SCF Tournament, Round of 32 - John Cena vs. Rey Mysterio

[Slyfox696]

The following match is scheduled for one fall. The match is held in Los Angeles, California and is a Round of 32 matchup. All seeds represent overall tournament seeding.

#5 John Cena	vs.	#28 Rey Mysterio

The discussion period will last for two days, followed by two days for voting. You may vote for whomever you feel deserves to win this match. Please post your reasons below if you wish.

[Fallout]

Rey was pretty influential in his role towards bringing both lucha libre and cruiserweight action to a mainstream American audience, and the mask has probably made WWE a fortune over the years.

But he's against Cena, a cultural phenomenon even in perhaps WWE's weakest period in terms of mainstream popularity, outside of maybe the New Generation era (and even then, WCW was a thing.) A man that could perhaps rival Hogan's dominance in the ring, and whose merchandise sales could even surpass Mysterio's impressive resume without the need for something as captivating as a mask. No brainer here.

[Echelon]

John Cena has been one of the best wrestlers in the world for the past 13 years. Rey Mysterio? Not so much. He's long been a novelty act for the WWE that sells truckloads of merchandise. Cena does too. The difference between him and Rey being that WWE can place a world title on Cena for long periods of time, and people will pay money to see him. Not the case with Rey. He's a name that can be used to boost different parts of the card, due to his popularity, but has never been much of a headliner. Cena has been one of the most successful headliners WWE has ever had.

When it comes down to it, Cena has been much more successful and is the better pro wrestler of the two. Voting Cena.

[#AbsoluteUnit]

I dug Rey. His high flying, acrobatic, athletic move set was awesome. He was always a fan favorite and always entertained fans everywhere. He had a pretty solid career in the WWE and always stood out because of the way he moved in the ring. However, Cena gets this one because he is the top guy in the WWE. He's main evented multiple WrestleMania's and has set records throughout his tenure in the WWE. These two easily could've had countless high quality matches throughout both their tenures in the WWE. However, unfortunately, Cena is a 16x World Champion. No matter how many accolades Rey has achieved, Cena wins this one.

v- Cena

[Gazprom]

I love Mysterio, but his last title win was immediately ended by Cena beating him comfortably, and it is a pretty good parable for the difference between these two. Mysterio did everything he could to be a bigger name, but for Cena it was effortless. Whilst Mysterio was the champ on Smackdown and struggling to carve his niche, Cena was swatting all comers away easily. Cena wins this.

[Uncle Sam]

I got into a fight - a bare-chested, bloody-knuckled affair - on another forum when someone said that Rey Mysterio was "almost as bad as John Cena" during Rey's first reign as world heavyweight champion. This person, one assumes, wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a Snickers and a dog turd in a taste test. Perhaps it's true that both were booked as underdogs, but both grated for wildly different reasons. It seemed disingenuous to book Cena as an underdog when it was obvious that he would win regardless - in fact, the more the odds were stacked against him, the likelier he was to win. Rey Mysterio, however, was depicted not only as lucky to win a match (he normally would not but would lose cleanly), but lucky to survive his matches (his clean losses would often be followed by him being beaten to within an inch of his life by his opponent).

That John Cena would hit that Rey Mysterio with a double leg takedown and the match would immediately be ended because of a broken spine and internal hemorrhaging.

But I still prefer Rey Mysterio for the record. And he has also been one of the best wrestlers in the world, not for the last thirteen years, but for the last twenty-three.

[Dave]

I'm not trying to detract from Mysterio's contribution to wrestling or his multiple accomplishments. But in every way, they pale in comparison to Cena's. Like it or not, Cena will likely go on to beat Flair's record of World Championship reigns and write his own place in history. Does he deserve to be that guy? It's debatable. But the fact that we would even have the debate seriously says all you need to know about Cena. He's the face of a generation of wrestling for a reason. Mysterio is a brilliant wrestler and has his longevity is something to behold. But there's no way that Cena doesn't win this.

[Jack-Hammer]

A fun match and one that we've actually seen happen before. It's a fun David vs. Goliath style match with Mysterio's speed and ability vs. Cena's size and strength where Cena ultimately comes out on top.

[Slyfox696]

Rey Mysterio's best work may be underrated (though some of his later work is overrated), but Cena is on the Mount Rushmore of wrestling. Cena wins.