind of baffled that anyone could see this as an attempt, conscious or otherwise, to recreate Eddie/JBL. Other than the blood, the matches are almost nothing alike. I also find lack of hate to be a bizarre complaint. Why would there be hatred? It was a title match, not a grudge match. And there was no precipitating event like JBL giving Eddie's mother a heart attack to turn it into a blood feud. The whole point of the match is JBL thinking Cena isn't tough enough to hang in an I Quit match and Cena proving him wrong. To elliott's point, the I Quit gimmick is indeed annoying, but it doesn't get in the way too much here because they keep the nonsense with the microphone to a minimum. In fact, perhaps the most crucial aspect of the match is that Cena never asks JBL to quit. He does it of his own accord. It makes Cena look like the ultimate badass and JBL the ultimate coward, which is the best possible outcome for a match like this.
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Post by Cap on Feb 18, 2021 17:21:56 GMT -5
I don't quite see how anyone could NOT see at least a connection between the two matches. Certainly that is centered around the blood, but this isn't a time when WWE is featuring blood a ton, is it? Of course the feud around it is fundamentally different, but in the match itself it feels like they saw the blood of the match a year earlier, identified that as what made the match great, and then just tried to create a bigger match between Cena and JBL on that logic. Maybe that is in my head, it has always felt like the WWE version of a WWE match that organically started coloring outside the wwe lines. To me, one of the biggest reasons - and this is not some novel take - that modern wrestling doesn't place as high for me on a list like the one we create (on average) as say 80s and 90s wrestling is that most of it doesn't have that feeling of spontaneity and genuinely unhinged, lightening in a bottle chaos. Stuff feels less organic. While brawls most clearly display that, it isn't isolated to that. At some point (no real clue when), most wrestling hit some invisible tipping point where it was more prepared and polished and contrived than I like for my top teir wrestling. I still love modern wrestling (more than most I think), but for the blow away stuff, its fewer and further between. It wasn't just about spots. It is just about that intangible organic feeling to it. Something like Eddie and JBL feels like it broke out of that... mostly because Eddie was bleeding out, but also because of how he responded and used that. It was in the bones of the feud and Eddie's performance from the time he came out. Cena vs JBL always felt like an attempt to recreate magic with blood, but that sort of misses the point. That is why I can't help but associate them and think Eddie v JBL blows this out of the water.
That said, maybe it is something else leaving me flat on this and I have always just thought it was some in-my-head link to the Eddie/JBL match. Maybe it is because it is a bloodbath I quit match that isn't built on hatred. That doesn't really make a ton of sense to me and that dissonance might leave me relatively low on it. Maybe it is the i quit stip (though I always thought this was one of the better i quit matches. I don't know.
Regardless, I haven't seen it in some time so maybe I'll try to watch it again soon.
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Post by Kadaveri on Feb 19, 2021 16:32:42 GMT -5
This is right in the period (around 2002-06) where WWE was using blood more often that ever.
I don't think this was an attempt to recreate JBL vs. Eddie, I'm not sure they even thought about it. It may be very highly regarded here but I don't see WWE ever canonising that match as something special. Dave Meltzer didn't think it was that great, and he's probably the only wrestling 'reviewer' WWE is even aware of, the fans heralding it as a classic are just randos on the internet.
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Post by Cap on Feb 19, 2021 17:13:08 GMT -5
That is fair. I don't remember, but I'll certainly take your word that this was a bloody time in wwe. Even still, we are talking about two of the bloodier matches in all of modern wwe.
Maybe it was a coincidence. Regardless, to me, it is still a very good match that isn't elite because it is a blood bath that feels very orchestrated rather than organic and visceral.
Conscious attempt, unconscious attempt, or no attempt at all... it can't be surprising that people draw a parallel.
That all said, I can totally understand why someone would prefer this to the Eddie/JBL match. I do think they are quite different in what makes them good.
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Post by witlon on Feb 20, 2021 9:21:59 GMT -5
I feel like this match was the 'arrival' of Cena as a top notch worker, at least to me. It's his first great match, and I might even been overrating it, because of that reason. I went ****3/4 on it, and it's one of my favorite matches of the era, and we'll see if it holds up on a re-watch. If I did a 'Best WWE match of All Time' list, it'd probably settle in the high teens-low twenties, if I had to guess.
The Eddie/JBL match I struggled with last time, but I guess, from the comments that I need to look another look at it and see if it's different this time. It's actively vaulting to the top of my watch list just based on this, so my expectations might but unrealistic, but who knows?
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Post by Cap on Feb 20, 2021 12:06:22 GMT -5
I'm gong to try to watch this match today based on this conversation and I'm going to do my best to actively detach it from the Eddie/JBL match. I want to like all wrestling so based on the positive reviews I'm going to give this as good a shot as I can. I already have it rated pretty highly ****1/4, so I like the match, but maybe I am being unfair to it. who knows. I feel like this match was the 'arrival' of Cena as a top notch worker, at least to me. It's his first great match, and I might even been overrating it, because of that reason. I went ****3/4 on it, and it's one of my favorite matches of the era, and we'll see if it holds up on a re-watch. If I did a 'Best WWE match of All Time' list, it'd probably settle in the high teens-low twenties, if I had to guess. The Eddie/JBL match I struggled with last time, but I guess, from the comments that I need to look another look at it and see if it's different this time. It's actively vaulting to the top of my watch list just based on this, so my expectations might but unrealistic, but who knows? I don't think the Eddie/JBL match is everyone's cup of tea. I totally buy some people's complaints. I don't share them really, but I get it being a struggle for some. |
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Post by elliott on Feb 20, 2021 12:23:45 GMT -5
The Eddie/JBL match I struggled with last time, but I guess, from the comments that I need to look another look at it and see if it's different this time. It's actively vaulting to the top of my watch list just based on this, so my expectations might but unrealistic, but who knows? I don't think the Eddie/JBL match is everyone's cup of tea. I totally buy some people's complaints. I don't share them really, but I get it being a struggle for some. I'm not trying to be difficult, I just literally can't imagine how this is the case unless the viewer is freaked out by blood at which point get a new hobby  |
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Post by Cap on Feb 20, 2021 12:39:53 GMT -5
I don't want to get too far in the weeds on another match, but I'm a bit sympathetic to the argument that JBL grinds the middle part to a halt. Personally, I see it as a key narrative beat in the larger story and it takes nothing away, but I can buy that one for others I suppose.
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Post by Cap on Feb 20, 2021 16:12:59 GMT -5
I rewatched this and more or less feel the same. Maybe it is a ****1/2 match rather than 1/4, but that means little in the grand scheme of this conversation (and because it is just one person's star ratings haha). This is up there with the elites in this type of match for sure. A lot of the bells and whistles outside are great and fun and they are balanced by the blood and grit of the match, but it isn't my thing. I did really apprecaite JBL quitting out of fear on this watch. Gutsy performance from both men.
I will say this. JBL "busts" Cena with basically the exact same spot in the exact same place as he did Eddie. He was in the corner behind the announce desk and hit both of them as they came in to get him. Different places in the match, but VERY similar places to get the massive blade jobs. I still can't help but see the parallels I mentioned above. Not saying they are recreating an earlier match, just that it feels - to me - a lot like they had the Eddie match in their head when planning and/or executing this one. They don't take away from my enjoyment of the match though.
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