The S.C.O.R.E.: The Frightening Similarities Between John Cena and Tim Tebow

Today is my 26th birthday.  I find no day more fitting to be the birthday of a brand new, trend setting and bar raising column here on The Wrestling Daily.

Welcome, TWDiehards, to the very first edition of the S.C.O.R.E.  The S.C.O.R.E. will be a weekly column here on TWD that will tell you, the wrestling fans, just what the score is in the world of professional wrestling.  This column will also give you a little glimpse at what it’s like to be a TWD administrator.

You see, since we launched this bad boy on a great day back in August, we’ve been receiving all sorts of interesting messages from Internet surfing fans around the globe.

We’ve seen everything from Russian spam to pornographic links and e-mails from politicians running for office in Minnesota.  We’ve even received some negative criticism on a WWE related DVD from a guy who happens to be located in Stamford, Connecticut.  Hmm.

In between checking out fan mail and analyzing wrestling, we’ll also have a few laughs here and there.  With any luck, this column will be just as big, or even bigger, than Beeb-o-mania, the phenomenon that is single handedly ruling TWD with massive read counts.

With any luck, Scott Beeby, aka “The Beeb”, will soon be living it up in a hot tub with his soul mate at his hot palatial estate somewhere near Sydney, Australia, thanks to the phat TWD cash that Beeb-o-mania raked in.  I jest not people.  It has become a mathematical certainty here at TWD:  Beeby = ratings.

Whatever happens with this column, I can safely guarantee you people one thing:  it will be better than the Smackdown recap recently churned out by Ray Bogusz and the Andromeda strain of the unknown virus that recently invaded his body.  The virus, of course, has been fired.  Ray is resting comfortably at home with his trusty box of peyote, angrily yelling at Green Bay Packer and Chicago Blackhawk games despite the fact that the television isn’t even on.

Ladies and gentlemen, the S.C.O.R.E., to borrow a phrase from a certain “Hitman,” is “the best there is, the best there was, and the best there ever will be.”  A handful of others will tell you that they will say what they need to say when they have to, but in reality they are nothing more than clueless, neutered dogs who gossip like the hens on “The View.”

Some others will claim to be “the guy,” while walking around carrying a big baseball bat, only threatening to use it.  The S.C.O.R.E. takes the advice of Roosevelt (speak softly and carry a big stick) to another level.  The S.C.O.R.E. will grab that bat, snap it in half, pick up a sledge hammer and use it, without hesitation, to shatter the status quo and ACTUALLY say something.

While some are off standing around, waiting for famous people to Tweet the absurd and incorrect machinations of their imaginations masked as opinions on Twitter, all the while thinking of what cool, juicy tid-bits to speculate about next, I will be here giving all of you the REAL S.C.O.R.E..  I will burn a Sherman-esque path through their frail, Georgia-esque world.

So with Sherman in mind…well…I think this video will perfectly speak for what comes next.

So what does S.C.O.R.E. mean?  If you will allow me to do the honors:

Side-splitting

Column

Of

Ridiculous

Excellence

That being established, it’s time to pull a letter out of the SCORES of fan mail we receive.

The person who sent us this week’s fan mail of the week was inspired to send us a message after Adam Testa recently published a story about Jesse Ventura’s new television show, “Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura.”

Dear Sir or Madam,

Jesse Ventura is not worth the electricity to watch his show…whatever it is.

He is a bona-fide liar, cheat and phony Navy SEAL.

See the facts about the bum at (my website).

Your truly,

Leslie Davis

P.S. I am available for an interview any time

Leslie Davis
Republican Minnesota Governor Candidate 2010

That’s right ladies and gentlemen.  We here at The Wrestling Daily receive opinionated publicity mail from politicians seeking office in Minnesota.  We have arrived.  I mean, look at that.  He even sent us a posed photograph.  Feel free to send us a rebuttal, Mr.Ventura.  We might even be willing to book a steel cage match under the TWD banner if need be.

The amazing thing is that we got Mr. Davis’s message less than 24 hours after the article was posted.  Message boards and bloggers beware:  Any mention of those four dirty words, Jesse “The Body” Ventura, will send the Ventura Crisis Center at Mr. Davis’s office into full red alert….

