John Cena vs. Randy Orton || ***3/4
Did the Pittsburgh crowd shit on this match or what?
I get it guys – you don't want to see John Cena vs. Randy Orton. I don't blame you. Let's forget about the fact that they actually worked a pretty good match. Lets forget that Cena played off some of the chants, like going for the Walls of Jericho after a "Y2J" chant. Let's forget that Orton played off them perfectly, soaking in the hate and personifying what a heel should be. I mean, technically a real heel should have loads of heat from doing bad things to good people, but I'll take striking a pose after a "we want Divas" chant too. People just didn't want to see the match, so they ignored the guys in the ring and had a little fun.
At home, I was more annoyed at the crowd than I was at the PPV booking. I like Orton and Cena. I like them together, individually, whatever. I would love for them to have a more compelling story, but that's true of 98% of WWE's booking in the last few years. This match was actually one of their better attempts; probably more entertaining overall than the TLC contest last month, although I genuinely liked that one too. Cena pulled out some newer moves, like a jumping neckbreaker reversal and spinning DDT, proving he can shake things up when necessary. They both traded finishes, which is an incredibly rare happening in wrestling and one of my favorite treats when it actually occurs. I popped pretty loud for Orton's STF, and even louder for the Attitude Adjustment.
You can tell these guys are pro, even if you don't want to admit it, because they brought the crowd in for the last few minutes. Eventually they did stop chanting for Kurt Angle, Randy Savage and Chris Jericho. Eventually the story in the ring was good enough to make people forget they didnt' care in the first place. Which begs the question, if they just stopped being so jaded to begin win, wouldn't everyone have enjoyed the match as much as I did? An obligatory ref bump led to half a dozen near-falls, the trading finishers, and then finally interference from the Wyatt Family. I know some of you saw that coming, but I was genuinely taken by surprise. Prior to Bray winning against Bryan, I don't know that I would have cared. Now I'm more or less ready to see how things play out between the Wyatt Family and the WWE's franchise player.
Good match. Much better than people will give them credit for.
