Joseph and Colette Discuss John Cena vs. Cesaro

PLUS: What BIG EGG will be up to while Joseph is out on vacation!

Joseph and Colette Discuss John Cena vs. Cesaro
WWE

Hello! Before jumping into the discussion, I just want to let you know what will be happening with BIG EGG while Joseph is out of country, the great sport of professional wrestling hopefully far from his mind. For paid subscribers, there will be two EXTRA BIG EGG features on John Cena, specifically on his Summerslam 2013 match against Daniel Bryan and his Royal Rumble 2007 match against Umaga.

For the weeks Joseph is away, I’ve enlisted three writers whose work I love to fill in for him, tackling matches of their choosing. Those writers/matches are as follows:

Week One: Rob Van Dam vs. Necro Butcher vs. Kendo Kashin (IGF 8/15/08) with Orchid Cugini of Live, Laugh, Ligerbomb.

Week Two: Claudio Castagnoli vs. Sara Del Rey (CHIKARA 7/31/11) with Robert Newsome of The Atomic Elbow.

Week Three: Shingo Takagi vs. Dragon Lee (NJPW 5/23/19) with Evan Minsker of see/saw.

Two matches I haven’t seen and a big time sentimental favorite that will send me running to my Facebook page to see if my photos from ringside are once again worth posting, then a clean page when Joseph’s back! Now let’s get down to figuring out where Cena/Cesaro ranks on the MASTERLIST!


Joseph Montecillo
We cover a fascinating spread of Cena matches for our four selections, with samples from very distinct stages of his career. Here against Cesaro, we have Cena really struggling against a new crop of talent and would lead towards what many people call "PWG Cena" in the late decade. What do you make of the iteration we see here?

Colette Arrand
I love this shit, dude. I think it’s not quite as good as it gets here later on when it’s codified in his US Title run, but I think every legend deserves this sort of high level test of theirselves against the next generation. I don’t know if the comparison makes sense but it’s hard not to think of things like the first part of Punk’s AEW run, where the novelty of the new matchups was enough to generate interest from week to week, but there’s potential for the dream match to become a captivating rivalry. Some of the PWG Cena stuff is among his absolute best, and I think this is one of those that rank way up there.

Joseph Montecillo
Yeah, Cesaro is such a delightful opponent too. It's the kind of match you don't really get to see too often for Cesaro on the indies either, against someone just as powerful and even bigger. Cena being who he is though, chooses to work small.

Colette Arrand
He works Cesaro like Cesaro is as big as Khali. Which makes complete sense when you consider that Cesaro could and did swing Khali. He puts over Cesaro’s size in as skillful a way as Ric Flair, honestly, though it’s flipped because Flair’s a heel in awe of Sting’s power and Cena is a babyface presented with a mountain to climb. It’s an extremely cool dynamic.