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Post by elliott on Jan 20, 2020 1:53:55 GMT -5
Who is better, Bret Hart or John Cena? They have a lot of similarities: Top Working WWE Aces. Top Working US Aces post Flair. But some major differences in style. Who ya got?
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Post by bossrock on Jan 20, 2020 19:32:44 GMT -5
This is a good one. Both are guys who are undeniably great but whom I've both been rather critical of as well.
Top Matches
Bret has my overall highest rated match between the two (Austin Mania 13), but that was his only match that made my ballot. Meanwhile Cena has the Umaga and Bryan Summerslam matches. And while Mania 13 is higher than the Umaga match, it isn't by much. Not to mention there aren't really any other Bret matches I would consider "classics". I'll call it a draw.
Winner: Draw
Versatility
This is another tough one because you sort of know what to expect from both guys. Bret doesn't exactly have a ton of brawls and Cena doesn't really have any mat-heavy matches. That being said, I think I give the slightest of nods to Cena. He has some great No DQ-style matches against Umaga, Brock, and Edge while also having the big title match epics against A.J. and Punk.
Winner: Cena
Consistency
Bret pretty easily. Cena has a lot of crap on his resume and matches where he just wrestled at his opponent's level. With Bret you usually it was usually solid at the least.
Winner: Bret
Charisma/”It” Factor
Cena by a pretty hefty margin. I wouldn't say Bret was a charisma vacuum, but he certainly wasn't the Rock either. I always thought he carried himself well as a top star and champion, but outside of the Austin Mania match he's never really resonated with me. He's always felt a bit too "dry" for lack of a better word. Like he's a good wrestler who had good matches, but there was no hook for me beyond that. Cena just has an uncanny ability to draw in a crowd and draw myself in as a viewer. He just sort of has that spark that I think Bret lacks. Even if he's had a lot of bad matches, he's usually found a way to at least have me interested in how everything is going to play out.
Winner: Cena
Elevating Others
This is an interesting one because it seems like a good chunk of Bret's career saw him work around his peers' deficiencies while elevating their strengths. Meanwhile, I think Cena mostly wrestles to the level of his opponent but had some tremendous carry jobs in 2007 (a good match with the Great Khali and a great title match with a green Bobby Lashley being the biggest standouts). Overall, I have to give it to Bret because he always seemed more likely to bring someone up rather than wrestle at their level.
Winner: Bret
Offense
Bret in a slaughter. Like I don't think he was necessarily a dynamo or anything, but he was the Excellence of Execution for a reason. Most everything he did looked effective. Cena on the other hand...I mean execution ain't everything (see Genichiro Tenryu), but his offense has always been the worst part of his game. It was made even worse when he attempted to prove his naysayers wrong by trying to wrestle more indierifffic matches with most of his big moves looking sloppy and ineffective. Tenryu at least looked like he was hurting dudes with his ugly offense.
Winner: Bret
Selling
Probably the biggest toss-up for me because there aren't a ton of Bret matches that I remember for excellent selling. And while Cena does a great job of selling beatdowns (see any Brock Lesnar match), his superhuman comebacks can be annoying.
Winner: Draw
Rewatch Value
For all of Cena's faults, I'm more likely to be entertained by his matches. Like most of Bret's matches are more proficiently worked, but he's never really someone I watch for fun.
Winner: Cena
Elliott’s Bonus Question (Brody/Nigel or Best Work Associated with a Bad Wrestler)
Another really tough one. Like with Bret you have the Tom Magee match that finally saw the light of day, and with Cena you have a good match with the Great Khali. Since I already gave Bret the win for Elevating Others, I'll call this a draw. I'm also not sure I buy the Davey Boy being under the influence story.
Winner: Draw
Final Count
Cena: 3 Bret: 3 Draws: 3
A perfect tie pretty much says it all for me. Like I said, both are undeniably great but I've never been super high on either. Bret was a great ring general who could usually the make most out of any situation, but he lacks the peaks I like in a GOAT contender and has never been someone I connected with. Cena has the charisma Bret lacks and some truly great big match performances, but he also had loads of crap and could rarely elevate someone outside of one year.
