The Simple Pleasures of John Cena vs. The Great Khali
The Simple Pleasures of John Cena vs. The Great Khali
SQUAT LIFTS. KNOCKOUT PUNCHES. HEAVY MACHINERY. EVERYTHING YOU COULD POSSIBLY WANT OUT OF WRESTLING (IF YOU'RE SEVEN, OR HAVE TASTE).
To me, one of the most pleasurable things about professional wrestling is the impossible nature of the bodies it puts on display. It’s something the sport itself fetishizes, especially as it came to be defined by Vince McMahon, whose empire was built, brick by brick, on the overly muscular backs of men like Hulk Hogan, who is, some 40 years after his first WWF Championship victory, still the ace figure every era-defining champion of that company responds to in some way, whether to repudiate the form or echo it in some fashion.
John Cena didn’t just echo the elements that made Hulk Hogan successful, he perfected it to the extent that my biggest issue with him is how much he loves the WWE (and McMahon) as a concept, though his selflessness in that regard has often paid dividends artistically. His matches against wrestlers like CM Punk and Daniel Bryan revolve around the notion of Cena the ace, or, in his terms, “the face that runs this place,” taking on challengers who couldn’t be anything less like him, and his series against Brock Lesnar posit him as the company’s bulwark, which first withstands the onslaught of the monster before crumbling in dramatic fashion. There are plenty of moments in John Cena’s career that run parallel to Hulk Hogan’s, including this match against The Great Khali, the a major difference between the two is that Cena was (and remains) selfless with his aura when the moment called for it – he was always working towards the future, where Hogan was working for himself.
Oh yeah, muscles. Both Hogan and Cena had them in unnatural abundance, but a key to their success was that they weren’t just aspirational figures, but relatable ones. Men from humble stock who love their families and country and fans, whose existence as Herculean freaks of nature can go overlooked on account of the other jacked dudes they share the ring with, to say nothing of the literal giants they often find themselves in opposition against. When Hulk Hogan wrestled King Kong Bundy, Andre the Giant, and Earthquake, his struggle to lift those men, the way he paled in their bulk, humanized him. The same is true of Cena and The Great Khali. This is their third and final singles match of any real substance, as Khali was brought over to Raw for the sake of the feud. If you’re capable of suspending your disbelief for a moment, the clarity of vision here is kind of remarkable. In 2007, WWE wasn’t just the land of giants, it was the land of monsters, and after beating Umaga at the Royal Rumble, Khali was next on the list, teased on Khali’s first night on Raw and kept on the backburner while Cena did his “you can’t wrestle” era workrate thing with Shawn Michaels at WrestleMania and Backlash. You don’t need to go back and watch the Judgement Day or SNME matches for context, but it’s good stuff: in their first WWE Championship match, Cena makes Khali tap to the STFU, but his foot is underneath the ropes. It’s Khali’s first loss by submission, but it’s tainted and Cena’s not satisfied by it. He’s also no longer afraid of Khali anymore. So the rematch at One Night Stand, pinfalls only, falls count anywhere, takes submissions off the table. Further complicating things, Khali absolutely smashes Cena the night before on Saturday Night’s Main Event, pinning him with one foot in a non-title match. Maybe John Cena doesn’t fear The Great Khali anymore, but what the stipulation and the circumstances imply is that he absolutely should.
It’s a simple setup, as meat and potatoes as it gets, and the match stays the course as Khali is fractionally as skilled and mobile as Umaga was (or, really, any of WWE’s monsters at the time). Pared down to suit Khali’s speed, the match is John Cena vs. the idea of a monster heel, and it’s a hell of a lot of fun. Most of this is in Cena’s selling, which is big and expressive, putting over Khali’s size and strength in a way that makes him seem even larger than he is. Not to keep bringing Hogan into this, but Cena grew up a Hulkamaniac, and the Hogan programs that made their way through his territory included not just monsters like King Kong Bundy and Kamala, but big, expressive sellers like Terry Funk and Harley Race. While Cena’s heroics are built on Hulkamania’s foundations, the way he engenders sympathy when he’s working underneath is much closer to Race and Funk with the comedic overtones of their pinballing around the ring inverted such that each of Khali’s lumbering blows feels soul-crushing. He never takes a straight line from a punch or forearm or kick to the mat – standard flat back bumps aren’t dynamic enough. He hits the mat and rolls away from Khali clutching his head, staggers out of the corner and drops to his knees after eating the top turnbuckle, falls onto his ass after punches and headbutts, and full-on emulates Sean Waltman as the 1-2-3 Kid when he’s whipped into them back first. His body language here, and in many of his best performances, is somewhere between Worldstarhiphop knockout videos and New Generation babyface.
It’s masterful work, undercut a bit by the match’s need to end with prop-based spectacle. I forget at which point Attitude Era entryway set stuntwork becomes a trope, but here my issue with it is that the line from the ring to the crane Cena FUs Khali off of is empty concrete, 3/4 of the arena forced to look at the TitanTron while Cena works himself towards the conclusion. Khali isn’t done many favors by the setup, as he’s 100% at his most effective when the hardcam is in play, making his hugeness pop as the roving cameras on the floor follow Cena on the sell.
There are bits of this transition that I like – Cena swinging the boom camera at Khali’s face is nice and meaty, and there’s some off-kilter shots that do a better job of framing Khali as a looming threat, including one where a fan bends over at a 45 degree angle to take a picture of Khali on his FunSaver – but until Khali press slams Cena onto the crane, the crowd brawling is, like most WWE crowd brawling, a tacit admission that the two are at their limit so far as new ideas are concerned, which will be further confirmed when Khali is drafted to SmackDown later in the month. The triumphant finish works better in the ring, but Khali still has some value as a straight monster, and his taking the FU onto an unseen crashpad protects that as much as his tapping out to the STFU with his foot under the ropes did a month earlier, which I’m grateful for: my man still has melons to crush with his bare fucking hands in the future.
Rating: *** & 3/4
I forgot this match even happened. It's not the first example of John Cena coming out of his shell as a wrestler (the Umaga matches I found fantastic), but it's clear to see that he's growing into it a little bit when he gives a passable match against the Great Khali. The five star John Cena that we'll see in 2015 is a long way away here, but perhaps with a 'strength of schedule' adjustment, if we could call it that, putting up a match I don't mind being rated 3.75 against the Great Khali maybe should count as a five star match anyway.
You're right to compare this to Hulk Hogan, as it did feel like a Hulk Hogan match against some miscellaneous monster that you knew wasn't going to be around for too long (i.e. Big John Studd). You were scared Hulk wasn't going to make it through, but at the same time in the back of your mind you knew he was going to make it through. No different with John here. As long as it's well executed (like this was) then there's no problem with that, but it does feel like a stepping stone towards something better.
Nothing better would come for 2007 John Cena, most of it filled with not the most memorable Cena-Orton matches, so something like this does end up feeling a little wasteful in the end, but if we can still look back on it all these years later, perhaps that's not a correct assertion.