Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Profiles in Wrestling Match - John Cena

Profiles in Wrestling is a week long column with the goal of introducing you to both well-known and emerging talent, delivering quality coverage and notable matches. So sit back, relax, and smark out.

Today's match features John Cena's WWE debut against Kurt Angle. This is quite a way to start out. He loses the match but makes an impressive showing.

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Profiles in Wrestling Match - John Cena

Profiles in Wrestling is a week long column with the goal of introducing you to both well-known and emerging talent, delivering quality coverage and notable matches. So sit back, relax, and smark out.

Today's PiW match is John Cena vs CW Anderson from back in his pre-WWE days. In those days he worked for Ultimate Pro Wrestling as the Prototype.

Monday, June 14, 2010

Profiles in Wrestling Match - John Cena

Profiles in Wrestling is a week long column with the goal of introducing you to both well-known and emerging talent, delivering quality coverage and notable matches. So sit back, relax, and smark out.

Today's PiW match is from an old episode of Velocity. It's not a match John Cena is famous for, but one that I think we'd all like to see again. On this episode of Velocity he worked with Bryan Danielson, AKA Daniel Bryan of NXT. This match was short, but fun, and utilized John Cena's old finisher, the Proto-bomb. He still uses this finisher, but only as one of his signature moves of doom.

Brawl O' the Day - Danielson & Aoki vs Ishimori & Kanemaru

Bryan Danielson AKA NXT's Daniel Bryan and Atsushi Aoki take on Taiji Ishimori and Kanemaru in today's Brawl. It's an exciting match from Pro-Wrestling NOAH in Japan. A great example of puro tag matches. That finisher at the end is wicked too.

Sunday, June 13, 2010

Lady of the Week - Angelina Love

Lady of the Week is dedicated to finding talented female wrestlers and exposing their efforts. These women are both strong and beautiful and are fully capable wrestlers.



Angelina Love, AKA Lauren Williams, is this weeks lady of the week. She has gained infamy all over the indie circuit, including a stint with form WWE developmental group Deep South Wrestling, but is best known for her work with Total Nonstop Action Wrestling. Once at TNA she took off with Velvet Sky (AKA Talia Madison) as The Beautiful People, a heel group that sought to "purify" the world by destroying one ugly person at a time. The Beautiful People dominated the Knockout's division until an overdue passport struck (did I mention she's Canadian?). Avoiding jail time and prolonged retention within her country, she returned to TNA after only a few months, this time to feud with the new lineup of Beautiful People (who were led by Love's old partner, Velvet Sky). Working with TNA only three years, she has held the TNA Knockout's Championship three times, and was ranked #2 on Pro-Wrestling Illustrated's 50 best female singles competitors of 2009.

Profiles in Wrestling - John Cena

Profiles in Wrestling is a week long column with the goal of introducing you to both well-known and emerging talent, delivering quality coverage and notable matches. So sit back, relax, and smark out.

John Cena is a very controversial wrestler. He has a ton of fans, and probably just as many haters. He has shown great technical skills and charisma, but does not always use them. Because of his great achievements within kayfabe, he has been chosen for this weeks Profiles in Wrestling and one of his matches will be featured on the main page once every night. I hope you enjoy this weeks profile as much as I enjoy reaping the search engine results from having John Cena's name on my page.

In Wrestling:
John Cena's Career started out at the Ultimate University, a wrestling school operated by California-based Ultimate Pro Wrestling. Here he learned the moves and took on a cyborg character known as the Prototype (also called Mr P). Soon after, WWE to picked him up and rushed him through developmental.

In the WWE John Cena wasted no time, barely losing to Kurt Angle in his debut match. He would go on to feud with Chris Jericho, followed by an extremely short program with Billy Kidman. It was shortly after this that he would debut his rapper character. In February 2003, Cena would move to RAW to feud with Brock Lesnar. It was this feud that led to the unveiling of his new finisher, the “FU”, a play on Lesnar's own “F-5.” After Lesnar, Cena turned face and swiftly returned Smackdown.

