John Cena has branded one of his recent promos as a failure.
The Cenation Leader has been the focal point of SmackDown for the last few weeks. Not only has he been involved in the storyline with CM Punk, but he has also interacted with competitors from the King of The Ring tournament. The winner of the tournament is set to receive a world title shot at SummerSlam.
One such segment came during the June 13 episode of SmackDown when Cena opened the show. He cut a promo for a few minutes before being interrupted by LA Knight, Cody Rhodes and Randy Orton one by one.
During a recent appearance on The Breakfast Club, the 17-time world champion was asked when was the last time he truly ‘bombed’ at something. John Cena brought up the specific segment in response, saying that it was a real hard spot for him:
“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.”
They Fucking Hated It: John Cena
John Cena noted how he took the route of being the evil mastermind and used the five minutes to explain his plan to the audience. In his mind, the Hollywood star thought the promo was well constructed, and he was dropping easter eggs for the fans. The reaction he got, however, was completely unexpected:
“They fucking 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.”
Though a report from Fightful Select noted that this was Cena’s own self-diagnosis of the segment instead of being the backstage perception. So it appears that the officials were not as critical of the whole thing.
The WWE Champion will be defending his title against CM Punk at the Night of Champions PPV from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia this Saturday.