10 Wrestling Matches That Buried Top Stars ON PURPOSE
4. John Cena Vs. The Fiend - WWE WrestleMania 36
It was never going to take, this incredible burial and vanishing of John Cena.
He hasn't reappeared on WWE screens, but when he does, he'll be unaffected, cycling through the same sh*te patter not enough of you have remembered. Cena has developed a deep respect late in his career, as was always going to happen, but go back and watch literally any three-week stretch of his full-time TV career. You will not make it past one promo.
This was something beyond a burial. There were no uninterested facial expressions, no 3.05 kick-out, no obvious lack of cooperation. This wasn't a two-minute squash because it was not a wrestling match at all, but rather a cinematic affair as inspired as it was audacious. Using the beloved old aesthetics of North American wrestling as a backdrop, this felt like pro wrestling where it had no right to.
It also had no right to be good, because the Fiend character is pure hokey dog sh*t.
This bizarre, cathartic exposé told Cena's story as a hack bully who was a nasty heel punching down in awful taste all along. The alternate dimension in which he was trapped was his own self-awareness, manifested where it was once obscured.
The Fiend doesn't change people. A haircut is not change. On the one occasion "he" revealed a character for what they were, this sh*t was actually halfway powerful.