You’ve heard the John Cena talking points. He’s boring, he’s predictable. Some of the fans like him and some of them don’t, and that’s okay. He’s a diplomat. A uniter. A smiling company man who does what he’s told, wrestles the matches he’s asked to wrestle and sells warehouse after warehouse of increasingly ugly merchandise. You’ve also probably heard the backlash to this point of view. If you’ve seen the “IF CENA WINS, WE COMPLAIN ONLINE” t-shirt, you might’ve worn it.
At Hell in a Cell, Cena’s wrestling Dean Ambrose, a guy with a groundswell of support for … well, being the exact opposite of John Cena. Sure, they both aren’t afraid to comically beat up their opponents with props, but Ambrose has a sort of “coolness” Cena lacks. To explain more, here’s Dean by God Ambrose talking to Trib Live Sports:
“There’s a lot of guys in WWE, you would know who they are, you know you’re going to see the same thing every single match. You know you’re going to hear the same thing every time they pick up a microphone. You know John Cena is never going to get mad at you no matter what you do. You could steal his dog or set his house on fire and he’s not going to get all that mad at you. He’s going to come out and do the same thing he always does. Me, I’m not like that. I get pretty upset pretty quickly. I don’t like having an entrance or anything like that too set in stone. A lot of guys come out and have the exact little dance or exact little thing that goes off at the right time with the pyro. What if I’m not in the mood to do my little dance this week?”
If that’s not enough to make you love the man, here are his thoughts on The Attitude Era.
“I don’t like my wrestling or entertainment in general to be too clean or predictable for me as a fan. When I say clean, I’m not talking about dirty jokes, middle fingers and stuff like that. I’m actually not even a big fan of that. A lot of people talk about the attitude era being so great but a lot of it was terrible crap, sex jokes and over-the-top terrible bad comedy. It was Jerry Springer-like. They made a joke about a woman’s breasts. Hilarious, but where’s the wrestling? I look back on a lot of stuff now, and I’m like where’s the wrestling? It’s just a lot of crappy jokes.”
*quietly deletes jokey paragraph about him being the Titty Master*
Here’s the interview. They should’ve let Ambrose do the Roman Reigns health update on Raw.
