{"id":40698,"date":"2015-07-07T17:06:11","date_gmt":"2015-07-07T21:06:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=40698"},"modified":"2020-07-16T17:06:30","modified_gmt":"2020-07-16T21:06:30","slug":"a-match-worth-watching","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=40698","title":{"rendered":"A match worth watching"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"border-image alignnone wp-image-40699 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/totfc.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/cesaro-cena-e1436268984300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"490\" height=\"272\" srcset=\"https:\/\/totfc.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/cesaro-cena-e1436268984300.jpg 490w, https:\/\/totfc.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/cesaro-cena-e1436268984300-300x167.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 490px) 100vw, 490px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">Sometimes I wonder what goes on in the mind of WWE personnel whenever they have a televised match on one of their flagship shows that absolutely tears the roof off the building. \u00a0Is it either an &#8220;oh shit, I can&#8217;t believe we just gave that away for free&#8221; feeling, or is it a &#8220;we&#8217;re creeping towards stale programming, and we really have to throw the audience a bone lest they start bitching with gas&#8221; feeling, or somewhere in between?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">It&#8217;s no secret that wrestling television shows exist primarily to sell wrestling products, such as the WWE Network, merchandise and other endeavors, and that there&#8217;s typically a wall or ceiling of quality that they&#8217;re typically allowed to display, so that they can keep the\u00a0<em>really<\/em>\u00a0awesome things in their back pockets for those willing to shell out the extra money to see them.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">It&#8217;s also no secret that without restriction or boundaries, almost any two wrestlers in the locker room could put on a five-star classic on any given night. \u00a0Seriously, just because they&#8217;re portrayed as\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=GSNWsEVxdWI\">jobbers<\/a>, or\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=2lOQ7k9xfKw\">not even wrestlers<\/a>\u00a0on the flagship WWE shows doesn&#8217;t mean that they&#8217;re not actually capable of wrestling. \u00a0Just a few months ago, there was rumblings of basically a borderline mutiny within the WWE locker room, because the company&#8217;s own developmental territory in NXT was putting on way higher quality of a show, with &#8220;lesser-known&#8221; talent from what&#8217;s basically portrayed as the company&#8217;s minor leagues (it&#8217;s actually more of a holding pen).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">So, it&#8217;s kind of a pleasant surprise when the viewers actually get a super-high caliber match &#8220;for free&#8221; on one of the television shows. \u00a0That being said, I was most certainly colored surprised, and pleasantly so, when on RAW, John Cena and &#8220;Don&#8217;t Call Me Antonio anymore&#8221; Cesaro put on a 30-minute clinic, for the United States Championship to close out the show.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">Given the fact that the segment started 30 minutes prior to the end of the show, I figured it would be a good, quick match with typical plot devices, and ultimately a Kevin Owens run-in, to help drive the Cena-Owens feud even further, that would end in 10-12 minutes, with the typical five minute commercial break in between, and that there would be some other storyline in the end, probably with Seth Rollins and\/or Brock Lesnar that would close out the show.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">Instead, the viewers were treated to this masterful, Wrestlemania-caliber match that saw a hundred near-falls, even more moves pulled out of the arsenals of both guys (despite having wrestled just the week prior), and excitement from start to finish. \u00a0It&#8217;s no secret that I&#8217;m a\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=38289\">big mark for Cesaro<\/a>, but at the same time, I&#8217;m also one of those guys that admires and understands the role of John Cena. \u00a0Sure, I kind of agree with the smarks who think Cena is this generation&#8217;s Hulk Hogan, polluting up the scene with schtick and rhetoric about being a good guy, but at the same time a guy like him is actually needed. \u00a0I wholly disagree with those who say Cena can&#8217;t wrestle, because that&#8217;s just completely false; the guy obviously can put on a classic every night of the week, but it&#8217;s the WWE machine itself that prohibits him from doing so, and mostly because his body would implode and give out if he did so every single show he was on.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">Anyway, I would even venture to say that the match was so good, it might even have been a detriment to current storylines. \u00a0Sure, Cena and Owens have had two, very good matches in their own right, but will die-hard fans really be able to talk about anything other than the Cena vs. Cesaro classic from last night going into the rubber match? \u00a0It&#8217;s practically a blessing that there are\u00a0<em>two<\/em>\u00a0weeks prior to their PPV match at\u00a0<em>WWE Battleground<\/em>, so that it gives fans time to forget about Cena\/Cesaro, and give creative some time to pull out some more plot between Cena\/Owens. \u00a0Because when Kevin Owens did run in, after the Cena\/Cesaro match&#8217;s conclusion, it was pretty much an afterthought, as Cena countered a pop-up powerbomb, and Owens ran away with his tail tucked between his legs. \u00a0Crowd still going bonkers over Cena and Cesaro, and not Cena and Owens.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">But who&#8217;s to say that this itself wasn&#8217;t an intentional passive-aggressive statement to Owens by management (AKA Triple H), since Owens has had a massive following and journey throughout his own respective career (as Kevin Steen)? \u00a0Let KO know that no matter how much of a pedigreed career he might already have had, this opportunity could very well easily go to any other guy if they wanted. \u00a0Like an ego-check, perhaps.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">If there&#8217;s one thing WWE fans know, is that nothing is ever coincidence, because even when it is, creative can always re-write it that so it wasn&#8217;t.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Lora; font-size: 12pt;\">Either way, John Cena vs. Cesaro for the U.S. Title on July 6, 2015 &#8211; that match was a classic. \u00a0Possibly a match of the year kind of match, and I highly recommend anyone who likes wrestling to watch it. \u00a0Extra kudos to Cena who has single-handedly taken the U.S. Title and given it so much prestige and value, that it&#8217;s simply the strongest belt in all of professional wrestling right now.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sometimes I wonder what goes on in the mind of WWE personnel whenever they have a televised match on one of their flagship shows that absolutely tears the roof off the building. \u00a0Is it either an &#8220;oh shit, I can&#8217;t believe we just gave that away for free&#8221; feeling, or is it a &#8220;we&#8217;re creeping &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=40698\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">A match worth watching<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[15,54,55],"class_list":["post-40698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brog","tag-og","tag-wrestling","tag-wwe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40698"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40698\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40700,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40698\/revisions\/40700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}