10 Obscure Wrestling Secrets That Took Years To Discover
7. Spot Calling
A practise cloaked effectively for years, “calling spots”—the art of a wrestler communicating with an opponent as it looks for all the world like he is hurting them—was destroyed once and for all by John Cena. He ruined it for everybody by telegraphing moves at the top of his f*cking lungs. He does this for the apparent benefit of those in the cheap seats, who need to know what he’s about to do so that they can enjoy it. Your match results were predictable enough, John, and they are not blind.
Cena was always referred to as the “next Hulk Hogan”. So a hero to kids, and a total fantasist.
That’s not strictly true, of course, but there’s a point to the moaning; unlike so much of wrestling’s unrecoverable past, with a bit of deft skill, wrestlers can use their illusion once more. This is something so many of the wrestlers Cena has somehow joined in the “greatest” conversation rarely, if ever, did. We didn’t need any shoot interview to have this revealed for us. We needed only to pay attention. Used to be, we didn’t have to.
What’s even more annoying about Cena’s deafening approach to the quiet act is that he sometimes calls his famous five moves of doom sequence. Does any performer expect him to bust out a Japanese Ocean Cyclone suplex? It’s always a second clothesline.