“SOUND THE ALARMS!  Someone said Ventura!  Whoops…haha…false alarm…just some kid saying Ace Ventura movies suck…”

Now for the actual reason I am writing today…

You might not see Cena, but Tebow does

I have a confession to make.  I am a Florida State Seminole football fan.  This may not surprise those who may have taken the time to check out my TWD profile at some point during the past, but I am true Garnet and Gold Seminole. As a Seminole fan, I genuinely hate anything and everything related to the Florida Gators, including their incredibly over publicized quarterback Tim Tebow.

Some would say that my hatred for the Gators is nothing more than the biased complaints of a Seminole fan that is forced to deal with the reality that his own team has been mediocre since 2001, while the Gators have won two national championships in the last three years.

All of this is true and I’ll even admit that it is valid.  This indeed sticks in my craw, but I always have felt that my reasons for hating the Florida Gators were good ones.  My one problem is that I haven’t been able to compose a solid, well thought out and logical sounding argument that supports my hatred and destroys the arguments of those who cry bias against me…until now.

So what is the source of my new and completely undefeatable and inarguable case against the Florida Gators?  Oddly enough, it was World Wrestling Entertainment’s presentation of their “Bragging Rights” pay-per-view, an event that prominently featured none other than resident WWE super hero John Cena, that set all of what you are about to read into motion within my overly pensive mind.

First, allow me to make another confession; I hate the fact that John Cena is shoved down my throat every single week by Vince McMahon and his sports entertainment empire.  Every week, Cena comes out cuts promos that try to so hard to make him look like a funny, heroic, and witty super hero that they sound like they should be in a Mighty Ducks movie firing up Coach Gordon Bombay’s team to take down mighty Team Iceland.  Face it people, John Cena’s “I will not quit” rant equals D2’s “Ducks Fly Together” scene.

The Disney-esque approach that WWE uses in marketing and promoting the Cena character to their WWE universe is only the tip of my hatred iceberg when it comes to John Cena.  It never fails that several times a year, we are exposed to radioactively ridiculous in ring psychology during John Cena matches.

Vince McMahon has demonstrated on numerous occasions that he is willing to drop the IQ of his television programming to near rhubarbic levels in order both to make sure that Cena stays over and to promote him as a scrappy fighter who never quits and can overcome all odds to win.

Case in point: during the Bragging Rights pay-per-view, Cena managed to rebound from being apparently electrocuted and nearly blown up by pyrotechnics at the hands of Randy Orton.  That’s the sort of thing you see in comic books; you shouldn’t be seeing that in pro wrestling ring.

I have no problem with suspending my believe when Lex Luthor cooks up some cockamamie and over complicated plan to electrocute and blow up Superman, but when it involves real life human beings, I’m forced to nod my head in disbelief as the children in the front row start panicking and chanting Cena’s name, hoping that he’ll come back to life…as if there were any doubt.

Sadly, Cena’s Batman and Robin like brush with certain doom and rebounding to WIN the match isn’t even the only example of idiotic psychology during the “Bragging Rights” main event.

Cena locked in his STFU submission hold on Orton with the score tied at 5 falls a piece with about 45 seconds left to go in the match.  For some reason, after 59 minutes and 55 seconds of wrestling, Orton TAPPED OUT after fighting the move off for 40 seconds.  What?

That would be like a man, swimming across the Pacific Ocean by himself, swimming thousands and thousands of miles to within 5 feet of the Chinese coastline after starting from San Francisco…and quitting.  Could Randy really not hold on for merely 5 more seconds?  For crying out loud, it’s the frickin’ WWE Championship.

Then again, this shouldn’t surprise me, considering Cena, not long ago, managed to walk under his own power only 24 hours after being choke slammed through a WORKING search light by the Big Show.  This sent sparks flying, and there was a loud explosion.

Logically speaking, Cena should have been crapping glass chards and recovering from severe electrocution and burns in a hospital 24 hours afterward, not interfering in the finish of a match the following night on RAW.  Just another day in the life of an inspiring pro wrestling Superman.

