John Cena's over-Reliance on Comedy Damages His Feuds

This past Monday on Raw, John Cena vs. Bray Wyatt was made official at WrestleMania.  It was also ridiculously undermined.

After Wyatt cut his usual promo, Cena's response went like this:

"

Do you even listen to all that weird crap you say?  You just said pride was the fall of man, and then you followed up by saying 'when I look at you I should see a god.'  I look at you, I don't see a god, I see a homeless dude that spent too many years (singing) wasting away again in Margaritaville.  Lookin' for his lost shaker of salt.  (starts speaking normally again)  Oh no no no no no, you didn't find any salt, you found two goons, a tiki torch, and a rocking chair from Cracker Barrel.  And now you waltz out here in a Hawaiian shirt and a fedora and you think you can be somebody?  Well, I say: Prove it.

"

This is supposed to be a serious feud.  Bray Wyatt is supposed to be a scary, creepy heel, maybe even scarier than ever with all of the comparisons to characters in the HBO series True Detective after its first self-contained season ended this week.  He's a backwoods cult leader and Luke Harper and Erick Rowan are supposed to be his scary followers/henchmen.  On Raw this week, that went out the window so Cena could tell some dumb jokes that don't benefit the feud in any way.

With that in mind, what exactly is Cena doing?  I hate to say it, but...it comes off like he's trying to be The Rock.  When The Rock came back on and off over the last few years, it was startling just how much of the roster seemed like they were aping his promo style in some form.  I got that feeling again watching that promo on Monday.

The problem is that The Rock is an anomaly.  The Rock is a guy who didn't cut traditional wrestling promos most of the time, and could do wacky stuff like singing and telling ridiculous jokes about his opponents, but it only worked for him.  Even someone as charismatic as John Cena, with his own incredible speaking ability, can't pull it off.

Read that promo transcript again.  Whose voice does it sound like in your head: John Cena's or The Rock's?  Even if you keep picturing Cena, because he's who cut the promo, try imagining it with The Rock's voice.  Which sounds more right?  Which is the better fit?

Regardless of how good he was at it, The Rock can't be used as an example of how to cut promos.  His methods worked for him and only him.  Anyone else veering into that territory suffers in comparison, and Cena suffers worse than most because he's the face of the company, the guy who had a two year feud with The Rock that he won at last year's WrestleMania, and looks like a goof when he tries that kind of promo.

In terms of what works for him, Cena is the exact opposite of The Rock.  He's at his best when he's mostly serious (not too serious, because it comes off too fake when he does that) with humor liberally mixed in, but only in ways that fit his character.  He should be a man of the people, Dusty Rhodes if he was an upper middle class kid from New England and looked like an Abercrombie and Fitch door greeter.  When he cuts loose and goes with a less scripted, more from the heart promo, he's fantastic.

For a good example, look at how well he turned the Seattle crowd's rabid cheers for Daniel Bryan into something positive for himself in the segment that closed the last Raw before TLC in December.  That's the John Cena we should always see on promos.

Why don't we hear from him more often?  I have no idea.

David Bixenspan is also lead writer of Figure Four Weekly. Some of his work can be seen in Fighting Spirit Magazine.

Follow @davidbix