John Cena and Eddie Guerrero Leave You Wanting More

Imagine saying "I was a stunt double for Anakin" like that makes you sound cool though...

WWE

In this match, John Cena is the stuff of nightmares: a white boy from Massachusetts in a Brian Urlacher jersey, visions of 8 Mile dancing across his mind, basically a grown up version of one of the bullies from that one PSA where a bunch of kids put some bass into various homophobic slurs — a man so of his time and place that I both implicitly understand how he got to be so popular that he had to turn babyface and never look back and cannot for the life of me understand how anyone was charmed by him. The “Anakin / backdoor shenanigans” rhyme, man — what a shitty little miracle that this got him over.

When Eddie Guerrero arrives to the Latino Heat Street Fight and the metaphorical bell rings, all of that horseshit melts away and what you’re left with is Cena as an in-ring performer — it’s 2003, extremely early in his run, but the pieces are there already. He’s fortunate enough to be on a show where most of his reps are against some of the greatest wrestlers in the world, out of reach of Triple H’s reign of terror. Though he had his moments as the RUTHLESS AGGRESSION blue chipper and had won a #1 contendership tournament earlier in 2003, this street fight, fought in an Iron Circle of rental vehicles while a crowd of midcarders hooted and hollered, is really the first hint of what Cena would eventually develop into, a master brawler with a surprising amount of soul to his selling, with virtually limitless physical charisma.

There’s some goofiness amidst the good brawling — the introduction of a lawnmower that’s there for a spot that’s meant to demonstrate how bloodthirsty Cena is/how cagy Guerrero is — but they’re not as obtrusive as later, higher concept environmental weapons spots that will pepper Cena’s brawls, and, as he’s the heel, they serve to remind you that he’s something of a coward, trying and failing to maim a man he can shove around at will. At least the shovels let him and Eddie dent the hoods and smash the headlights of the cars they’re bumping onto.

When I picked this match for Cena Month, I did so because I knew we’d need some representation from early, heel John Cena. I forgot that this match took place as Guerrero was finally making his way to the top of the ladder in WWE, with his WrestleMania XX title victory in the not-too-distant future. He’s the United States Champion here, and in this match you can see him laying down a lot of track for the brawls that will define his reign as champion, where he is regularly mauled, busted open, and wrestling from underneath but is ultimately too smart and too smooth for his opponents, turning their advantages against them.

With Cena, the advantage is raw strength. It makes him overconfident in his pursuit of Guerrero, who ducks and dodges him when he rushes in, flapjacking him on a car or weaving out of the way to land a few stinging blows in the confusion. Guerrero creates as much separation between himself and Cena as he can, which lets him read and make adjustments to his environment, where Cena’s focus is exclusively on him. Take this clip, for example:

Eddie takes the shot into the hood and rolls off to the side of the car. When Cena follows him, he smashes the car door into Cena’s abdomen and uses the seatbelt to hang Cena, which gives him the opportunity to take a few unprotected shots at Cena’s face. Everything about this is fantastic — the setup, the camera work, Cena’s selling of Guerrero’s punches in particular — and it all stems from the contrast in size and experience between the two. They double the violence of this a moment later when Cena tries to kick a door into Eddie’s face, fails, then rushes at him, only to end up ramming his head through a window.

Is this match perfect? Of course not. Its primary function is to wrap things between Cena and Guerrero; Chavo is back from an injury and it’s time for Los Guerreros to ride to a third tag team title, so despite the violence and its mostly tight construction, the match feels like the penultimate chapter in a feud with no real conclusion. I’m sure there’s a logical explanation for it, but this is the third and final televised singles match between Cena and Guerrero — one wonders what the fans who got to see this on the house show loop were getting without the constraints of shooting a one segment heater for SmackDown, let alone what a PPV match between the two could have been.

But until Chavo cuts this one off, it’s a ton of fun, especially when Guerrero is reveling in punishing Cena. There’s nothing as vicious here as in, say, the Regal/Finlay parking lot brawl from WCW (let alone the later spectacles that’d take place in AEW), but Eddie getting a second wind and doing action hero rolls over the roof of a car to further torment a man he’s just burnt with a cigarette lighter? That’s your fucking guy right there — that’s your goddamn World Champion. So’s the guy who got burnt with a cigarette lighter, it turns out.

Rating: *** & 3/4