Hidden Highlights 5.28.2012: Cena, Jericho, Ricardo, more

3. John Cena never learns – Remember when I did analysis of the outcomes of two of the big Wrestlemania matches in light of prior history? Well we’re doing it again, this time with John Cena and his loss against Laurinaitis. And again, it plays into his match with CM Punk at last year’s Money in the Bank PPV.

New Cena can get rather cocky and overconfident. We learned that in his match against CM Punk, when he refused McMahon’s help (and also punched out his Over the Limit opponent) and believed that he had the match won. Same thing during his match against the Rock at Wrestlemania, where he began showboating at the end of the match when he believed he had the match won. So last Sunday, when Cena could have won the match at any point, he decided to showboat, and it ended up costing him the match. As of late, Cena’s victories have been a result of “never giving up”, and his losses have been due to his overconfidence. Seems like a pattern to me.

2. Chris Jericho: Ultimate Heel – And no, I’m not referring to the recent Brazilian Flag incident, although I do lik the idea DeMarco brought up about Jericho’s suspension coinciding with his Fozzy tour.

Actually, I am referring to Jericho’s involvement in the 2 on 3 Handicap Lumberjack Match that ended the show. Near the end of the match, Sheamus was thrown to the outside of the ring, and was surrounded by the heel lumberjacks. But, and this is the best part, Chris Jericho was the one who initiated the attack after coming over from the other side of the ring. Jericho also held Sheamus earlier in the match, allowing the heels to gain an advantage.

Special HH shoutout goes to the WWE having the presence of mind to keep Daniel Bryan away from ringside and yet shoving Jinder Mahal out there. I guess they just assume that no one pays enough attention to Mahal that they’d get annoyed at him being at ringside after losing a match less than 5 minutes previous. Also, Kane wasn’t at ringside, solidifying his new role as “guy who isn’t a face or a heel, but just beats people up”.

1. No, but seriously – When did Big Show’s punches start sounding like a gunshot?

2. The veil has been lifted even higher – I still don’t know why TNA continues to do this little “wink wink nudge nudge” thing about TNA being a TV show and not a wrestling show. This week, Hogan basically handed out the script for that night’s episode and said that this was how it was going down. Subtle congratulations are in order for Angle, Ray, and Style arguing semantics with the titles (Kurt having the most singles titles, Ray having the most tag titles, and Styles having the most TNA titles).

Another, smaller highlight: Apparently the people backstage had just changed the input on the tv during Gail Kim’s promo, as it was showing a Video 2 in the upper left corner.

1. Johnny Yuma made an Impact appearance – Ok, I feel at this point that I’m the resident SoCal wrestling fanboy (The AFrame is too far south to count), so of course I was excited that Joey Ryan was bringing his movie-star good looks to Impact’s Gut Check. As a sidebar, Ryan wore his Gut Check t-shirt at this week’s PWG show, where he made mention of the fact that he was trending after his TNA appearance. But one of the highlights here was the fact that all of Joey’s independent footage was against Johnny Yuma in an NWA Hollywood match (which you can find on youtube). Now, Joey Ryan is one of my favorites, so I feel a bit biased for liking this match feature two PWG competitors (also for enjoying seeing Joey’s corner pose on national television). But, as much as Iove the king of sleeze, I don’t want to see one of the founders of PWG go to TNA. Call me selfish.

1. Taking after his employer – I have to give credit to whoever made Ricardo Rodriguez’s Titantron video for his match with Santino. The video contained Ricardo’s name intercut with shots of his old beamer, which is similar to Del Rio’s Titantron, featuring his name and shots of all is expensive cars.

Reader Highlights

Oh hey, we actually had a reader-submission this week, so Yapapi gets the spotlight here, even though he was beaten to the punch by some other readers. But, knowing proper technique when handling drinks is an important talent to have, and should be cherished.

From this week’s Smackdown: Damien Sandow holds the microphone like a glass of fine cognac (note, despite what a friend of mine thinks, that is not how you hold a glass of wine, you hold cognac that way to warm it gently, not what you want to do with wine).

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And with that, the 14th edition of Hidden Highlights v2.0 is in the books. Make sure to send in your reader Highlights so we can return this to being the most reader-inclusive and positive article in the IWC.