Three's a Crowd

I totally understand why Cena and Orton are having a match at the Hell in a Cell PPV. 

If that is confusing and it could be if unaware of the events of last night's episode of Raw.


Dean Ambrose was betrayed by Seth Rollins and, ever since, the two have been feuding on WWE programming. Ambrose's head was driven into cinder blocks (if you believe in acting) and when he reappeared, the announcer's began calling him a "lunatic fringe" which makes me think of Red Rider and Vision Quest each and every time one of the announcers says that phrase. Anyways, at the last PPV, Rollins interfered with John Cena's match with Brock Lesnar, which caused Cena to have an issue with Ambrose. The WWE talked up the idea of Ambrose and Cena forming an alliance to "deal with their issues with Rollins" but in a somewhat surprising move, the two were booked to fight each other at the Hell in a Cell PPV on 10/26 and the winner would fight Rollins.

Those were the events leading up to last night's WWE Raw but, apparently, the writers in WWE Creative Services decided to switch things up a bit. HHH, who I still think is as awesome as a good guy as he is a bad guy, booked a triple threat match of the Uso's, Star & Golddust, and Ambrose / Cena as the participants. He spoke about Cena and Ambrose not getting along and that they couldn't function as tag team partners. This served three purposes. The first is that it made the feud between the Uso's and Star & Golddust a bit more interesting because seeing them battling each other every week is getting stale. The second is not all that long ago, Cena was an ally of the Uso's in their feud against the Wyatt Family (who seem to be about to be reintroduced / repackaged based upon the freaky videos of Bray Wyatt talking). What the announcers should have done is talk that up - the fact that not only does Cena have to tag with Ambrose, he has to fight against the Uso's who were his allies, but they didn't mention that. The third consequence of the triple threat match was to press the issue that Ambrose and Cena don't like each other but had to (somehow) function as tag partners.

I wasn't surprised when Ambrose and Cena won the match. After all, if either of the other two teams won, their feud would then turn into Ambrose and Cena wanting some sort of retribution. What was surprising is that, after winning the match, HHH came out to announce that instead of waiting until the next PPV, Ambrose and Cena would fight tonight to determine who will fight Rollins at Hell in a Cell. In a way it makes sense because it allowed Randy Orton to go up to HHH prior to that match and state that he wanted a match at Hell in a Cell against the loser of Ambrose and Cena. As soon as Orton said that, I knew that Cena and Orton would face each other at Hell in a Cell. I knew that the WWE Creative team had given up on Cena seeking revenge against Rollins and were now going to put Cena in a yet another PPV match with Randy Orton.

Part of me is okay with that because Cena and Orton are adversaries that know each other well. I just entered "how many matches have cena and randy orton had" in Google.com and it took me to this page: http://www.wwe.com/videos/playlists/every-john-cena-randy-orton-match-ever so, obviously, the WWE is aware of their history, which dates back to 2002.

However, the WWE wants to control what its viewers think when packaging John Cena v. Randy Orton. They don't want you to know that they've actually been in 76 matches, dating back to 2001. Their first match was on 7/28/2001 and John Cena was known as The Prototype, which is something not a single one of the WWE announcers has ever mentioned on WWE programming. I only know this because I found a comprehensive listing of their matches.

This is why I adore professional wrestling. There is story, there is action, and it's a soap opera for me. I can't wait until next week's episode!