Is John Cena a better worker than Kurt Angle?, Why or why not? Examples? Match comparisons? Options

[Coffey]

(IMG:http://i.imgur.com/BjGWA.jpg)

I'm genuinely curious how people feel about this. I wanted to ask this question as its own thread instead of just an off-hand question in the comments thread.

Let's get a list going of matches that matter. I need help and dates. We can debate the matches too (for example I know some people hate the Shane McMahon street fight).

JOHN CENA:
Vs. JBL, "I Quit," WWE Judgment Day 2005
Vs. Rob Van Dam, ECW One Night Stand 2006
Vs. Kurt Angle, Carlito, Chris Masters, Shawn Michaels & Kane. "Elimination Chamber," WWE New Years Revolution 2006
Vs. Umaga, "Last Man Standing," WWE Royal Rumble 2007
Vs. Shawn Michaels, WWE Wrestlemania 23
Vs. Batista, "Last Man Standing," WWE Extreme Rules 2010
Vs. C.M. Punk, WWE Money in the Bank 2011
Vs. Brock Lesnar, WWE Extreme Rules 2012

KURT ANGLE:
Vs. "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, WWE Summerslam 2001
Vs. Shane McMahon, "Street Fight," WWE King of the Ring 2001
& Chris Benoit Vs. Edge & Rey Mysterio, WWE Smackdown 7/11/02
& Chris Benoit Vs. Edge & Rey Mysterio, WWE No Mercy 2002
Vs. Chris Benoit, WWE Royal Rumble 2003
Vs. Shawn Michaels, WWE Wrestlemania 21
Vs. The Undertaker, WWE No Way Out 2006
Vs. Samoa Joe, TNA Genesis 2006

[Dylan Waco]

Other Cena matches I would add

v. Orton Summerslam 07
v. Michaels at Mania
v. Michaels from Raw
v. Edge TLC Match
Elimination Chamber New Years Revolution 06 (seriously Cena was awesome in that match as I remember)
v. Punk MITB 11
v. Punk Summerslam 11
v. Rey Raw 2011

There a shit load of others I could rattle off, but there is a start.

I think Cena is easily better. Angle had maybe two years where I thought he was really good, then a period of three or four years where I thought he was good at times and iffy at others and has been pretty bad for almost his entire TNA run. Even if I were to grant that Cena wasn't any good in 03 - and I'm not sure of that at all - he was certainly pretty good no later than the middle of 04 and has been good more often than not since.

I would put the best series of Cena v. the best series of Angle every day of the week. I would put Cena's best matches v. Angle's any day of the week. I would put Cena's peak years v. Angle's any day of the week. I would put Cena's best carry jobs over Angle's any day of the week.

Cena all day long

[Grimmas]

Some of the most important aspects of putting on a great match Cena is great at, while Angle is horrible at. For example selling.

[Coffey]

I would put the best series of Cena v. the best series of Angle every day of the week. I would put Cena's best matches v. Angle's any day of the week. I would put Cena's peak years v. Angle's any day of the week. I would put Cena's best carry jobs over Angle's any day of the week.

This is interesting to me. If you add in things like drawing power, Cena kills Angle too. On the majority of wrestling sites around the internet, John Cena is the underdog. How much of that is because of WWE pushing Kurt Angle as a "technical wrestler" though? Or maybe it is just a case of fans not being as smart as they think they are. Or it's just subjective and an opinion so it can't be proved one way or the other. I wouldn't say that Kurt Angle sucks but his best stuff definitely came in WWE and it was when he was working with great wrestlers that could lead him through a match. It seems he got to a certain point, peaked, and was content to just stay there. Now he kind of feels like he just goes through the motions.

Ironically, when people make arguments either for or against either guy, they seem to say the same things. If someone likes Cena they will say that Kurt Angle can't sell and all of his matches feel the same. If someone likes Kurt Angle, they will say that John Cena can't sell and all of his matches feel the same. That's why I thought it would be an interesting thread for comparison.

Elsewhere, one point that was noted is that John Cena only has good matches if it's a gimmick match. I do find that interesting because a lot of his matches that are my favorite matches tend to be things like Last Man Standing, I Quit or Street Fight style gimmick matches.

[Matt D]

There's a difference between a traditional superman babyface comeback after selling a whole match and skipping the apparent tedium of selling so you can get the next spot in to pop the crowd.

[Dr. Reverend Vic...]

There was this Ren and Stimpy cartoon where they were wrestlers. They get the shit kicked out of themselves until one of the wrestlers looks at the clock and says.

"It's time to lose the match."

Then they fall over and lose. I think Cena and Hogan occasionally fall/fell into that trap. Where they go into the comeback to easily. About the only think that makes me give Angle a pass, is I'm sure he could get hit by a truck, bounce up and Angle Slam it.

Cena is much better overall, and an all time great wrestler. But he was pretty bad from til 04. I would probably take Angle's worse stuff over that.

[Mr Wrestling X]

Angle is the better wrestler, Cena is the better talker, draw, psychologist, story teller and most attention grabbing (in the sense that people continue to care about the character regardless of whether they love it or hate it, whereas Angle has constantly alternated between being a top guy, mid carder and upper mid carder throughout his career).

So yes, John Cena is a better worker than Kurt Angle, but I'd still rather watch Kurt Angle wrestle than John Cena, purely because I'm a fan of superb wrestling intertwined with excellent storytelling (Angle gets the wrestling but not the storytelling part) than poor to average wrestling intertwined with outstanding in-ring psychology and storytelling (which Cena does consistently, although it isn't very often to my taste).

