MacGyver According to Professional Wrestling

MacGyver = John Cena
•White-meat babyface (aka the really nice good guy who can do no wrong)
•Very rarely, if ever, loses...even if he has to make a staggering comeback at the last minute
•Knockout punch, when he manages to land it, is almost invincible (and he almost always manages to land it when he wants to use it)
•Knows his cars
•Very well-spoken & educated
•Military interest (Mac actually is a veteran, and Cena almost joined the Marines)
•Somewhat inexplicable fear of commitment, at least early on
•Fear of fatherhood, at least early on (did you see his face when Robin Curtis' character walked in pregnant in "Friends"?)
•Paradoxically, loves kids
•Almost universally loved by women and often children as well
•Quiet guy at home, but can bring the fight when needed & doesn't back down from a challenge
•Supports a great many charities and volunteer organizations
•Environmentally conscious (although for Cena, this is less true of him than it is of his brother-in-law)
•Health conscious
•Patriotic
•Interesting friends who usually get him into trouble of one variety or another
•Lots and lots of enemies
•Sense of humor
•At times, can be difficult to figure out

Murdoc = The Undertaker
•Is dead
•Is also undead---seriously, no matter what you do, you can't kill this guy. He's the Deadman.
•Undertaker sit-up (obviously, 'Taker does this all the time, but if I recall correctly, Murdoc did the 'Taker sit-up in "Strictly Business" from beneath a pile of rocks with a knife in his hand)
•Very manipulative
•Fond of evil villain rants
•Loves mind games
•Breaks into people's houses (Murdoc breaks into Mac's house all the time, and 'Taker broke into Vince's home and lit Stephanie's teddy bear on fire)
•Ties a girl up and takes her hostage (Stephanie McMahon for 'Taker, Penny Parker for Murdoc...although to be fair, I guess Murdoc never strapped Penny to a giant "M" and tried to force her to marry him)
•Has a sibling, and sometimes works to save that sibling from harm
•Works for a "higher power" (HIT for Murdoc, Vince for 'Taker)
•Very powerful and almost invincible...except to somebody equally invincible
•He will always be the coolest person in the room, regardless of whether he's a babyface or a heel
•Often plays with fire
•Will do just about anything to put his opponent inside a casket
•No qualms about serious, hardcore violence
•Doesn’t always play fair
•Terrified lots of people as kids
•Can’t really be trusted even when he’s a babyface, because you know he can and probably will turn on you at any moment
•Actually does have something of a code of honor when he’s a babyface (although sometimes he’s willing to work around this when necessary)
•Has been through so much damage physically that you wonder how he’s even still capable of functioning
•Drives a hearse & lives in a graveyard (“Halloween Knights”)
•Guilty of murder, attempted murder, assault, battery, theft, identity theft, and various other crimes


Penny Parker = Bayley (NXT)
•Naïve and innocent almost to the point of being childlike
•Loves bright colors and cute things
•Embraces happiness and the fun things in life
•Tries to believe the best about people
•Energetic
•Has big dreams & isn’t afraid to work hard to achieve her goals
•Often comes across as young and silly, which can cause some to underestimate her
•Has a big heart and lots of spunk (enough to kick Murdoc & suplex Bobby Roode!)
•Despite being a nice person, she often manages to get herself and her friends into trouble
•Has awesome friends, and they help each other out (Mac for Penny, Finn Bálor for Bayley)

Jack Dalton = Justin Hawk Bradshaw
(This one’s not exact, so work with me here.)
•Always has a plan
•Would do anything for his best friend
•Will also do just about anything for money, including things that aren’t quite legal or ethical
•Mustache power!
•Sometimes runs away, but will make an effort for his friends and comes through in the end
•Quirky and may not always make sense
•Often used as a pawn by dark forces (Jack was used to manipulate Mac in both “Partners” & “Halloween Knights,” and Bradshaw was ‘Taker’s henchman in the Ministry of Darkness)
•Definitely the kind of guy that you can picture running a a Wild West saloon (“Serenity”)


Pete is too pure for pro wrestling. He’s far too nice to even be a manager.



