[04-02-2006] John Cena vs Triple H

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At Royal Rumble, John Cena beat Edge to regain the WWE title. Because the Royal Rumble winner was challenging for the Smackdown title, they had a tournament to determine Cena's opponent at WrestleMania. Triple H won that tournament, and we got the ultra helpful angle of Triple H continually pointing out that John Cena can't wrestle. Now, Triple H is a heel, and even at this point, John Cena has proven to be a perfectly fine wrestler, at the very least. But, wrestling fans want to view things in the way they want to view them, and so Triple H saying these sorts of things, well, they're not so hellish and they're especially not too helpful if you're John Cena.

On commentary, JR points out that everyone in the arena cares about the outcome of the match, they either love Cena or hate Cena and from the early going that is obviously true. The crowd is firmly anti-Cena, cheering even the most trivial bit of Triple H's offense. There's not a ton going on early, but the crowd is so invested it doesn't matter. Triple H takes the Harley Race bump to the outside, Cena follows him out, Triple H attempts to powerbomb, maybe, Cena on the ramp, but eats a back body drop onto it instead. Things head back to the ring and Triple H takes over after a high knee. Back outside the ring, HHH whips Cena into the stairs, and as has been the case in every match so far, Cena takes them full force. Triple H is in full control now, including a pretty great lariat, which was a bit of a surprise. Things grind to a halt with a Triple H chin lock, Cena fights back and gets back on event footing with a lariat of his own. Cena takes over after getting the better of a strike exchange, and a powerslam. We're some twenty minutes into this match when Cena applies the STFU, and it's the first time that the match could plausibly be over. It isn't. Triple H grabs the rope. Cena goes for the FU, HHH slides off, shoves Cena into the corner, and into referee Mike Chioda. From there, Triple H hits a double low blow. With the ref down, he goes under the ring for the sledgehammer. Initially, Cena counters the hammer, but eventually, he takes a shot to the head, but he kicks out at 2. Triple H goes for the pedigree, but it's countered. FU by Cena, but he only gets 2. Cena goes to the top rope for a crossbody, which is wild considering how this match has gone, Triple H dodges, attempts a Pedigree, but it's countered into the STFU. Triple H struggles for a but, but eventually taps. Cena wins his first WrestleMania main event.

I think that the build to this is weird, but not bad. Maybe that's hindsight, the polarized Cena crowd proved to be a very effective way to present wresting as long as John Cena was involved, but it is weird that the guy who is supposed to be the top babyface is constantly being called a bad wrestler, and the guy saying it resoundingly cheered. The crowd on this night, for all the worst that may have popped up along the way, was super invested in almost everything. It made a match that was largely prosaic interesting and a perfectly fine WrestleMania main event. Not great, but perfectly fine. 

BIG MATCH JOHN

 

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