Easily, the most polarizing name in the WWE right now is John Cena. He is the ultimate good guy, someone who always does the right thing and never betrays his fans or changes who he is. He has done more to help kids and has granted more Make a Wish Foundation wishes than any entertainer in history. Kids love him.
However, old school professional wrestling fans, the Internet wrestling community and most guys hate John Cena. He is a great guy, but plays the most boring, worn character in professional wrestling today. He always does the right thing, always fights the good battle, always says the same thing and seems like he is more interested in selling new t-shirts than anything else. To these fans, he is lame.
However, with the right opponent, he turns into a fun wrestler to watch, whether the fans want him to win or want his opponents to put him down once and for all. John Cena is a great character when it comes to the fact that he changes the face of whatever wrestler he is fighting. He can turn an entire arena into CM Punk fans and even get people cheering for Bray Wyatt.
That makes this DVD a perfect idea. It is a look at John Cena’s greatest rivalries, and it is his rivalries that makes him such a remarkable wrestlers. If he was like Hulk Hogan in the 80s, where every opponent was just another monster, he would have been finished years ago. Thanks to names like CM Punk, Chris Jericho, Shawn Michaels and Triple H, John Cena remains a huge draw a decade after making his debut.
Each of the matches on this DVD has John Cena and more talking about the feuds, and that makes this much better than the recent Brothers of Destruction DVD, which just included matches. Hearing the actual comments about the matches makes them mean even more and adds the perspective to the Blu-ray that was missing from the Undertaker and Kane DVD.
The set starts off with the John Cena and Eddie Guerrero feud when Cena was a heel best known for his rapping. There was both a regular match in the WWE title number one contenders tournament that Cena won and a parking lot brawl that Eddie won.
From here, Batista is the next up and in an awesome addition, we get a match from when they were both developmental wrestlers in OVW, as Cena was the villain Prototype and Batista was the OVW champion Leviathon. This was Cena’s first singles title win. They then jumped eight years into the future for John Cena vs. Batista in a last man standing match that Cena won by taping Batista’s legs together around the ring post so he couldn’t stand up.
The next rivalry was one of the best of Cena’s career as he faced the greatest wrestler in WWE history, Shawn Michaels. The first match was the best match in WWE Monday Night Raw history – the epic one-hour match from 2007. The second match was also from Raw, the next year. These matches prove that, with the right opponent, John Cena can look like a million bucks.
The never ending feud with Randy Orton was next. The two men came into the WWE the same year (2002) and the first match here was from 2007 at SummerSlam for the WWE Championship. The second match was from seven years later in Raw, as the two men have probably fought for longer than any other two wrestlers without one leaving and returning to continue a feud later.
The man who really made John Cena a star was JBL. JBL was the WWE champion over on SmackDown and was dominating things. Fans wanted to see someone beat him and, at this time, John Cena was hugely popular to everyone. The first match here was the Wrestlemania 21 match where Cena won his first WWE title. The next match was from three years later on Raw and honestly didn’t mean much in their rivalry.
Chris Jericho was up next and just see my comments about Shawn Michaels to understand how fantastic this feud was from pure in ring action. The first match, from 2005, was John Cena’s WWE title vs. Chris Jericho’s career, which Cena won. The second match was three years later and was a lot better as they fought at SummerSlam in 2008.
The second disc starts with one of the two greatest feuds of John Cena’s career. This one was against Edge and was perfect because Cena was the perfect good guy and Edge was the most cowardly bad guy, but both guys could go in the ring. First up was a cage match from Raw for the WWE title and the second was a last man standing match from Backlash in 2009 – one of the best matches of either man’s career.
John Cena’s match against Triple H was next up. The first match on the show was from Wrestlemania 22 and the second, amazingly enough, was better even though it was from an episode of WWE Monday Night Raw from 2009.
Next up was John Cena’s two year feud with The Rock that only resulted in two matches. Only the Wrestlemania XXIX match is included here, as well as the promo leading up to it.
Now, there is one big reason you should get the Blu-ray and never even consider getting the DVD. The Blu-ray contains extra exclusive matches and those include his rivalry with CM Punk. Both matches were from WWE Monday Night Raw and both matches proved why CM Punk is right up there with Edge as the best two rivalries in John Cena’s history.