WWE and John Cena

I've been watching wrestling on and off for over a decade now but I feel like the past few months of story have been really boring and samey, and as the title may suggest I am blaming it all on John Cena.

It's felt like despite him not being the WWE Champion he has headlined every event since and including Wrestlemania. For events like Wrestlemania I can understand him and The Rock being the main event, but for it to have been billed as being the main event a year in advance and despite two championship matches and the End of an Era Hell in a Cell seems to me very improper. Having the Icon vs Icon match overshadow every other match on the bill before they're even announced just doesn't feel right to me, but I do understand it is the match with arguably the biggest draw, so I understand why Cena is main-eventing Wrestlemania.

What I don't understand is why he has headlined seemingly all other events since Wrestlemania. One fantastic example is why he was the last match on the bill, which to me is the main event, against John Laurinaitis at Over the Limit. I've watched squash matches before; I've seen Goldberg, The Funkasaurus, Brock Lesnar, Ryback and Triple H all destroy opponents in obvious one sided matches, but this match was a whole new level. Not only was it completely unfair having, arguably, the biggest star in WWE now facing a man who doesn't wrestle (any more) - which in itself is utterly boring, but it sent out the wrong message to the WWE Universe.

The WWE cannot honestly expect its 'Be A Star' campaign to work when they bill a wrestler who is adored by kids to literally bully a weaker person in the ring. This wasn't even the regular kind of wrestling bullying, this was traditional school yard bullying; pouring water on him, throwing rubbish at him, putting him in a bin, hurting him so he begs and then doing it again - all whilst laughing and looking at the crowd for encouragement. Way to 'Rise Above Hate' Cena....

That little rant aside John Cena is still very bland to watch simply because the outcomes are so easy to predict. At Money in the Bank I don't honestly believe there was any doubt that Cena would not win. Michael Cole made it abundant that Cena had never participated in a Money in the Bank ladder match, and there were promos illustrating this. No matter how hard people try John Cena is not, and will never again be, an underdog - so putting him in a 'free title shot' match is the long way of saying 'Cena will headline the next PPV for the belt', and like the predictable man he is he used his shot to schedule a match instead of cashing in on a weakened champion.

The point I'm trying to make (whilst enjoying having a moan at Cena) is he is just too predictable to be interesting. I re-watched Wrestlemania XX, ECW One Night Stand 2006 and Summerslam 2011 - all of these matches had Cena in them, but in each match he was the underdog and in each match he was forced by the fans to adapt his style. At Wrestlemania XX he cheated to win the United States Championship, at One Night Stand he fought hardcore (and admittedly, in true Cena style, it took three 'referees' and a spear through a table by Edge for him to lose) and ultimately dropped the belt after almost being boo'd out of the building. Summerslam was another instance where he got boo'd out of the building and only lost due to his own heroic traits (which is again annoying) but he showed that under hostile environments, or when he is actually the underdog he can be interesting and deliver a great match.

Perhaps it may be time for a John Cena heel turn, if he won the belt then maybe he goes all 'ruthless aggression' with it and defends it no matter what; pre-match assaults, DQ victories, getting himself counted out. I doubt this will happen, as it stands he's the best role model in the company, and I'm sure he rakes in an awful lot of money; but The Rock, Austin, Triple H, Undertaker and many others stayed fresh by adapting, or changing, their gimmick or by using tactical face/heel turns.

We can only hope that when The Rock comes back we're graced with a fantastic Rock/Punk feud instead of just dragging out 'that' Wrestlemania XXVIII over the course of a year.

Back from the Dead

After suffering a computer death and lack of funds I've finally got myself up and running again.

Having had some time off I've decided to shift my focus slightly onto more common traits found in fictions, but I still have some petty gripes to moan about with games!

Anyway, with the subject being about coming back from the dead, let's talk zombies! Over the past few years they seem to have resurfaced a lot and become very very popular; there's been numerous films, games, game addons and mods; and we've even seen the X-Men and friends as flesh eating monsters.

My main question about zombies is why have they seemingly changed so much? We've gone from the zombies of Dawn (and Shaun) of the Dead and the original Resident Evil games to having athletic zombies who can make an athlete jealous - like 28 Days Later and Left 4 Dead. I don't understand when this shift happened, but it seems to me that the games and film industry have silently decided that this is the new norm for zombies.

Out of recent memory I can only really think of Dead Rising and Saints Row: The Third have the more shambling zombies. Admittedly in Saints Row the zombies do sprint at points, but to its credit - its a game about gang war, not zombies. I know these games also invite ridiculous weapon play and are quite tongue in cheek as a whole, but it can still be easy to succumb to the shambling hordes, which is still a suggestion that the 'classic' zombie is still deadly and not obsolete - even when you have guns and double chainsaw staffs!

I understand that having a shambling monstrosity isn't the most terrifying thing, but having a corpse, or infected human, being able to perform feats that they could have never ordinarily done in life, or to have them suddenly discover they have phenomenal stamina, strength and endurance doesn't make much sense either, in my opinion. I feel like if you're going to make a zombie such a vicious apex predator then it may as well be any other sort of monster.

It seems to me that Resident Evil could have forced a good transition between say a shuffling zombie merely infected by the T-Virus and a modified Tyrant or whatever, but it seems as this trend has gone on they're the one who are forsaking the term 'zombie' more and more! I played Resident Evil 5 and most of the time the villager's hadn't seemed to have died, and most of the bosses retained their original personalities, and to me that isn't how a zombie works!

I also feel that having a seemingly compulsory zombie mode or Easter egg in certain games feels really.... strange. The Call of Duty Nazi Zombies and subsequent zombie installments would have felt more at home if they were commandos, or terrorists, suicide bombers or an impoverishment militia (to eliminate the argument that the other folk would have guns and wouldn't function as melee only foes).

I hope we see a return of classic zombies, or at least separate tiers of zombies, soon simply because they are a classic fiction and fantasy tradition, and when used in the correct way can seem more fearsome and terrifying than super zombies.Plus I just miss them...