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Post by elliott on Jan 26, 2020 4:27:56 GMT -5
Cap's Categories: Top Matches - Cena. Really close. If I did a top 20 WWE matches ever, there'd be an awful lot of Bret and Cena matches involved. I think Cena has substantially larger amount of very good-great matches, but their absolute top tier is pretty much equal in terms of quality. Cena/Brock Extreme Rules vs Bret/Austin Submission Cena/Bryan vs Bret/Austin Survivor Series Cena/Punk vs Bret/Owen Cena/JBl vs Bret/Davey 92 Cena/Umaga vs Bret/Taker 97 Cena/Rey vs Bret/123 Kid
This is genuinely a coin flip for me, but I'm going Cena because there's just more stuff to consider. I was Ace Bret's target audience as a kid so his best matches resonate more with me.
Versatility - Draw. I'm having trouble with this one because I don't really see these guys as very versatile even though its easy to argue that they are. Within the WWE big match main event paradigm, they're as versatile as you can be probably. But that's not really a style that lends itself to versatility. I dunno. Bret was never great until he started working big time WWE main events and that's all Cena's ever done.
Consistency - Cena. In terms of big match consistency, this is about even. Bret brought the goods on PPV. But Cena was more likely to bust his ass on TV and at house shows.
Charisma/"It" Factor" - Cena, although Bret's earnest character always stood out in his world. Cena's just got that larger than life factor that the more realistic Bret just can't compete with.
Promos - Bret. I don't think Bret was always great, but his late 96-97 character work with interviews and backstage stuff is as good as anyone has ever been with the outside of the ring stuff.
Elevating Others - Bret. I was gonna say this one was pretty tough but it's really not. Not a knock on Cena, but the guys Bret played a huge role in making stars is nuts: Davey in 92, Ramon/Yoko in 93, Owen/Waltman/Backlund in 94, Nash/Davey in 95, Michaels in 96, Austin in 96-97.
Offense - Bret. Easy.
Selling - Bret. Easy
Rewatch Valley - Cena. This was pretty easy because Cena has so much more volume.
Bonus Elliott's Question (Brody vs Nigel or best work associated with a crappy wrestler) - Cena. Man. This is kind of the ultimate. Sid vs Khali. Or if you wanna frame it another way: Michaels vs Randy Orton. I'm going Cena for the Khali match.
Cena - 5 Bret - 4 Draw - 1
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Post by Cap on Mar 16, 2020 19:46:16 GMT -5
I know I said I was going to write up Aja vs Bull, but I haven’t had time to do any watching to prime me for that. So lets talk about these two bozos…
Top Matches
This might be the toughest one. Hart has the highest high in my mind, but Cena really wound up being Cena’s dream wrestler when it came to the big WWE main even style, leading to some really high highs. I think if I took just their matches and I made a top 5 Cena would have more matches in it. A top 10, still probably Cena. Top 20… now I’m guessing it skews Hart. Top 30 and so on… still probably Hart. I’m going to call this a draw.
Winner: Draw
Versatility
This one is tough. I think Hart is better at brawling than Cena is at technical wrestling. I also think Hart having an extensive tag run helps his case here. They both excelled in their own version of singles title matches. While Cena probably flew a little higher in that setting, I think Hart really helped set the tone for a lot of the work rate pro wrestling that would fallow him and its adoption into the WWE world. HBK gets more credit for it in the WWE narrative, but I see just as much Hart in it myself. Hart probably doesn’t get enough credit in this regard because he is always just Bret Hart… but I think he deceptively versatile.
Winner: Hart
Consistency
Hart could take nights off… especially at house shows as his greatest detractors like to remind us… but Jon Cena was much more likely to have subpar or outright bad match while giving full effort. He also took longer to get good and really find his stride in ring that would compliment his personality and character.