[Kostka]

Just curious how you separate "wrestling" from "in-ring psychology and storytelling". Psychology/storytelling is kinda what "superb wrestling" is built from.

Anyway, Cena demolishes Angle in every way.

[MARTYEWR]

Could Angle have gotten a match out of Great Khali (or someone similar) like Cena did in '07?

[JerryvonKramer]

Think Cena vs. 98-00 heel Angle would be more interesting.

[Mr Wrestling X]

Just curious how you separate "wrestling" from "in-ring psychology and storytelling". Psychology/storytelling is kinda what "superb wrestling" is built from.

I view Angle as very technical, a guy who is all about choreography and putting on "wrestling clinics" (to paraphrase). His audience interactions, expressions and playing to his role as face or heel are usually pretty minimal, whereas someone like Cena uses these concepts to great effect. The Lesnar match at Extreme Rules for instance, featured such great in-ring psychology from Cena (the ending aside, but that's bad booking) that the majority of the audience got behind him (when at least 40% normally boo him) and booed the hell out of Lesnar. But whilst Cena is capable of great things, it's reasonably rare for him to actually put on performances like this (which I again attribute to bad booking by WWE in keeping Cena's character one dimensional and not allowing Cena to wing it, as he did one before, for the fear that he might come across as heel like).

So yeah I distinguish the physical and choreographed aspects of wrestling from the ones that involve storytelling and theatrics.

[Childs]

Is Angle even really a great mechanical wrestler? I mean, he's obviously a great athlete or was. But has he ever used his amateur base to do interesting stuff on the mat? Do his strikes look particularly crisp? Does he execute an unusual variety of complicated moves? He has (had?) great stamina and throws a decent looking German suplex (I guess) but I'd like to hear an Angle fan describe his technical calling card.

These questions aren't entirely rhetorical; I've probably only watched 5-10 Angle matches from the last five years, so maybe I'm missing something. But I don't think of him as an offensive wrestler on par with Bryan Danielson or Kenta Kobashi or dozens of others.

[Log]

There was this Ren and Stimpy cartoon where they were wrestlers.

I'm still waiting for someone to bust out the flying butt pliers!

[S.L.L.]

So yeah I distinguish the physical and choreographed aspects of wrestling from the ones that involve storytelling and theatrics.

But the physical and choreographed aspects of wrestling themselves involve storytelling and theatrics, and vice versa.

In the past, I've referred to this kind of view as "judging wrestling like it's figure skating", but I've read up on the subject a bit recently, and I realized that's not an accurate statement. The ISU Judging System does put a high premium on things like technical ability and "grade of execution", but they also factor in these:

-Performance/Execution; is the physical and emotional involvement of the skater/couple as they translate the intent of the music and choreography (e.g. carriage, style, personality, variety, contrasts, projection)
-Choreography/Composition, which is the arrangement of all movements according to the principles of proportion, space and music (e.g. idea, concept, unity, pattern, phrasing, originality, design)
-Interpretation, which is the translation of the music to movement on ice (e.g. timing, expression of the music, use of nuances, relationship between partners, character of music)

This represents roughly 30% of the overall score, which is more than I recognized when I made the figure skating comparison in the past.

I'm not quite sure where I'm going with this, other than to say that while one has the right to view wrestling as something emotionally colder and more sterile than figure skating, I'm not sure why you would want to do that, nor am I sure how you would have been attracted to wrestling in the first place, since it's very obviously not meant to be taken that way.

[Matt D]

Is Angle even really a great mechanical wrestler? I mean, he's obviously a great athlete or was. But has he ever used his amateur base to do interesting stuff on the mat? Do his strikes look particularly crisp? Does he execute an unusual variety of complicated moves? He has (had?) great stamina and throws a decent looking German suplex (I guess) but I'd like to hear an Angle fan describe his technical calling card.

It killed me with early angle that he never really did a lot of wrestling or matwork. I remember being really frustrated by that when I was younger.

[Loss]

John Cena is also better than HHH, Edge, and possibly Chris Jericho. He's not as athletically gifted as Angle, but he's much smarter. Cena is sometimes physically awkward, and WWE's dual marketing of him as a face to kids and women/heel to adult males is why people underrate him. They're being worked.

I probably wouldn't have either guy in a top 100.

[Mr Wrestling X]

Take from this what you will, but I currently rate the best workers in WWE as being:

1. CM Punk
2. John Cena
3. Daniel Bryan
4. Randy Orton
5. Sheamus

In that order.

[Coffey]

I did anticipate that this forum would lean more toward John Cena but I had no idea that it would be this lopsided. I think the results would be close to this on DVDVR as well but on the majority of other wrestling forums, I think it would go the other way completely.

I think a lot of it has to do with age and the amount of wrestling that has been watched by an individual. If you grew up during the Attitude Era and are really only exposed to WWE, I don't think that you're voting for Cena.

Pleasantly surprised, I would say. :-)

[Loss]

I suspect this is actually closer to the casual fan response you'd get as well.

[Coffey]

Yeah but I wasn't really talking about casuals. If you ask 18-25 year olds that talk about wrestling on the internet, I think Angle wins. A lot of fans just think Cena isn't any good, that he's sloppy, that he's boring, etc. and that Angle was one of the best "technical wrestlers" like Benoit. That's why I think it's generational.

The same way that a lot of fans are programmed to think Shawn is one of the best ever in the history of pro-wrestling. Like, you ask if HBK is in the top 100 most places and you get fucking laughed at.