As a face, he would win the United States Chamionship from the Big Show at Wrestlemania XX. As is Cena's way, be stripped of the title, lose it to Carlito, shoot a movie, and get it back only to lose it again to Orlando Jordan during his feud against JBL and his Cabinet. This feud led to Cena winning JBL's WWE Championship belt, the first of Cena's nine world championship reigns, seven with this WWE championship. This is when Cena debuted the spinner belt.

Cena was then drafted to RAW and began feuding with, then RAW GM, Eric Bischoff. Bischoff would champion Chris Jericho as Cena's opponent. This feud was the first time that a large portion of the crowd booed Cena in favor of his heel opponent, it would not be the last. The program with Jericho ended in a “You're Fired” match, and Kurt Angle would take over his part for the rest of the feud with Bischoff. The fans continued booing of Cena became so apparent that the announce team acknowledged the booing and called Cena the “controversial champion.” In spite of his detractors, Cena would hold onto the belt and even debut a new finisher, the STFU. The feud would end when Bischoff was fired by McMahon and promptly thrown into a garbage truck by John Cena.

He held on to his belt until January, when Edge cashed in his Money in the Bank contract after John Cena had endured a grueling Elimination Chamber contest. Similar to his back and forth relationship with the United States Chamionship, Cena would proceed to win back and lose the WWE Championship twice before his feud with Edge complete. After his program with Edge he would feud with Booker T, Big Show, Umaga, celebrity guest Kevin Federline, and finally the Great Khali in fairly forgettable feuds. The exception being his Wrestlemania feud with Shawn Michaels, which led to two of his all time best matches. After Khali, he would feud with Randy Orton until he tore his pectoral muscle in a match with Mr Kennedy (hip toss, go figure). In kayfabe, however, the honor or breaking Cena belongs to Orton.

He would return in 2008 as the surprise final entrant in the Royal Rumble, winning the match and a title shot at Wrestlemania. He impatiently cashed it in against Orton at No Way Out, where he lost, but was still be placed in a triple threat at Wrestlemania alongside Triple H and Orton. He lost the match and went on to feud with JBL again. After losing the feud in a Parking Lot Brawl, he would go on to win the World Tag Team Championship with Batista. They quickly lost them, and then he lost to Batista after a momentary feud at Summerslam. Shortly after he was sidelined with a herniated disc in his neck.

He returned at Survivor Series against Jericho to acquire his first World Heavyweight Championship, Cena would then lose the belt to Edge at No Way Out in an Elimination Chamber match. He'd then win the belt back at Wrestlemania XXV, but only until Backlash, when he dropped it back to Edge in a Last Man Standing bout when the Big Show chokeslammed Cena through a spotlight. Cena then began a short feud with the Big Show before moving on to Orton. The feud with Orton led to him winning an I Quit match for his fourth WWE Championship. In true Cena fashion, he lost, regained, lost, regained, and once again lost the title, this time to Batista. During the ensuing feud with Batista, he would recapture the title (making seven WWE championships), eventually ending the feud at Over the Limit.

Outside of Wrestling:
He is married to Elizabeth Huberdeau. John Cena earned a degree in exercise physiology at Springfield College, where he was a Football Division III All-American Center. To further the WWE cause, John Cena has been involved in a handful of TV guest spots and even starred in two movies (The Marine and 12 Rounds). He is left-handed, is apparently an anime fan, and loves mostly Boston/new England teams with the exception being the Tampa Bay Rays. He also collects muscle cars and has more than twenty.


TNA announces business deal with Jakks Pacific

TNA announced a new partnership with Jakks Pacific at a press conference this afternoon, unveiling a new line of six action figures. The figures are AJ Styles, Suicide, Samoa Joe, Kurt Angle, Sting, and Jeff Jarrett. Jakks Pacific has long made toys for TNA rival WWE. While I do not have any pictures of the figures yet, or a date for their release, Samoa Joe did mention that he "might not have the prettiest action figure, but was sure his could beat AJ's figure up."