Winner: Hart
Charisma/”It” Factor
I think Hart gets a bad rap. Charisma isn’t the same for everyone. It took him a minute, but he figured out who he was and how to capture an audience with his presence. Cena had it way earlier though. He is an entertainer. Gotta give him his due.
Winner: Cena
Promos
I’ve talked about my distaste for Cena’s promos elsewhere. He has some winners, but generally he is bad for promos more broadly. Also nothing Cena has done has ever touched the Canadian Hero stuff Hart did.
Winner: Hart
Elevating Others
There are two ways to look at this comparison – in ring and kayfabe. For in ring, Hart did work around whoever he was in the ring with to make them look good. Just look at the Piper match. I don’t like it nearly as much as most, but its still a good match with a Piper. Piper could have great matches in the right setting and during his prime… this was neither. You could also point to the Tom McGee match. Just because he couldn’t elevate himself, Hart helped make that boy good enough that Vince thought he was the next big thing. Hart blows Cena out of the water in this regard. As for kayfabe, Cena takes a lot of flak here. Cena has helped make quite a few people. I think Bryan, Punk, Styles, Edge and Owens are all better for working with Cena. At the same time I think quite a few people were probably no better off, maybe worse for being paired with Cena (Rusev and Wyatt come to mind quickly). Hart helped elevate quite a few people, but HBK and Austin are the two most obvious. He didn’t just help them look good. He put them over the top. They would still probably be superstars without Hart, but not like this.
Winner: Hart
Offense
Cena’s larger than life offense is actually really fun sometimes, but I think Hart takes this in a walk. It wasn’t just what he did, it’s how he did it. Nash always talked about how he wouldn’t let anyone’s Hart’s size give him a backbreaker, except Hart… cause he made it believable. I could see someone picking Cena, but for my taste, Hart.
Winner: Hart
Selling
Not sure. Hart was more subtle, but Cena is fairly effective. Like everything with Cena… when he was on he was on… but he wasn’t always on. I suppose I’ll call this a draw. I don’t really know what else to do with it because I don’t feel confident about anything here.
Winner: Draw
Rewatch Value
I think when I started writing this I was ready to agree with Elliott and Bossrock, but the more I looked back at their matches and their careers, the more I came to believe the right answer is still Bret. I think the time period for Cena that I would actually want to rewatch is relatively short. That said, he has a lot of great matches that are just a joy to watch. I’ll call it a draw.
Winner: Draw
Elliott’s Bonus Question (Brody/Nigel or Best Work Associated With a Bad Wrestler)
Ugh… tough one. Cena I guess. Khali is probably the best work with the worst wrestler. I mean the one off with McGee was impressive… but Cena did it on the big stage in front of god and everyone.
Winner: Cena
Final Count Hart – 5 Cena – 1.5 Draw – 3
Like quite a few that I have done recently, the score doesn’t quite capture how I feel about them compared to each other. This gap is probably a bit larger than it should be. That said, I am in the camp that likes Hart and thinks he was great and I would have him comfortably ahead of Cena. Cena, though, is a great wrestler.
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Post by nintendologic on Mar 17, 2020 20:06:34 GMT -5
Cena has to be the worst wrestler of all time to have as many classics on his resume as he does. He's been in too many great matches to be considered a bad wrestler or even a mediocre one, but it's hard to consider him a great wrestler given his deficiencies at fundamental things like the execution of most of his offense. I guess he's just really good at taking direction.
