100 Worst WWE Matches - 19 - John Cena vs. John Laurinaitis
Over the Limit 2012
After some recent posts, a good buddy of mine on the Discord has mentioned that “it’s hard to believe there’s still worse matches than this”. With this match ending up at number 19, I hope the realisation sets in just how putrid things are about to get.
These two were perhaps two of the most insufferable characters ever put to WWE television. We’ll start with John Cena, who dominated the programming in 2012 without ever holding the WWE Championship. It wasn’t just the fact that John Cena was main eventing pay-per-views, but also dominating TV, and being generally one of the most obnoxious characters on week-to-week television. Despite never holding the main title at any point in the year, Cena would somehow main event 10 out of 12 PPVs - the two exceptions being the Royal Rumble, and Hell in a Cell (where he was scheduled to main event until an injury sidelined him). Some of these, such as Wrestlemania 28 against The Rock or Extreme Rules against Brock Lesnar, were justified. As were the shows where he would challenge for the WWE Championship in the later half of the year. Then there were the other choices. Main eventing the Elimination Chamber pay-per-view … in an Ambulance match against Kane? Main eventing No Way Out in a non-title match against the Big Show?
While they were of course ridiculed and increased resentment towards Cena’s dominance within the company, none received quite the level of justified vilification as the choice to have this match main event the Over the Limit pay-per-view.
John Laurinaitis, on the other hand, has a legitimate argument to being the worst regular character ever featured in such a prominent position in WWE. Laurinaitis’ reign as Raw GM started, somehow, as a result of the CM Punk pipebomb promo (long story, please don’t ask). That led to a CM Punk versus Laurinaitis feud which never truly got an ending because John Cena came along and stole that. Yes, I fully recognise this match shouldn’t have happened in the first place, but if something like this was to happen then surely CM Punk was the guy to do it.
One month earlier, John Cena needlessly defeated Brock Lesnar in Lesnar’s return match. The result was a controversial one and many would argue hurt Lesnar’s credibility in a way that it took him ending the Undertaker’s Streak for him to truly feel special again. Anyway, that was a wonderfully brutal match, and in the immediate aftermath Cena teased that he would be going away for a bit. This was almost instantly retconned in order for him to step into this feud. Heaven forbid we have a few weeks without John Cena on TV, we absolutely had to get the John Laurinaitis match in.
Laurinatis’ run was one of those ridiculous time periods where WWE would constantly tell you how terrible the product was with him around. I can’t believe I’ve had to make this point multiple times in this series. The babyfaces would mock him, often criticising him for being boring (true), and a horrible, horrible talker (also true). It was a joke that went too far - he was basically being ribbed for being such a terrible personality, but somehow that spiralled into a damn near year long run as an on-screen authority figure across both brands. He was sent out to cut long promos every week, despite the fact that WWE publicly acknowledged he was an all time atrocious talker. He was a joke, and all of us were the punchline.
Naturally, you can’t be an authority figure in WWE without getting into feuds with the top babyface - so for the millionth time WWE were trying to rehash Stone Cold and Vince McMahon. Of course, the idea of John Cena and John Laurinaitis is so far removed from Austin and Vince, it might as well be in a different universe. Cena and Laurinaitis were two obnoxious characters trying to recreate the magic of two men far more interesting than they are, for an audience that was far more receptive to what they were trying to achieve. Hell, this shit isn’t even John Cena vs Eric Bischoff.
WWE began teasing that John Laurinaitis would be fired for doing such an awful job in January before the Royal Rumble. This pay-per-view took place in May. He’d already had two matches (Royal Rumble and Wrestlemania) where if he either lost or abused his power he’d be dismissed. He had been repeatedly threatened to be fired by Triple H. Somehow, they milked this storyline for every drop of shit they possibly could. We’re now here at Over the Limit, where if John Laurinaitis loses he is fired. If anyone interferes on Laurinaitis’ behalf, they’ll be immediately fired.
In an attempt to make this have a shocking conclusion, they stacked the deck against Laurinaitis. No special referee, he can’t change the rules, nobody can interfere on his behalf. All of this is designed so that when Big Johnny does win, we’re all supposed to be surprised by it. As well as give away that there will still be some inevitable bullshit that leads to Laurinaitis’ victory, it also means that they can’t do anything imaginative with the match. There can be no drama because there’s no reason to expect any unpredictable happenings throughout.
To give an example why the stipulation fails, consider that all the best Vince McMahon matches are overflowing with absolute overbooked bullshit because it is the only thing that can credibly make him a threat to the other star. By specifically outlining all the loopholes Johnny can no longer utilise, they take that away completely. What that leads to is 17 minutes of Cena basically squashing Laurinaitis, cutting promos, and making unfunny jokes.
