WWE Botch of the Week: Giving Lord Tensai Help to Beat John Cena

It’s obvious that the WWE is looking to turn Lord Tensai into something big. 

He received the standard “Hey, you’re a big, unstoppable heel, so we’re going to give you squash matches” treatment upon his debut/return two weeks ago, destroying Alex Riley and then Yoshi Tatsu in his first two matches, respectively. 

Thus, I expected to see another squash match for Lord Tensai on last night’s episode of Monday Night Raw, but in a shocker, he was announced as the surprise opponent for John Cena in the main event Extreme Rules Match. 

As soon as Tensai was announced as Cena’s opponent, I questioned the booking decision for a number of reasons. 

For starters, why give this match away when it could potentially be a lengthy feud in the near future? Also, why book two guys who can’t afford a loss right now against each other? 

Yet, for some reason (perhaps to get Tensai over as a main event caliber wrestler, I guess), the WWE decided to have Tensai take on Cena in Raw’s main event. 

Had it been a clean win for Tensai, I probably wouldn’t be complaining. Of course, that wasn’t the case. 

The Extreme Rules stipulation, obviously done to encourage outside interference, did just that. During the course of the match, both Sakamato and David Otunga interfered on Tensai’s behalf and helped Tensai get the win over Cena. 

How many times we have we seen something like this before, where it takes multiple men to cause Cena to lose? 

I get that the WWE wants to protect Cena, especially after that WrestleMania 28 loss to The Rock, but the creative team has to realize that protecting Cena on last night’s Raw ultimately made Lord Tensai look bad. 

Tensai is—to steal a phrase from Brock Lesnar—supposed to be an ass-kicker. Yet, he needed the help of two other guys to get a win over Cena. 

That does nothing for Tensai. 

This guy just destroyed Riley and Tatsu in two-minute matches and forced the referee to call for the bell on both occasions, but he couldn’t beat Cena in 10 minutes without someone else’s help. 

That’s weak.

Note: As part of the new WWE blog, I'll be asking all of the B/R wrestling readers for questions for a new mailbag that I will post on Fridays. It will be a slideshow featuring 10-to-20 questions and answers on a wide range of topics. You can submit questions either through Formspring or Twitter, and the best ones will be answered in the B/R mailbag.