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The Rock vs John Cena


2PhoneShawty

The Rock vs John Cena  

37 members have voted

  1. 1. Who is better overall?



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I would be more interested in their comparison as promos. Rock was more consistently good, and was better on average, but I am not sure his peak beats Cena at his best. Plus, he did not realise just how outdated his stuff was, which resulted in Cena destroying him in their verbal altercations on a daily basis when they were feuding.

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Noooo it didn't happen that way! WWE MADE The Rock cut weak promos in order to make John Cena look better. :rolleyes:

 

Yeah, the Attitude Era apologists loved this talking point. Wasn't it unfortunately also parroted by Meltzer?

 

We know that WWE promos are all scripted ahead of time and that the guys have to sit there and wait for the other guy to finish before it's their turn to talk, so I was always confused by the idea of anyone getting destroyed unless they were scripted to get destroyed. Unless people meant he was getting destroyed in terms of delivery or emotion or whatever.

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Noooo it didn't happen that way! WWE MADE The Rock cut weak promos in order to make John Cena look better. :rolleyes:

 

Yeah, the Attitude Era apologists loved this talking point. Wasn't it unfortunately also parroted by Meltzer?

 

We know that WWE promos are all scripted ahead of time and that the guys have to sit there and wait for the other guy to finish before it's their turn to talk, so I was always confused by the idea of anyone getting destroyed unless they were scripted to get destroyed. Unless people meant he was getting destroyed in terms of delivery or emotion or whatever.

 

 

Rock has always scripted his own promos, so I don't think Creative was writing his promos for him this time around. Pretty sure he wrote them himself. THe content fell absolutely flat. And I had a problem with the delivery as well. There seemed no charisma in his delivery. He wasn't Randy Orton, exactly, but he sure as hell wasn't the lively charismatic Rock.

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Noooo it didn't happen that way! WWE MADE The Rock cut weak promos in order to make John Cena look better. :rolleyes:

 

Yeah, the Attitude Era apologists loved this talking point. Wasn't it unfortunately also parroted by Meltzer?

 

We know that WWE promos are all scripted ahead of time and that the guys have to sit there and wait for the other guy to finish before it's their turn to talk, so I was always confused by the idea of anyone getting destroyed unless they were scripted to get destroyed. Unless people meant he was getting destroyed in terms of delivery or emotion or whatever.

 

 

Rock has always scripted his own promos, so I don't think Creative was writing his promos for him this time around. Pretty sure he wrote them himself. THe content fell absolutely flat. And I had a problem with the delivery as well. There seemed no charisma in his delivery. He wasn't Randy Orton, exactly, but he sure as hell wasn't the lively charismatic Rock.

 

This is why anytime I talk about that run I say it was Dwayne Johnson playing The Rock. I think he had to spend so much time learning to tone it down when becoming an actor that he just wasn't able to find his way back to that really over the top ultra charismatic delivery from 98-2002.

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This is why anytime I talk about that run I say it was Dwayne Johnson playing The Rock. I think he had to spend so much time learning to tone it down when becoming an actor that he just wasn't able to find his way back to that really over the top ultra charismatic delivery from 98-2002.

The Rock often employed Brian Gerwitz to aid him in writing his promos. Gerwitz was the head writer of RAW for a long time and the Rock used him even after he left the position and became a consultant. He works for the Rock's production company or something these days.

 

[not directly replying to you, just trying to avoid making a giant quote train.]

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I'm wondering how good you guys think Rock's return run in terms of in-ring was. Some people think it was horrid, while others think it was actually good. Do you think it was bad or good? and why? which matches did you (not) like? and for what reason?

 

I am a BIG fan of the first Cena match. That was mostly due to Cena's performance being so interesting to me in that he was working as a heel in it. But Rock admittedly, played his part and didn't shit it up.

 

Other than that, he was rubbish. I found the second Cena match frustrating, and the Punk matches disappointing. The Cena tag was just kind of there...am I missing anything?

 

I think the main reason why was simply Rock's conditioning, or lack thereof. He blew up in every match he had, and had to be lead by the hand through them, while they worked around him sucking wind. Like I said, they got away with it at WM28, but every other time it noticeably dragged his matches down.

 

There were other problems as well. With Punk it was booking themselves into corners, with Cena II it was video game spamming. I thought the second Punk match in particular, the one with the "Rock can't get DQd" stip, was terrible at actually working to that stipulation. So there was more going on than just pure physical (un)fitness.

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I thought the match with Punk at the Royal Rumble was really, really good. But that was largely due to an excellent Punk performance.

