Work or Nah? John Cena, Nikki Bella Breakup Keeps WWE Fans Guessing

When John Cena and Nikki Bella broke up, it received mainstream news coverage, as did their engagement at WrestleMania 33 one year prior.

The Total Divas and Total Bellas reality shows depicted key moments in their long (now failed) courtship. Bella struggled to communicate openly with Cena. He had problems committing to her thanks to a prior marriage. But both parties worked on their respective flaws and saw each other through hard times, such as Bella's career-threatening neck injury, and emerged stronger. It was, from a literary perspective, a perfect narrative arc.

But perhaps, the arc was a little too perfect and made-for-TV. Fans always wondered whether the romance was contrived; Miz even alluded to these suspicions in his last feud with Cena. And now that it's broken, fans are wondering whether this, too, is a work.

The unfortunate side of this is having an emotionally difficult breakup play out in the public eye. Questioning its legitimacy only adds to the pain for those involved, and however unfair it is to them, this is WWE we're talking about.

Because it's crass and gauche to speculate on, it ironically provides cover for WWE to pull it off. And there is precedent for this sort of duplicity where professional wrestlers live their storylines in public. Dusty Rhodes sold his injuries to his family by hobbling around on crutches. The Wild Samoans decided they would rather get hauled into a police station than speak English in public. 

But that was back in the '70s and '80s. To pull off this stunt today, in 2018, would be exceptional by WWE standards. It would cross a thin, unspoken line the company has tentatively established over the past several years between what is real and what is fiction.

Generally speaking, the match-driven weekly shows (and in-ring house shows) are in character. The WWE Superstars perform as their personas, whether they are in the ring, on the ramp or in the locker room.

Anything offstage (a charity function, a Make-A-Wish party or a press conference) is typically out of character. This divide allows for convenient role-switching; it's why Stephanie McMahon can present big checks to kids' charities one day and play an evil sociopath on Raw the following night.

Social media is a mixed bag. Some superstars, like Titus O'Neil, have public friendships with people that are engaged in storyline feuds. Other WWE Superstars bicker and trash-talk, in character, ahead of scheduled matches. It's a case-by-case sort of deal.

Lastly, WWE reality television is depicted as exclusive backstage footage. The premise of Total Divas, Total Bellas, Breaking Ground and Tough Enough is that you're seeing these performers when the cameras are off—paradoxical, since that counterintuitively necessitates that a camera is on. Obviously, the field trips and activities are planned ahead of time—no one wakes up one morning and randomly decides to go to the horse racetrack—but the audience is meant to believe the conversations and the issues discussed at those activities are real.

For example, when we see Triple H tell Bayley and Sasha Banks they will main-event a pay-per-view on Breaking Ground, fans believe it's the first time they're hearing the news, even if Triple H planned out the reveal beforehand. In fact, the entire conceit of a "WWE Universe" is only possible if the fans believe that the emotions are true, even if the scenarios aren't. Fans are encouraged to interact with and get to know their favorite Superstars, in what is purportedly a more legitimate way than ever before. If fans start to believe that everything they see is a work, there's nothing to care about.

And that's the underlying problem with believing this is a work. Because if it is? That means Cena and Bella are using trusted media avenues to advance a fictional storyline. It breaks an implicit trust the promotion has cultivated with its fanbase over the past several years, and it puts everything those fans have accepted as true up for grabs.

It will decidedly not be best for business if the performer behind the character turns out to be just another character.

Remarks from Cena and Bella on non-WWE television have only fueled this speculation. On NBC's Today, Cena professed his love for Bella in an extremely performative manner, stating he wanted to marry her and have a family with her. When recently asked whether this breakup was a work by ET Canada Live, Bella denied it, stating (h/t Raj Giri of Wrestling Inc):

"Sometimes people don't realize how you can affect them. It's kind of like when we try to talk to cyberbullies and tell them that you have no idea how you're affecting people. I'm a human being that literally went through a breakup. Everyone's been through a breakup and think of how we feel.

"So mine has just been blown up and people all of a sudden are saying that I'm faking it. You're now saying that my heartache is fake, and that makes it even harder. It's just like, what can I do right? That's just really, really tough."

It certainly sounds real, although she was also was there to plug Sunday's Total Bellas. That's convenient, but it's hardly a smoking gun.

Fan are left guessing. If this is real, it's incredible that Cena and Bella would let the fans this deep into their private lives. And if this is a work, that's the way it needs to stay; WWE should hope that the public never finds out. Because the average fans don't want to know, even if they think they do. They would feel manipulated—as if a magician revealed his tricks and then made fun of the audience for not figuring it out on their own. 

One thing is certain: After all this fan speculation, Total Bellas' ratings are going to go up. And that is the one reality that WWE can always stake its business on.