It’s not enough that Cena has even managed to defeat Cody Rhodes and Ted DiBiase on numerous occasions in handicap matches; we have to couple Cena’s push with the sort of psychology and storytelling that a 6-year old uses when playing G.I. Joe or house (like the domestic role playing game, not Dr. Gregory House, which would be a hell of a lot cooler). Not even Hulk Hogan and his ridiculous leg drop of doom was able to defeat Money Incorporated by himself.  Hogan had to get the help of Brutus “The Barber” Beefcake and his shattered face to be able to pull that one off.

Still, people mindlessly eat this stuff up every single week on television and every single month on pay-per-view.  The only interesting thing about watching all of it go down is the fact that Cena manages to polarize just about every crowd he wrestles in front of, with the children and women madly cheering him and the men booing him lustily. That would make for quite an interesting riot.

The Cena hype machine and his legions of loyal fans may never go away, a feeling that I’ve felt on more than one occasion while watching (insert name of network here)’s coverage of the Florida Gators and their quarterback, Tim Tebow.

Tim Tebow, much like John Cena, is the media darling of his trade. Tebow’s praises are routinely sung by just about every broadcast journalist in North America to the point that it induces nausea.  Most media outlets have a habit of taking everything Tim Tebow does, in both his personal and football life, and turning it into the greatest and most inspiring thing that has ever been done by a human being in the history of the planet Earth.

Many quarterbacks talk to their defenses to hype them up and encourage them (I should know, I used to play football), but they aren’t endlessly praised for doing so like Tebow is.  When Tebow dashes over to a defensive huddle to fire up his teammates, it’s played over and over on Sportscenter as if it is the single greatest example of leadership in the history of sports.

When Tebow was injured several weeks ago in a game against the Kentucky Wildcats, the coverage of the event was reminiscent of Pope John Paul II’s death several years ago, when media outlets provided hourly updates on the condition of the Pope.

On game day against LSU two weeks later, a reporter actually stood outside of the team hotel in much the same way reporters stood outside the Vatican, waiting for some sort of word on the Pope.  When word came down that Tebow would be playing that night, the Gator faithful became a jubilant band of merry men and women once again, frolicking about without a doubt in their mind that they would win with Tebow under center.  Even the reporter outside the hotel, whose name I cannot remember, looked happy.

The whole thing was turned into the sort of storyline that would be written for John Cena on WWE television. Tim Tebow’s “searchlight” was the knee of his own teammate that he was shoved into head first by a Kentucky player.

In nothing less than inspiring and galvanizing fashion, Tebow scraped himself up off the ground and not only lead, but WILLED, his team to victory over LSU, the first time the school had lost a night game at home in Death Valley for years.  In my mind, I can see Big Show choke slamming Cena through a working search light and living to fight back merely 24 hours later.

Upon close inspection and extensive investigation, I have learned that the root of my intense hatred for Tim Tebow and John Cena comes from the fact that either man is a bi-product of a business desperately searching for the next great hero, a search that is supported and egged on by incredibly gullible or ignorant fans.

Even more frightening, or more annoying, is just how much Tebow and Cena have in common with each other.  The similarities are absolutely staggering and, in my view, explain my hatred for both men and just about everything in the world of the Florida Gators and sports entertainment.  Take a look and be amazed:

• John Cena utilizes a move formerly known as the “FU”.  Tim Tebow attends a school known by many as “UF”.
• John Cena and Tim Tebow both have highly annoying military style haircuts.
• Tim Tebow wills himself and his teammates to victory, no matter the odds.  John Cena (or should I say the creative team?) somehow wills himself to victory, no matter how ridiculously enormous the odds against him may seem to be, at the expense of the talent around him.
• Tim Tebow goes on charity missions to Africa to circumcise children.  John Cena has been to Africa on a number of occasions for WWE shows and charity missions.  Whether he has circumcised children is not known, but up for hilarious debate.
• John Cena has the “Cenation.”  Tim Tebow has the “Gator Nation.”
• John Cena raises his hands into the air and flashes the “Wordlife” W.  Tim Tebow just gets W’s.
• John Cena is good for PR and is viewed as a strong ambassador for the WWE.  Many would even call him the model employee and superstar.  Tim Tebow is good for PR, is viewed a superior leader and many view him as a model football player, human being, and future husband for their daughters.
• John Cena has legions of fans that wave their hands in front of their faces (YOU CANT SEE ME!!!).  Tim Tebow has legions of fans who vertically clap their hands together in a ritual many of them call “The Gator Chomp.”

