Watch John Cena Spit Hokey Battle Raps At Wrestlemania As His ‘Doctor Of Thuganomics’ Persona

Once upon a time, John Cena was a wrestler who dressed up as a mid-1990s stereotype of a rapper and had a whole gimmick surrounding it. He wore jean shorts and Jordans and a literal link chain with a backwards baseball cap and takes his visual cues from Treach of Naughty By Nature with the sort-of silly moniker The Doctor Of Thuganomics. It was a goofy schtick, but people seemed to love it, and it made him a popular enough personality that he eventually wound up starring in movies, chasing around Transformers, and basically playing up his understated, game sense of humor for an entirely new audience of fans.

However, last night, in his return to the squared circle for Wrestlemania, he once again donned the relatively goofy “rapper 101” starter kit to flex on a rival wrestler with some hokey battle raps, interrupting what looks like a guitar solo from country-Western-themed wrestler Elias with his old school walkout music (which was penned by real-life, Bostonian battle rapper Esoteric) before strolling down to the ring and letting fly with a string of juvenile, pun-filled, acapella punchlines. The middle school humor aside, it’s nice to that Cena isn’t above playing along with the joke on his return to the WWE’s biggest night, proving he’s a true entertainer at heart. A full transcript of the battle rap can be seen here, while you can see the WWE-released video explaining Cena’s return to the “Doctor Of Thuganomics” persona below.

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