John Cena: The Interview...erm..thoughts?

[thatvinylgeek]

I am posting this because..it is...terrible...?...I think...at the very least I think it's a bit of a confusing mess, or maybe it's just me.

WWE have posted an official interview with John Cena on their youtube channel, where he sits down with Tom Rinaldi (no idea, but I think he is a big deal)....They talk for over an hour and I don't think Cena actually answers anything coherently, and just pontificates and waffles...I didn't realise he spoke like such a tool "I can't conceptualise someone learning the concept" wtf.

Also the interviewer himself is very annoying, especially in the patronising way he says "John" after nearly every question.

Anyway, I am just posting it because I thought it would be worth a watch, and whilst I could not look away and wanted to see it through (in the hope he might answer a bloody question!), it has just angered me.

Especially on a morning where I just watched the excellent interview that CVV just posted with Brian Danielson.

Thoughts from anyone else who has watched it?

John Cena: The Interview

[SuperBacon]

2 minutes ago, thatvinylgeek said:

"I can't conceptualise someone learning the concept" wtf.

I mean this is a man who said "we have caught and compromised to a permanent end" when talking about someone being killed.

Which is definitely how I want my death to be announced when I kick it.

[Lorne Malvo]

He's an absolute weird robotic black-hole of charisma in stuff like this. I've never known anyone else be so fun and charismatic in movies/TV shows and be so utterly weird yet also boring in interview/reality situations.

It was Total Bellas/Divas that first made me realise what a strange figure he is and I've never been able to get on with the bloke since. 

[thatvinylgeek]

Yeah, he is very very odd, not sure I have actually watched him as himself for this length of time. Maybe that's why it is so jarring...

[Merzbow]

A lot of his odd choice of words and mannerisms come across like Vince-isms to me, as if he's studied him and likely wasn't at all like this at one point in time.

[TheBurningRed]

I’ve seen quite a few interviews where he was asked what his favourite match of his is and he always says “my favourite match is yet to come”. Just give us a fucking answer mate. 

[LaGoosh]

He's a weird guy. A late stage capitalist robot. An "inspirational" business quote on Instagram in human flesh. Never expresses any opinion that is anything than straight down the middle. 

[Arch Stanton]

16 minutes ago, Lorne Malvo said:

It was Total Bellas/Divas that first made me realise what a strange figure he is and I've never been able to get on with the bloke since. 

Same for me. Total Divas totally exposed that he was, in fact, The Prototype in real life. 

[Supremo]

It shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone that the man behind the character is a weird, robotic oddball. He’s always been like this.

My brother actually worked as an extra on one of his recent films and said he’s just as wooden, bizarre and boring in real life. Like an android who only turns on, “human mode,” when the performance requires it.

Most interesting note was that he originally wanted to do 200 dates in his final year, but WWE only wanted 36. Maybe the heel turn could have worked with more time. Ideally, he could have flown back and forth from Japan, allowing him to work 400 dates due to the time difference. Would have allowed for an actual redemption arc rather than him just turning up on a random Smackdown and going, “soz, lads.”

[Hannibal Scorch]

We all know reality shows are scripted. But this, I’m convinced was not

Honestly if he wasn’t so entertaining and funny in his film and TV roles, I’d believe it if someone told me he was actually an android.

I read somewhere the reason they turned down his 400 dates request was because they couldn’t afford it, and the cancellation of doing house shows. He put together a business plan to justify it and everything and they went, “nope, 36 dates is all we need”. 
 

he’ll be in AEW in 3 years time replicating Stings’ retirement run, tagging with Jungle Boy.

[HarmonicGenerator]

53 minutes ago, TheBurningRed said:

I’ve seen quite a few interviews where he was asked what his favourite match of his is and he always says “my favourite match is yet to come”. Just give us a fucking answer mate. 

If he still says this in a couple of weeks time, we'll know for sure he was lying about retirement!

[LaGoosh]

1 hour ago, Merzbow said:

A lot of his odd choice of words and mannerisms come across like Vince-isms to me, as if he's studied him and likely wasn't at all like this at one point in time.

When he was on the Edge & Christian podcast afterwards Edge made the comment along the lines of "if you want to understand Vince McMahon's mindset just talk to John Cena because they are exactly the same".

[The Gaffer]

Seems as good a place as any to mention that I couldn't be any less invested in his retirement. 

Okay, okay. I'm a lapsed, disenfranchised fan who has seemingly kicked the modern WWE habit. I've not seen WrestleMania this year. But I'm a sucker for things like this, usually, and am more than happy to be worked into the emotional fun and drama of a big retirement angle. 

I remember not really resonating too much with Ric Flair's career before or after his big retirement angle, but the weekend of WrestleMania 24? He sort of became my favourite of all time for 72 hours. 

I got nothing for this. And part of the reason is Cena's weird, uncanny valley, if-this-is-sincere-it's-actually-worse sort of deal being discussed here where every toggle setting on him seems to just be Ed Harris in The Rock. 

The other part - and correct me if I've missed out on it - but a bankable thing with WWE used to be the video packages right? This whole thing ought to have an all timer of a package. We take the piss out of the post-grunge, Creed fixation they had but those packages absolutely got you pumped up for stuff. Running Up That Hill. Even more recently (!?) the stuff for Daniel Bryan/Triple H and Cena/Wyatt at WrestleMania XXX. 

What happened there? They just don't seem to be handling this as it should be handled even with the little things. 

[Supremo]

I saw an interesting take recently about how the rise of AI in the arts is going to create its own version of mad cow disease.

Since AI only works by scouring the internet and mooching other’s original ideas, there’ll eventually become a tipping point where AI is just ripping off old AI. By its very nature it’ll create less and less original or exciting things, at which point the bubble will inevitably burst.

I like to think that explains that dog shit Wrestlemania 41 main event. Two generations of the same weirdo android, trying to work together and play to each other’s strengths, but without a soul or single shred of humanity between them.

[BomberPat]

Wrestlemania was the last WWE content I watched - some friends were having people round to watch it, so I went along, and it just reinforced that the way they do wrestling is absolutely not for me. I don't think there's been a bigger flunked angle than Cena's heel turn, and maybe the entire retirement run with it. They're making it up as they go along, and have made no effort to make it make sense. The heel turn was a waste of time, they never even pretended to make Cena's motivations make sense with how the turn actually went down, and then they turned him back babyface on the go-home show before the No DQ PPV main event with the guy he turned on! If WCW had done that in 1999, WWE-contracted podcasters would still make fun of what awful booking that is, but here all is forgiven.

Who knows? Maybe they stick the landing. People seemed to enjoy the AJ Styles match and other things Cena has been doing. And nobody remembers that, before the Shawn Michaels match, Ric Flair's WWE retirement run had him wrestling Mr. Kennedy and putting his career on the line in every match, so maybe the match is all that matters. I'm sure the atmosphere will be great. But nothing about how WWE have built it has made me tempted to come back and watch it, and it all feels symptomatic of how cold and lifeless I find their whole production these days.

Even the fact that it's a Saturday Night's Main Event seems mental to me. I know the business changes, but WWE used to make documentaries mocking WCW for giving away Goldberg vs. Hogan on free TV when it could have sold countless PPVs, and now John Cena's last match goes out on a TV special. Maybe they'll cut off the end of his last promo like they did to Goldberg.