At the heart of all of this are the fans that support the Gators and Cena in a fit of either dedication or outright insanity.  The fervor has created some awfully peculiar traditions that leave me scratching my head while simultaneously affirming for me that my hatred for the Gators and Cena is valid.

Take the aforementioned Gator Chomp for example.  When one really takes a deeper look at what is going on when that trademark is executed in the stands each and every game (and sometimes on the field by the players), it is easy to see just why it is that those who hate the Gators hate them so much.

Aside from the fact that fans look like brain dead walruses begging their keepers for fish while doing it, fans are also mathematically indicating that each and every single thing opposite of them, including their opponents, are greater than they are (< or >).

The next time you see some Gator Fan talking trash about your team while doing the Gator Chomp, thank them for their kindness in telling you that you are greater than they are.  How could you not be, right?  You aren’t a Gator Fan.  Not to mention, it’s a mathematical certainty.

The Gators also have some damn strange chants at football games.  It doesn’t get much stranger than Cena and his fans yelling “You can’t see me” when you can, in fact, see them, but the “Gator Bait” chant easily exceeds that in not only weirdness, but outright stupidity.

During games, the Gator band will play some sequence of music that will prompt the fans to yell at the top of their lungs “GATOR BAIT!”

What?  Huh?  Why are you chanting about something that is used to catch a Gator?  Many will answer “cuz if you ain’t a Gator, you’re GATOR BAIT!”  Ok, so I still catch you and you end up dead in that scenario.  I don’t see where you come out ahead in this deal, Gator fans.  You still fell for the trap, and you’re still going to end up mounted on someone’s wall.  How are you proving your superiority here?

The Gator band also steals music, as it frequently uses the theme from the hit Spielberg film “Jaws” during the games to rile up the fans. You know, because Gators have large and powerful jaws.  Watch out people, a Gator fan could sneak up on you at any moment, pop up out of nowhere and mathematically indicate that you are greater than they are and then accuse you of being the thing that will lure them into a trap.  Genius.  And Gator fans actually brag to anyone who will listen about their school being a finer academic institution than any other than the state of Florida.  A simple look at their game day traditions suggests otherwise.

It’s no wonder I hate the Florida Gators so much.  Ask any real Seminole fan who they hate more, UF or Miami, and they’ll tell you UF.  Given the overwhelming arrogance of many Miami fans, it would make sense to think that FSU fans hate Miami more, but for some reason, Gator fans tend to piss off Seminole fans the most.  I never really understood why that was though, until I watched John Cena one day on television.

Cena and Tebow might as well be twin brothers, given the number of eerie similarities the two icons share, not to mention the fact that Cena is endlessly pushed by his promoter while Tebow is endlessly pushed by the media.

I’m still, to this day, trying to figure out what it is that I’m not seeing, according to the claims of John Cena and his fans.  I’m also trying to figure out what that guy is saying at the beginning of his entrance theme, you know, right before the music really kicks in.  I tend to think that whoever it is, is yelling “APPLE JUICE!” but I really can’t tell.

Given the demographic that Cena targets (children ages 4-11 years), it makes sense, since apple juice is often a popular drink amongst that group.  If you know what that guy is saying, comment below, and feel free to be as hilarious as possible.

So there you have it. This is my completely undefeatable and unarguable case against John Cena, Tim Tebow, and the Florida Gators.  I can only hope that my writing of this column will not lead to a nightmarish fusion of John Cena and Tim Tebow.  Jim Cebow might be the most perfectly annoying and overly hyped athlete in the history of mankind.

The only thing worse than that would be Tim Tebow hosting a future episode of RAW, though I think that might be an NCAA rules violation.

Actually, even worse than any of that…John Cena and Tim Tebow, future World Tag Team Champions.  Ew.

Until next time, you know the S.C.O.R.E….

-JLB-

Disclaimer:The opinions expressed within this column are solely those of Jason Le Blanc and, unless otherwise indicated, do not reflect the views, opinions, and beliefs of The Wrestling Daily.  Any complaints should be made directly to the man, Jason Le Blanc himself.

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