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Post by elliott on Mar 18, 2020 5:05:48 GMT -5
The "really good at taking direction" thing would make more sense if Cena didn't have the best match of so many different opponents careers. From Daniel Bryan to Great Khali and a ton of people in between. I also disagree with some of Cap's points. About versatility, Cap said Admittedly a throw away line, but I don't know that the Hart Foundation are a top 50 world wide tag team of their own generation (mid 80s-90). Sure it was "extensive" in that it was long. But its not like we can point to a single MOTYC from that what... 6 year stretch? I know, I know. No WWF tag teams in that era produced a MOTYC. But its not like the Hart Foundation were even the clear best team in WWF. THere was always at least one team like the Islanders, the Brainbusters, the Rockers better than them in just the WWF. I know it was just one line tossed out in a longer explanation, but we should move past the idea that the Hart Foundation were more than an average team at best. I agree in principal that Bret deserves as much credit as Shawn for pushing the WWF style, but I think Randy Savage played a part in that too a little earlier. On consistency, Cap said: Did he? Bret debuted in 1978 and 1984 in WWF. The Buzz Sawyer match from 79 isn't anything. The bit of him in NJPW pre-WWF sucks. The Magee match is 86. 8 years in, but still a lot of time in front of him farting around in like the 60th best tag team of the era before he truly broke out. Bret was already 35 when he first won the WWF title. Cena was 29 for the Umaga match. Cena vs Michaels main evented WrestelMania a couple of weeks before Cena's 30th birthday. He's "only" 42 now. A year younger than Hogan was when he joined the NWO. Agree with Cap on charisma & promos. On elevating others, Cap said A few things came to me when I read this: 1. That's a great match. 2. Piper is good in that match and it woudn't have been as good without him. 3. Up through this point in their careers, Piper had a much better history of delivering great matches & big time performances than Bret. 4. Roddy Piper from 79-92 > Bret Hart 85-98 5. Roddy Piper was better than Bret Hart. Your general point stands. It just applies to Bret's matches with Diesel or Taker. Compare that Roddy Piper match to the one Bret had with Shawn later in the year at Survivor Series. Even if you don't like Piper or that specific match as much as me, its not nearly as boring & aimless as Bret/Shawn at SS. Agree about the rest of the stuff about elevating others and we pretty much agree on all the rest too. But I couldn't just let you besmirch Roddy Piper. Roddy Piper was making They Live while Bret Hart was in the 3rd best tag team in the WWF.
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Post by Cap on Mar 18, 2020 14:40:07 GMT -5
On versatility, I just meant that the Hart Foundation is a tick on the positives box for Hart there. I haven't watched that stuff in ages so it would be hard for me to make a detailed point on the matter, but the mere fact that he is in a recognizable tag team that is a fixture in WWE cannon is enough to support my point.
On consistency, I am referring mostly to the hand full of early stampede things I have seen from Hart. He is green as grass in those settings, but generally enjoy him throwing his body around. It is sort of like the last point. I am not saying he was out there being a world beater in his early days or putting on MOTY candidates, but he was fine to good and helps make his case in this setting. If you are thinking early career for Hart/Cena its apples and oranges (and yes I know I started the comparison). They came through wrestling differently. Cena admittedly had much of his fairly early run and failures in front of God and everyone, but that also meant he had some protection in the form of contingent and good people to work with. Maybe I should have said it this way. Bret's earliest work I have seen is better than Cena's and even though he came to the WWE more polished than Cena, Cena spent a fair amount of time not being very good (for my taste) in front of the camera and that hurts his case. Cena to me has some LOW low points in his career but he also has some HIGH high points. Hart is inoffensive to me at his worst (even in WCW where he could give fuck all or super early where he was a stringy kid getting the shit beat out of him).
Elevating others... ok, I know I am in the minority, but I dont like Piper between the ropes in that match. I'm not saying he is BAD, but I don't think he was GOOD. Piper in Portland (from what little I have seen) and Piper in Crockett = Great. I don't think Piper was a bad worker at all. I just think in the WWF Piper's personality was given a platform and shined bright, but his in ring suffered during that time because his skill set didn't mesh as well with the setting and type of wrestling. I completely get that it worked for what they wanted. I just don't enjoy many of his matches during that slice of his career myself. Hart though had a pretty good match with him (with way more grappling than Piper should have been doing IMHO) and I think Hart deserves more credit for the match (between the ropes!) than Piper. That is, it wasn't a carry job. Like you alluded to with the Shawn at SS comparison, Piper brings something to the match, an energy and maybe even a direction to the action. I still give Hart more credit for it all. Besides, we generally agree with the overall point. I am just never going to like that match or Piper's performance as much as you haha.