The reason this match is on this list and so high is pretty self-explanatory to anyone that has watched it. Therefore, allow me to say this. If this was shorter, and not in the main event of the pay-per-view, this may have still ended up on the list, but it wouldn’t be close to a top 20 spot. The fact that they stretched this out to 17 minutes in the main event of a pay-per-view is the frustrating aspect which drives this up the list and why this match lives in infamy. It is why many would consider putting this in their top 10, and I wouldn’t blame them. Especially in the context that this card also has a wonderful Daniel Bryan versus CM Punk contest, as well as a separate fatal-four-way World Heavyweight Championship match.
The match is, for all intents and purposes, a pure comedy match. It isn’t meant to be taken seriously (therefore begging the question why it would be in the main event spot over either world championship match). Therefore the few sociopaths that enjoy this are probably the sort that love this era of John Cena’s humour.
I am not that man.
Michael Cole is insufferable on commentary here. He’s in this weird middle ground where they’ve seriously pulled back on his overbearing heel commentator role, but they’d still put him back into that heel role when they felt it necessary. Here he’s sort of trying to walk the line between being a suck up to John Laurinaitis and being in on the joke, and he’s failing miserably. Booker and Lawler as the babyfaces are naturally killing themselves laughing at the match. They are treating this like the pinnacle of comedy, like nothing has ever been or will ever be so funny. Cole is so bad at trying to support Laurinaitis, you can hear him laughing in between his words. The commentary in general is the closest thing you’ll ever get to a laugh track in wrestling - only thing it needs now is Jeb Bush saying “please laugh”.
Speaking of commentary, there’s a spot where Cena puts Laurinaitis at the commentary table and starts pretending to be Michael Cole and Booker T. That is actually funny, and as a fair man I will acknowledge this as the lone bit of enjoyment I got from this otherwise miserable, unfunny affair.
I think back to a member called Cyrus Truth on the forum, and his tremendous thread of why John Cena is the worst person in wrestling history. When John Laurinaitis takes off his tracksuit to reveal a perfectly normal 50-year-old male physique, only for John Cena to start laughing hysterically, I can’t help but be reminded of that. At a certain point this doesn’t feel cathartic that the heel is getting his comeuppance. By extending this as long as they did, it just feels like Cena is bullying this non-wrestler.
Cena grabs a microphone and threatens to put Laurinaitis in the STFU, and challenges him to last for 10 seconds. Now if this were the end of the match - bearing in mind this is taking place around 3 minutes into the match - then this would be a suitable place to end this. It would be bad, but limited, and wouldn’t outstay its welcome. The sickos that enjoy this would still get their few minutes of comedy, and the rest of us will get to enjoy our lives knowing we didn’t have to watch 15 more minutes of this.
Laurinaitis, shockingly, survives the 10 seconds. Cena decides to put it on again for another 10 seconds - and Laurinaitis survives again! Well, he did go toe-to-toe with Mitsuharu Misawa, after all.
Now the match officially enters that overstaying its welcome territory. This match starts to go through a checklist of all the cliched slapstick WWE comedy spots. They follow up the STFU spot with Cena pouring water on Laurinaitis and down his pants. Cena gets a fire extinguisher and starts making exaggerated facial expressions while he teases Big Johnny. There’s a spot where Cena pours garbage onto Laurinaitis, and the commentary team are practically shitting and pissing themselves in laughter at the hilarity of it.
One thing I’m grateful for in modern wrestling is the crowds. The PG era from 2009-2012 was filled with mediocre, lifeless crowds that just kind of sat on their hands and didn’t react to much other than a “Lets Go Cena”, “Cena sucks” chant. It warms my heart that this sort of match couldn’t survive today without being mercilessly berated by the fans.
After a brief bit of offence, Laurinaitis finally gets away after multiple attempts. The ending sees Big Show - who had previously been fired by Laurinaitis - drag Big Johnny back to the ring. He teases a chokeslam to Laurinaitis. John Cena - carrying on from the theme of the previous match - is the dumbest fucker on earth and is the only person in the whole world that doesn’t see the turn coming. See, it’s genius because Big Show can’t be fired because he’s already fired. Who could have possibly seen this coming?
Well the answer is everyone with half a functioning brain. This interference and turn was so hilariously transparent, I remember practically everyone predicting it on the forum. Go back and read any preview for this show, and I would wager the author will have predicted this same outcome. This is braindead writing for braindead folk. Cena and Big Show would have a match (in the main event of a pay-per-view of course) the following month and once again Laurinaitis’ job would be on the line. This would be the actual end of Laurinaitis, a failed experiment and joke that we are all worse off for living through.
Up Next - Would it surprise you if I told you we haven’t even seen the worst of 2012 John Cena yet?
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This match is really quite terrible, but, it kinda says something that I think it's not even the worst Over the Limit I Quit Main Event Featuring John Cena Doing Bad Comedy. I wonder if the Miz one will be on here, I remember reading a really (understandably) harsh review on it on the forum.