Dispatches from the Lake: 1476 and Counting

That's enough, John Photo Credit: WWE.com

I really don’t know why I allow myself to get all bent out of shape about this stuff. I really don’t. Granted, I was expecting John Cena to walk out of Night of Champions with the title, so it could have been worse. But I don’t get it. I don’t get why you would build a monster like Brock Lesnar, a man who’s last run in the WWE has been nothing short of dominant, only to have him need to be saved from losing after taking Cena’s finisher for the fourth time in the match after he no sold it during their last match.

Why?

WHY?!?!?!

For a moment there, the WWE had done something admirable. It is my sincerely held belief that as soon as Lesnar returned to the company, he should not have lost a match. The powers that be seemed to fix that this year, with Lesnar decimating the Big Show at the Royal Rumble, defeating the Undertaker at WrestleMania, and then winning the WWE World Heavyweight Championship from Cena in decisive fashion at SummerSlam. He was a monster. A god king of the wrestling world. Who could stop him? Who would dare step up to challenge him? There were seemingly endless scenarios. Whoever stepped to Lesnar and beat him clean would become the next great superstar.

So, why the hell should Cena be the one to conquer that mountain?

According to Cagematch.net, Cena has wrestled in 1884 matches (including house shows and dark matches). Of those matches, he has won 1476 of them. That’s a 78.3% win percentage. Hulk Hogan’s win percentage is 76.3% just for comparison’s sake. In 2014, it is impossible to make Cena look weak. No man, woman, or child watching WWE programming thinks that he is, and none of them will stop buying his merchandise just because he loses a match. At this point in his career, loses mean nothing to someone with the winning ways of John Cena.

I will concede that a good portion of the match looked like their SummerSlam outing with Lesnar standing tall over a prone Cena. But what changed in the time since then? We didn’t see any vignettes of Cena training up for the match. He just came out a few times, delivered his same old spiel, and made Bray Wyatt look as ineffectual as Kane a few weeks ago.

This match should have looked the same as their last match. Brock Lesnar should only need the superior advocating skills of Paul Heyman to help him win matches until the next chosen one is selected from the field. Cena is the current chosen one. He can’t be the next one too.

I will never understand is there this desperate need to protect Cena. Why can’t he show even the slightest hint of vulnerability or growth of character? Nope! We can't have any of that! Cena is only allowed one clean loss a year, and he already had that last month. So now, I get to worry for another month about the WWE ruining the best star making opportunity they’ve had in years.

On second thought, screw worrying about the WWE. Chikara deserves my undivided love and attention, for King of Trios was this weekend. I don’t know about you, but I’ll be watching that tomorrow night instead of Raw. Listening to Cena promo #126 is the last thing I need to hear.