So, what do you all think? Am I way off base here? Can you think of better comparisons? Is there anything I missed? Or am I just insane? (...well...I think I can probably answer that last one for myself. )

Never made a connection between MacGyver and WWE. Those are two seperate things for me. I don't know Cena that well, but I like his entrance song. What his (wrestling) image is concerned... he's supposed to be the good all time American patriotic soldier as if to say 'I want you!' like Uncle Sam to make people join up. And I think wrestlers rely on their muscles instead of their brain but nevertheless it's effective too. But I still like to see Cena improvise his way out of a jam. Cena is supposed to be a soldier (fighting in three quarter jeans), MacGyver is still the guy next door. Cena is no MacGyver and MacGyver is no wrestler despite a few comparisons.

Murdoc and Undertaker... maybe. Undertaker would naturally squash Murdoc like a bug. Murdoc of course had a great death costume in Halloween Knights but I consider him more as a Terminator. Just as he rose from the pile of rocks in Strictly Business, now I would expect a metal skeleton coming out of it. It's not exactly Taker's sit-up gig. Murdoc has the image of a hitman maybe indeed with evilness in it but Undertaker's actually supposed to be a 19th century mortician, able to roll his eyes white and have like mystical powers. There is no one who makes a better entrance than Undertaker, they can't top that.

Bayley and Bradshaw, I have never heard of them. Bayley sounds like someone, you would just give the title to, to make or keep her happy. If Penny was a wrestler, they would give her the title to make her stop crying. And that's unfortunately how it goes now with the titles. Everybody knows already who's going to win and it's no longer a big deal, even though WWE tries to keep it that way. The days of the Attitude Era and Ruthless Aggression are long gone and will never come back as long as they focus on the PG-rating. They won't get away with a lot of things they did in the late 90's, now.

You're definitely not wrong. MacGyver would never, ever be suitable for pro wrestling in a million years! He just doesn't have that kind of personality. I just got started thinking about the pro wrestling connections when I realized that John Cena is kind of portrayed as being the ultimate good guy, no matter what the situation is. Cena's actually a pretty intelligent guy outside the ring, but he definitely is no MacGyver, and I think that he and Mac would have a lot of things to disagree on. ...it might be pretty cool to put them in a battle of wits just to see what would happen. My prediction would be MacGyver ultimately winning with Cena getting in a few nice one-liners here and there.
And I think that despite their similarities, MacGyver probably would not be too impressed by John Cena, inside the ring or out. In the ring, Cena's too aggressive and, like you said, too much of a brawny super-soldier. And outside the ring, Cena's probably a bit too rigid and formal to hang out with somebody as "normal" as MacGyver. Thanks for making me think about it from that angle; I hadn't considered that before.

I think Undertaker squashes everybody. Thank you for now giving me the mental image of Murdoc's face as 'Taker grabs him for a chokeslam. Now *that* would be a Kodak moment!
Also, you are *so* right about Undertaker's entrance. There is nobody like him and there never will be anyone like him ever again. He's just so iconic!

Bayley's very new. They just signed her up to the main roster last summer. And unfortunately, you're really not wrong about her. She used to be really good when she was in developmental. She was still a little cutesy and a little childish, but she could still kick major butt. I saw her at a live event where her rival Alexa Bliss slapped Finn Bálor. Bayley ran out to the ring, got in Alexa's face, and shouted that she would never lay another hand on Finn Bálor. Later that night, when they were all in a tag match together, Bayley also got into the ring and suplexed Bobby Roode to help her team get the win. It was absolutely amazing, and you could tell that even though Bayley's character was portrayed as this youthful person, she still deserved to be a champion. But now that she's been called up to the WWE, they've just really messed her up. If somebody messed with the old NXT Bayley, she'd give them a second chance and then punch their lights out. If somebody messes with the new WWE Bayley, she cries. It drives me absolutely nuts! And that's one of the things that bothers me a little about Penny Parker, too. I get that a lot of female characters in previous decades were basically damsels in distress, but Penny had a lot of opportunities to prove herself as a much stronger and more capable person, and she just never did. It's disappointing to me.

Also, you're totally right about the PG-rating. I just feel like WWE is focusing on all the wrong things right now and most of the time they don't do a very good job of listening to what their audience actually wants. I do really like NXT, though, so that does give me a little hope that the future of WWE will be better---if we can all make it that long, anyway.