 

Still, I'll take Rocky over Cena all day long. Rock can make pretty much anything watchable with his charisma. I watched the Hogan rematch the other day and Rock pretty much carried it with his heeling. I mean, it had virtually nothing else going for it, but the Rock still made it worthwhile. I think Rock sells better too. I know I like his comebacks more.

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Noooo it didn't happen that way! WWE MADE The Rock cut weak promos in order to make John Cena look better. :rolleyes:

 

Yeah, the Attitude Era apologists loved this talking point. Wasn't it unfortunately also parroted by Meltzer?

 

We know that WWE promos are all scripted ahead of time and that the guys have to sit there and wait for the other guy to finish before it's their turn to talk, so I was always confused by the idea of anyone getting destroyed unless they were scripted to get destroyed. Unless people meant he was getting destroyed in terms of delivery or emotion or whatever.

 

 

Rock has always scripted his own promos, so I don't think Creative was writing his promos for him this time around. Pretty sure he wrote them himself. THe content fell absolutely flat. And I had a problem with the delivery as well. There seemed no charisma in his delivery. He wasn't Randy Orton, exactly, but he sure as hell wasn't the lively charismatic Rock.

 

This is why anytime I talk about that run I say it was Dwayne Johnson playing The Rock. I think he had to spend so much time learning to tone it down when becoming an actor that he just wasn't able to find his way back to that really over the top ultra charismatic delivery from 98-2002.

 

 

The "he's doing bad promos on purpose" talking point was also fueled by a facebook promo where the Rock on that video was vastly different from the one we got on TV.

 

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To me, this is kind of similar to the Austin/HBK poll in that I think one can objectively look at their careers and say John Cena has had more 4-star or higher matches than The Rock and that Cena can do things in the ring that The Rock never could, but if you just put it up to which guy I'd rather see in a ring, wrestling or cutting a promo, 9-times-out-of-10, in 2015, I'm going with the Rock.

 

Part of that could be that, as a current WWE fan, I've spent the past decade watching Cena and, while I've enjoyed plenty of his matches and promos, there are stretches of his career that I think went way below even the worst runs of The Rock's career (for example, worst feud - Cena/Laurenaitis or Maivia/Sultan?). Also, even with the overexposure of Cena in 2015, I think I would've answered this poll the same way in 2005 and 2007 and 2009 and so on.

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I mean, the obvious choice is Cena. Anyone with a beating heart LIKES The Rock more, I watch Ballers every week. But your resume is your resume. This is much more of a slam dunk than Austin/HBK was. (Still don't get how Shawn loses that objectively)

...also I don't think Hogan and Toronto are getting enough credit for how game they were at X8. That was Hogan's best match in 4-5 years, either direction. Rock just so happened to be the guy across from him for a large portion of it. But this is a weird time to defend Hogan vis a vis a black guy so I'm gonna cut that short

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The Rock was better at overall audience manipulation. Once he got past the Die Rocky Die phase of his rookie years, he could pretty much get the crowd to react any way he wanted to almost anything he did. That's something that poor Cena still struggles to do, often having the crowd shit all over whatever he's trying (no matter how well he actually executes it).

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The Rock was the prototype (pun intended) for the WWE corporate babyface ace that is John Cena. Rock has a bunch of shitty Attitude era main events, which penalize him. Cena has a bunch of shitty self-conscious epics which doesn't penalize him because those matches are still revered. I actually enjoy Cena to a degree (he's the perfect guy for what WWE wanted for a main event guy), but still, Cena is awkward, goofy, has a bunch of horrible looking shit to his repertoire, and works a style I don't care at all for. So yeah, The Rock in a landslide.

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A year ago I would have said Rock, hands down, but now I would probably go Cena. I always liked Cena in the ring, but really gained a lot more respect for him in the past year, rewatching some of his classic matches and seeing him be probably the most interesting in-ring performer in WWE week after week in the middle of the card. At the same time I have been really underwhealmed by what I have rewatched of the Rock. His matches don't hold up to me, even the ones that get high praise like the Austin WM matches. He has his moments and probably did walk away just as he was hitting his stride in the ring. I also think the gap in talking is a little more narrow than people let on. Cena is really smart about his position in wrestling and speaks in layers a lot. I think his promos (after the rapping crap) hold up really well and the Rock just makes me roll my eyes now that I am 31 and not 15.

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The Rock was better at overall audience manipulation. Once he got past the Die Rocky Die phase of his rookie years, he could pretty much get the crowd to react any way he wanted to almost anything he did. That's something that poor Cena still struggles to do, often having the crowd shit all over whatever he's trying (no matter how well he actually executes it).

Since when does Cena not go for those split reactions? Cena does not struggle to get the crowd to react the way he wants, because they react the way he wants already.

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