Hiya!

Last Saturday was an end of an era. That’s because, during Saturday Night’s Main Event, John Cena wrestled his last professional wrestling match… allegedly. I think I’m legally obligated to say “allegedly” because, in the realm of professional wrestling and the WWE in general, nothing can be labelled “forever.” I’m pretty sure John Cena believes he’ll never return to in-ring action but you never know when a certain prince from an oil-rich country will drop by with a couple of truckloads of cash and ask him for “one more match.” Heck, I’m betting he’s getting people to shovel all that money into a couple of truck right now!

Nevertheless, as of right now, officially, Saturday Night’s Main event will be known as John Cena’s swan song in the WWE. He had a real barnburner against GUNTHER and, to a lot of fans’ surprise, GUNTHER actually won! They fully expected John Cena to get the victory for his last match and ride off into the sunset with one final notch in his win column before calling it quits.

That didn’t happen. Now, they’re upset.

They were so upset, in fact, they kind of spoiled John Cena’s final moments in the WWE for me. After the match, a lot of the top WWE Superstars like the current top dogs in the company, Cody Rhodes and CM Punk, handed them their Championship belts to him to hold for one more time. Practically the entire locker room emptied out to cheer for the departing Doctor of Thuganomics.

Everything was fine and dandy… until Triple H entered the ring. The fans in the stadium immediately let him know they didn’t like how John Cena’s final match turned out. Then again, it could be they didn’t like how Triple H handled John Cena’s entire retirement tour run. If it were that, I would understand but I’m betting it’s mostly because they wanted John Cena to get his hand raised one final time.

Me? I guess I’m built a little different from a lot of current WWE and wrestling fans. I personally was totally onboard with John Cena losing his last match ever. I am, however, still pretty upset with the match. Not because of the result but how we got arrived at that very result.

First off, I fully expected John Cena to lose to GUNTHER. I would even say I would have been surprised if he beat The Ring General. That’s because I do have a little knowledge about wrestling history. History usually has the wrestler retiring doing the job to the person he or she is fighting during their last match. There’s a bit of logic to be followed here. For one, the person retiring isn’t going to be wrestling anymore. So, why have them win? Just to give them one final good feeling moment for the fans? That’s not long-term thinking! The fans will be happy for a while and then move on. They’re also not going to be promoting the retiring wrestler because, you know, they’re retiring.

So, the focus should be allowing the person facing off against the retiring wrester to get a huge push by beating the retiring wrestler. You give them instant heat and it’s not temporary heat. No, it can lead to pure hatred towards this person! Weirdly enough, the best example for this is, well, with what’s happening right now with GUNTHER! There is a clip floating around regarding how the WWE had to get extra security for GUNTHER as he left Saturday Night’s Main Event because of what some fans may do to him outside. Sure, this can be dangerous… but these are the same guys who should know “wrestling is fake,” right? Why are they taking this so seriously then?

You can bet GUNTHER will be getting both some monster heat from the fans as well as a monster push from the WWE. They were already yelling expletives at him during the match! What do you think their reaction was on RAW now that he beat him? Having him beat John Cena on his last match ever not only shows he’s a force to be contended with, he’s also the biggest heel on the roster. I mean, he beat John Cena! We should all hate him for… wanting to win in a wrestling match? Yeah, logically, it doesn’t really make a lot of sense if wrestling were real. Of course GUNTHER wanted to beat John Cena! Still, he beat their hero. Boo! BOO!

So, I wasn’t stunned when I found out GUNTHER beat John Cena. I am stunned, however, with how he beat John Cena. I’m not even complaining about the match as a whole. John Cena and GUNTHER pulled off a good match in general. Okay, maybe not the best as I felt GUNTHER was dominated too much for the majority of it. Still, it worked to really get people behind John Cena, which was the point.

Then we get to the finish. John Cena had taken a beating but he also managed to hit GUNTHER with several Attitude Adjustment slams, his finishing move. He even hit one through the announcer’s table and another from the second turnbuckle! Still, even after all that, GUNTHER still got the upper hand and locked in a sleeper hold sequence just shy of 5 minutes. Yes, I timed it. After all that time, John Cena… tapped out?

This may sound weird but I’m actually okay with John Cena tapping out on his last match and that’s precisely what happened. My problem is he tapped out to a sleeper hold.

To explain why this really irked me is to look at what the sleeper hold is in the world of professional wrestling. It’s technically a rear naked chokehold or, at least, a variation of the move. The real move name is deceptive as you’re not actually choking out the guy. You’re not depriving them of oxygen by cutting off their breathing.

Instead, what you’re doing is stopping blood flow to the brain and slowly depriving that organ of oxygen, leading them to pass out. It’s a dangerous move in real life as it can lead to brain damage if it’s held on for too long. It’s also, at the very least, very uncomfortable, which makes sense as you’re applying great pressure to very specific spots on the neck area.

However, a sleeper hold, while it kayfabe works in the same way as a rear naked choke, is not painful. No, in professional wrestling, when one locks in a sleeper hold on their opponent, they just slowly go night-night. So, why the heck would John Cena tap out this move? I mean, out of all the “submission holds” he would have to tap out to, it had to be the sleeper hold, one of the least painful holds in all of professional wrestling?

I would have been totally okay if John Cena passed out after that long sequence of being in a sleeper hold. That would have been great even! Having him tap out to a sleeper hold just didn’t make a lot of sense to me! I do understand this is GUNTHER’s main “submission hold” and he’ll also get to say he made John Cena tap out for a very long time. Still, really? A sleeper hold? Ugh!

Unlike a lot of WWE fans right now, I’m not upset with Triple H. I understand having GUNTHER getting John Cena to tap out, especially on his final match, is actually going to be a good thing. It gives GUNTHER monstrous heat and makes him a huge threat to everyone, especially CM Punk, who holds the top belt on RAW. If they just had John Cena pass out, that would have made this almost perfect.

Byee!

What did you think of John Cena’s last match? Are you okay with the result and the finish? Let me know in the comments section below!