I just think WWE lost it's edge a long time ago. Still every show is sold out. But social media killed kayfabe, everybody knows now how it works. And going to PG just doesn't work. I watched WCW during the attitude era pretty much from the start. And than I saw loads and loads of clips of Stone Cold Steve Austin, Undertaker, Kane, Mankind, they really pulled all the plugs back then because there was competition. Now... it seems to be about musculars pretty boys, there are hardly any masked wrestlers anymore or wrestlers with fully make-up faces, but only young, attractive, muscular wrestlers. All the others from the attitude era are way past their prime. While I'll hardly have any critic on the Undertaker, he's not as elegant as he used to be and Kane is totally milked out. There is no more style like Ric Flair, the robes, the hats, the coats, the masks, the make-up, it's like a thing of the past. There is no Hogan, no Randy Savage...

Back in the days I watched women's wrestling was unheard of. I remember the Nitro Girls, they were just cheerleaders or dancers. To be honest I'm in favor of it. There was even a brief time the men fought the women but it's not longer allowed because it is seen as violence against women. Understandable but these are choreographed matches. But in women's wrestling I think you have the accept the overacting. I think by portraying them so typical we still have a long way to go. How about a female Undertaker? Instead of these colorful and happy entrances? Can you imagine Penny Parker doing that silly dance from Soft Touch as an entrance in WWE? I would want my money back. Penny in the beginning at least bothered to run away but in her later episodes if MacGyver was not at least in the next room, she probably wet herself. I think Nikki or Maria Romburg would be better wrestlers.

I really hate to think that kayfabe is dead. It's a shame that the younger generation hasn't been able to have that rite of passage of growing up and realizing that wrestling isn't always what it appears to be. My parents told me when I was a really young kid that it wasn't "real," so I never had a chance to really experience kayfabe anyway. But I like to think that kayfabe isn't totally dead. It's still fun to try to figure out how much of a storyline is a work or a shoot, which injuries are legit or kayfabe, and whatnot. Kind of like watching magic tricks. You may know that the magician is tricking you, but it's still a lot of fun to experience the wonderment of it all.

Dear gosh, you are speaking my language!! Ric Flair and Dusty Rhodes are some of my all-time favorites. Nobody does it like the Nature Boy! I love Dustin Rhodes, too.
I think you have a really good point about how a lot of wrestlers are just random muscular guys these days. There are a lot of wrestlers who are big and tough-looking, but there's not really a character there. They look the part, but they don't have any personality. Ric Flair is loved not because he was good-looking, but because he was talented and interesting and charismatic. Shinsuke Nakamura and Finn Balor are both very talented wrestlers who kinda break out of that typical mold, and I'm hoping that WWE will recruit more people like that over the coming years. But it's still not the same as things were in the glory days. Seems like the older wrestlers just had more charm...some kind of special spark.
And you're absolutely 100% right about the competition. WCW and WWE had to keep pushing each other to be better, and without a big rival to keep that engine moving, WWE's just falling flat.

Women's wrestling!! The women's division is honestly one of my favorite things about WWE & NXT right now. Asuka, Nia Jax, and Alexa Bliss are so talented. I also liked Sable and Chyna. If I had to choose one favorite, though, it'd probably be Charlotte Flair. I'm glad that women's wrestling is taken more seriously than it used to be, but I agree that we still have a long way to go. Still, it's a big difference between now and all those stupid pillow fight matches that they used to have. I remember once that I watched a match where Kane chokeslammed Chyna, and I thought it was the most amazing thing in the world. I saw an interview with Triple H where someone had asked him about mixed-gender wrestling, and he said something along the lines of, "I don't think the world is in a place where people need to see a man hitting a woman." And I kind of understand that, but like you said, these are choreographed matches. And these are athletic, strong women who can defend themselves. I think that the world *does* need to see strong women like that. You totally read my mind with the female Undertaker thing! Right now, Nia Jax has almost that kind of vibe, where she's portrayed as an almost unstoppable machine, but in my opinion WWE's not taking that angle far enough.

I hadn't thought of comparing Nikki to a wrestler! I think I've only seen one episode with Maria. She's the French lady, right? I think I remember her from "MacGyver's Women," but that's the only episode of hers that I've seen so far.

Thanks for the great discussion, by the way. Made my day!