84.
New York City Parking Lot Brawl
JBL vs. John Cena
Great American Bash 2008
Ah, the infamous JBL is Poopy feud. In the midst of a quite horrible 2008 return, JBL renewed his rivalry with John Cena stemming back from 2005. JBL’s 2008 return was pretty awful on the whole, and would only get worse and worse as the year wore on. Despite this, he imposed himself on the Raw main event scene for the majority of the year, mostly as the most credible heel who could actually give CM Punk a much needed victory through the summer.
John Cena and JBL did have a phenomenal match in 2005 in their I Quit match. And people have always had fond memories of the John Cena vs Eddie Guerrero parking lot brawl from 2003, so you’d be forgiven for having some optimism for this match.
However, this match - and the aforementioned JBL is Poopy feud - is symptomatic of its time, and the difficult transition WWE was in the middle of making. One of the iconic images of their 2005 I Quit match is the incredible blade job by John Cena, which added a layer of violence to the match. However, in the summer of 2008 WWE was making a transition to a new PG focused era which would create a sharp change in both storylines and wrestling style, particularly in a seemingly big blood feud. Interestingly, this show features the last confirmed intentional blade job in WWE (Shawn Michaels vs Chris Jericho). After this, blading was banned from WWE. Correct me if I’m wrong, but all subsequent instances of blood have been hard way, or at least that is what WWE have claimed in instances such as Brock vs Roman, Brock vs Undertaker Hell in a Cell and, infamously, Brock vs Orton.
This is all to say that tone is the biggest issue concerning this match. It’s a feud featuring “JBL is Poopy” but this match features multiple attempts on a competitor’s life. They are literally trying to murder one another, but blood is too far for the match, and nobody seems to treat these ridiculous over the top spots with any weight. Is this a blood feud, or is it a joke?
The first thing that stands out when putting this match on is the lack of commentary during the parking lot segment. We’ll see this in future entries, but matches without commentary are difficult to watch unless you’ve got extraordinary circumstances like a raucous crowd. It just makes the match uncomfortable to watch. There’s a reason movies have soundtracks, and sports have commentary. Because shockingly, watching two people do stuff with only natural sound effects is extremely boring especially in this case where neither are the most compelling wrestler. If this had commentary, I probably wouldn’t even consider putting it on the list. I’m assuming this was a design choice because the match is clearly pre-recorded, at least in some portions. I think that’s a weak argument because it would be easy to implement commentary, but it’s the only justification I can think of.
To kick off the match, John Cena ambushes JBL and tries to run him down immediately. Cena then channels his inner Kane by electrocuting JBL’s balls with jumper cables. This is where you start to feel the vacancy left by commentary. The Kane and Shane McMahon spot only worked because you had JR on commentary screaming about how barbaric it was. Whereas here, it’s not even in the top 3 most ridiculous spots, and there’s no commentary to complement it.
In a second attempted murder Cena launches a keg at JBL full force, only for JBL (with the aid of a convenient camera cut) to move out of the way. WWE’s editing of this match was not good at all. When watching it, it feels like one of those cinematic covid matches that didn’t hit the spot.
The spots between the attempted murder feature the two men with some weak trash talk; heavy breathing; listening to the ref constantly asking them if they want to quit; and bumping around the cars like it’s a 1999 WCW Hardcore title match. Speaking of the referee, this is another overly concerned referee who constantly tells the competitors that they’re taking it too far. This is one situation where commentary is desperately missed, because they should be going apoplectic on commentary when we see attempted murder number 3. The poor referee has to do the job that the commentators should be doing by talking about how barbaric this is.
JBL takes out a gas canister and douses a car in gasoline with Cena locked inside. Thankfully there’s crew members on hand to put out the fire, and after another convenient camera cut, Cena is seen exiting the now extinguished car and is back after JBL. Cena, not content with the attempt on his own life, tries to one-up JBL by trying to impale him with a forklift, before taking JBL out to the stage. The commentary team is now awake, ending the uncomfortable silence and the conclusion of the match feels more like a traditional falls count anywhere match.
To go along with the weird tone to the match, Cole and Lawler are commentating the match as if we haven’t just seen a violent attempted murder. Hell, after nearly being set on fire, Cena is laughing at various points. Eventually JBL throws Cena off the stage into the windshield of a car. That’s enough to give Bradshaw the win, and another loss in a year seemingly filled with them for John Cena. Tonally, this match is a total mess, and despite the ridiculousness of the spots that make it “entertaining crap”, there’s too many problems to not include this on the list.
Up next - we go back to the start of the 90s for another traditional Survivor Series match.
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