Hello and welcome to a WrestleTalk Review, I am Luke Owen.
On last night’s Monday Night Raw during a contract signing for their match at WWE’s
No Mercy in four weeks, John Cena and Roman Reigns cut promos on each other.
But these weren’t your standard ‘I don’t like you’ promos.
These promos cut deep, and resonated with a lot of fan’s feelings about The All-Timer
and The Big Dog Who Runs The Yard.
These were promos that were done like ‘shoots’.
They were full of insider baseball terms.
Cena mentioned ‘turning heel’, Roman talked about Cena ‘burying younger guys’, Cena
called Roman a product of the machine.
Twitter, of course, blew up with excitement.
A match that had people groaning last week is suddenly the hottest topic in wrestling
right now that doesn’t involve Sexy Star.
The promos from both Roman and Cena were so good - and so shoot-like in nature - that
a lot of people are comparing the segment to CM Punk’s infamous Pipe Bomb promo from
2011.
You know the one where he sat on the stage of Raw and got a lot of things off his chest
– calling Triple H a doofus and Stephanie McMahon an idiot while name-dropping New Japan
Pro Wrestling, Ring of Honor and Colt Cabana.
A promo that, to this day, we are still talking about.
So was this promo the best one since Punk’s Pipe Bomb?
Nope.
Not even close.
Punk’s Pipe Bomb was a one-of-a-kind promo.
It wasn’t written out for him, it all came from the heart.
As revealed on the Something to Wrestle With Podcast, Bruce Prichard confirmed everything
in it is was signed off by the powers that be, though - including Vince McMahon - and
he never deviated away from what was agreed upon.
But it was still a real promo filled with real feelings.
Punk was frustrated.
He didn’t just want to be in the main event of WrestleMania, he felt he deserved to be
because he believed he was the best in the world.
Punk echoed a lot of fan’s thoughts.
And while it didn’t create the change he thought it would do – let’s not forget
both John Cena and Randy Orton were champions in 2017 after all – it did cement Punk as
the most popular guy on the roster among the hardcore fans.
What will Reigns and Cena’s promo lead to?
A match at No Mercy.
What will change after that?
Probably nothing.
Perhaps this is a very cynical way to look at this – because it was two very good promos
– but will Roman’s character be any different after No Mercy?
He already walks like a heel, talks like a heel and wears a chest protector like a heel,
but you’ve got the commentators and the company itself telling us he’s The Big Dog
and the face of the company.
As for Cena, he’ll still get the same reactions.
Cena isn’t going to get a huge babyface reaction next week, it will still be 50-50
with half chanting Let’s Go Cena and the other half loudly chanting back Cena Sucks.
These were good promos, but they were 100% scripted promos by writers designed to get
a reaction.
These ‘shoot comments’ didn’t come from the heart, they weren’t fuelled by backstage
politics or frustration with their place on the card.
They were cleverly written bits of verbiage that Cena and Reigns rehearsed to get people
talking.
They put in buzz words like ‘heel turn’, ‘buried’ and ‘promo’ to get smart
fans excited.
Those words aren’t said on camera, so when they are it feels exciting.
Cena even referenced this - borrowing a Pipebomb line by name dropping the ‘fourth wall’.
In fact the only bit that wasn’t scripted was when Roman forgot his lines and Cena got
an extra line in there.
They were well-written promos, and the segment is certainly one of the more memorable in
recent memory.
But to compare it to Punk’s game-changing Pipe Bomb is a pointless endeavour.
They’re two very different things, done by three very different guys.
This was a great segment on Raw, but it’s not a game changer.
Not yet.