John Cena's 50 Greatest Matches...?

[FedEx227]

He tends to factor a lot of the crowd reaction too which is always (or at least use to) be pretty huge for big WWE main events.

[Warner2BruceTD]

I have a bunch of old Observers from the 80's & 90's, and its funny because Dave was such a mark when he was younger. When he was in his 20's, he loved Flair, NWA, and Riki Choshu, and HATED the WWF with a passion and would rip them mercilessly. He was a pretty shitty writer in those days, but the opinions were far less filtered and he spent more time on stuff like workrate. He used to do an annual ranking of the best workers in the business, which after doing my similar list, I can see why he stopped. But he never does stuff like that anynore.

Anyway, the most famous example of his WWF hate was the Hogan/Andre match from WMIII, which he absolutely destroyed and gave something like -*** stars. Years later he changed the rating to *3/4 or something. But NWA mark 20's Meltzer was a lot of fun, with his goofy nicknames like Anabolic Warrior & Junkfood Dog. So unprofessional, so awesome.

[FedEx227]

His Sid softball jabs almost never get old.

[LiquidLarry2GhostWF]

I've always though Big Dave was way too generous when it came to WWE main events. And this is coming from someone who thinks Cena is underrated and takes too much shit from the hardcores.

Granted, i'm not the biggest fan of the WWE "big match" style, but it seems like Meltzer grades on a WWE curve sometimes, whether intentional or not. He used to give classic, and I mean classic, Flair vs Windham matches or vintage All Japan stuff ****, which were fair grades, and i'm supposed to believe some of these Cena vs Batista or Orton matches are on that level? No.

WWE main event stuff SHOULD be graded on a curve...

WWE style is so different from stuff on any other level, it needs to be...the more I'm in front of a WWE crowd, the more I realize how difficult it is...you aren't just projecting to the guys in the first 20 rows, you gotta hit the guys in the nosebleeds and the guys at home. It may not be my favorite cup of tea, but I do understand why A) lots of it sucks and B) the very best gets elevated.

The classic definition of workrate kind of gets shakey when you are dealing with performing in crowds of tens of thousands.