John Cena Admits Recent WWE Promo Was A “Pretty Good Failure”
John Cena feels like one of his most recent WWE SmackDown promos was a “pretty good failure.”
The promo that John Cena did on the June 20th WWE SmackDown episode in Grand Rapids was praised heavily as one of Cena’s greatest promos ever. It was Cena’s recreation of Punk’s “Pipebomb” promo from 14 years ago when Punk addressed a fallen Cena in the ring.
One week before that, SmackDown was in Grand Rapids as Cena opened the show with a promo talking about how great he is and how much smarter he is compared to everybody else.
After Cena’s bragging fest for over five minutes, he was interrupted by three beloved wrestlers: Cody Rhodes, Randy Orton, and LA Knight. All of them verbally attacked Cena and his giant ego.
During a recent interview with The Breakfast Club, John Cena was critical of that promo performance where he bragged about his intelligence, among other things. Cena felt like the crowd hated it, but thankfully, there were strong reactions to Rhodes, Orton, and Knight.
“I had a pretty good failure two weeks ago, I think. I was out in front of a live audience, not Grand Rapids, where were we — Lexington, Kentucky. I’d opened the show.
I had five minutes to speak before three other performers came out and that’s a real hard spot to be in because I can’t do any action yet, you kind of got to tell people what my purpose is and my character is not someone to rile up the audience, it’s somebody against the audience.
I took the route of, okay, evil mastermind, I’d like to explain my plan and I did for five minutes. I planned this, all this s**t, I knew this would happen so I made this move, I knew this would happen.
I thought it was well constructed, I thought it was dropping easter eggs for fans. They f**king hated it. The great thing is, they loved when the next three guys came out, so the bit itself worked. But man, it was crickets. I know the noise. I really cannot wait for this to be over. I really thought this was going to work.”
Based on those comments, it sounds like Cena could be regretting his heel turn.
Fightful Select reports that a WWE Producer reached out to say that it was Cena’s self-diagnosis of his promo, and not WWE’s backstage perception of it.
CM Punk Brought Basic Thuganomics Back To Mess With John Cena’s Head
At WWE Night of Champions, John Cena will defend the Undisputed WWE Championship against CM Punk in a renewal of what was perhaps Cena’s greatest rivalry.
On the final SmackDown before Night of Champions in Riyadh, CM Punk confronted Cena in the ring dressed like a much younger Cena as Punk delivered some “Basic Punkanomics” as a parody of sorts of Cena’s old Basic Thuganomics days.
The final four bars of the rap went like this:
He’s a superhero now, he works for DC, but no matter how hard you try, you’ll always be the Marine to me. And that’s straight to DVD, better find a PS3, I now understand ‘you can’t see me’.
It’s a hell of a catchphrase John, but now it’s done, because we all see you and we’re looking at a washed up bum.
14 years ago today, I dropped the legendary pipebomb, and you tried to make it all about you because that’s what you do John, you’re a leech, you’re a phony, you’re a fraud, you’re an ass kiss. 17 time champion but you ain’t ever been on my class.
Before you go John, there’s one more wish to make, tomorrow night you’re gonna lose to Kendrick because bitch, you’re my Drake!
It may not have been the most serious promo, and some fans may have felt it looked rattled, but Cena sold it like it bothered him, while Punk is going into Night of Champions with a lot of confidence.
WWE PLE is Night of Champions on Saturday, June 28th. Here’s the lineup.
* Undisputed WWE Championship: John Cena (c) vs. CM Punk
* King of the Ring Tournament Finals: Randy Orton vs. Cody Rhodes
* Queen of the Ring Tournament Finals: Asuka vs. Jade Cargill
* Street Fight: Rhea Ripley vs. Raquel Rodriguez
* United States Championship: Jacob Fatu (c) vs. Solo Sikoa
* Sami Zayn vs. Karrion Kross
You can watch WWE Night of Champions when it streams live from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Saturday, June 28, at 1 p.m. ET/10 a.m. PT on Peacock in the United States and on Netflix everywhere else.