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Post by nintendologic on Mar 18, 2020 15:09:25 GMT -5
To be honest, I kind of actively hated Cena/Bryan. I certainly wouldn't consider it a feather in either man's cap. I haven't watched it in years, though, so I might like it more if I revisited it. I suspect it's the kind of match where your enjoyment is largely dependent on how emotionally invested you are in Bryan and his rise to the top in WWE.
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Post by Cap on Mar 18, 2020 15:19:16 GMT -5
I can see that. I was highly invested. I have revisited a few times and loved it each time.
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Post by elliott on Mar 18, 2020 15:49:24 GMT -5
To be honest, I kind of actively hated Cena/Bryan. I certainly wouldn't consider it a feather in either man's cap. I haven't watched it in years, though, so I might like it more if I revisited it. I suspect it's the kind of match where your enjoyment is largely dependent on how emotionally invested you are in Bryan and his rise to the top in WWE.Hard disagree. I could give a shit about Bryan or WWE. Its pretty clearly a great match.
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Post by elliott on Mar 18, 2020 19:22:12 GMT -5
I plan on responding in detail to Cap later and may start a Piper vs Bret thread. But I was poking around looking for Piper matches to watch and one of the first things I saw was a 20min video of Piper & Bret vs Nasty's from just before their Mania match. That sounds awesome.
edit: It was a goddamn video game upload. Ugggghhhhhhh
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Post by Cap on Mar 19, 2020 8:07:04 GMT -5
hahaha....
There is a solid chance I'll pick Piper over Hart in an overall comparison btw.
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Post by microstatistics on Mar 29, 2020 0:00:15 GMT -5
Easiest one so far. Bret > Cena in all categories except charisma. Actually, maybe even charisma. Charisma is more than bubbly energy and smooth talking. Bret's subtle heel stuff is pretty awesome. As are his babyface antics (e.g. watch him casually school Owen in the WM match while playing up to the favorable crowd).
Glad some people share my hatred for Cena promos. People give vulgar DX stuff shit (and rightly so) but Cena-Lawler making nonsensical fat jokes somehow gets a pass.
The rewatch valley category is where Cena suffers the most, IMO. Many of his 'best' matches were worked according to the big match formula, which is deceptively great in realtime but rarely holds up.
Having said all of that, I think NintendoLogic's assessment of Cena might be a little too harsh. He has a solid understanding of how to pace a match, is a good seller (great at times) and played the ace role as well as anyone in the company's history.
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Post by bossrock on Mar 29, 2020 12:26:02 GMT -5
The rewatch valley category is where Cena suffers the most, IMO. Many of his 'best' matches were worked according to the big match formula, which is deceptively great in realtime but rarely holds up. I find this to be true a lot. There's never been a Cena match I went from loving to hating, but there are quite a few matches (the last two A.J. matches, the Royal Rumble '15 triple-threat) that haven't held up quite as well on re-watches. On the flip side, the Bryan and Umaga matches were better on subsequent viewings.
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Post by elliott on Mar 29, 2020 14:02:25 GMT -5
The rewatch valley category is where Cena suffers the most, IMO. Many of his 'best' matches were worked according to the big match formula, which is deceptively great in realtime but rarely holds up. I find this to be true a lot. There's never been a Cena match I went from loving to hating, but there are quite a few matches (the last two A.J. matches, the Royal Rumble '15 triple-threat) that haven't held up quite as well on re-watches. On the flip side, the Bryan and Umaga matches were better on subsequent viewings. As someone who fucking hated that Rumble match in real time, this delights me. I remember thinking it was Rollins' fault at the time. I think Cena's absolute best of the best: vs Bryan, Umaga, CM Punk, Brock Extreme Rules & Rey Jr have generally stood the test of time. The super gimmicky stuff like vs Edge or JBL doesn't hold up as well. The "great stuff" from recent years "Super Indy Cena" where he's doing spotfests with Kevin Owens I have no desire to take a look at. But I'd be kind of interested to see how the RAW match with Michaels holds up or even some of those Rusev matches that felt really good at the time.
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