The Phantom Rant: SuperCena is Gone

Greetings conversationalists all across the wide wide web. I am Joe Davis and this is The Phantom Rant. As always I am coming to you from a surprisingly warm New York City. I think trying to write about AEW is sapping the life out of me. For the last week or so I have been working on a column about all the stuff going on with Jon Moxley and AEW and how there was a Revolution calling at the pay per view and in the main event that Revolution failed. So I shall put aside the AEW stuff for now because the WWE had RAW last night from Brussels in Europe and John Cena had some explaining to do.

Back at Elimination Chamber we all were shocked by John Cena selling his soul to The Rock when he took out Cody Rhodes. It was a thing of beauty as we know. But it’s been stewing for the last couple of weeks as John Cena was nowhere to be found on WWE television. Much like The Rock, he’s a busy man filming movies and he works the WWE into his schedule while he can. Honestly I’m surprised he’s even doing a farewell tour this year. He could have easily just said he’s having one more match and that’s it. The fact he’s doing an entire year is quite impressive. Now like I said, his time is money and he has to work around a busy filming schedule.

So last night he came out for the first time since Elimination Chamber and the crowd was letting him have it from the first chord of his theme song.

If for some reason you did not watch the promo, just click on this and watch it now. I’ll wait.

Okay, so I have some thoughts about this promo. First off the crowd was downright nuclear for it. Soon as he walked out, the crowd in unison was all JOHN CENA SUCKS. Cena soaked it in with the crowd at certain points cheering for him and at others cursing him out. It really was beautiful hearing all those boo’s for Cena. Those of us who were around for the SuperCena years had been waiting for this day for a long damn time. I loved how damn bitter John Cena was during this promo. He had some good points especially about fans being abusive towards him. My favorite line was he’s a not a babyface or a heel. He’s a human being and each and everyone of us has been awful to him.

I mean looking back on it, yeah I was pretty awful to John Cena way back when. So he’s not wrong. The only thing missing from this promo was why he did it for The Rock. That’s what I personally wanted. I wanted that explanation. People were also expecting a new look. New music. New merch. New everything and the man himself said it best. YOU GET NOTHING. It’s a shame this didn’t happen last week here in NYC at Madison Square Garden. That crowd reaction would have been something you studied for years afterward.

Of course Cody Rhodes does end up coming out and he gets right in John Cena’s face. Cody said yeah we (the fans) have given him the worst we could, but he (Cena) could take it. Cena was pretty heavy on the pitty party and Cody wanted him to know that’s not going to fly come Wrestlemania. Cody took Cena’s best shot and he’s gonna retire him early if this is the best he has. Cena looked drained after that and he simply dropped the mic and walked out.

I don’t know about you, but I am excited for the next month rolling into Wrestlemania with this Cody vs. Cena match up. The best part about all of this is The Rock still has to show up and explain the deal and John Cena had. So all of this is coming up in the next month and I can’t wait for it to happen.

Another match that they set up last night is the impending collision between Bron Breakker and Penta. Breakker is the defending Intercontinental Champion and Penta made it clear he wants the title in a post match promo after he beat Ludwig Kaiser. Breakker vs. Penta is going to be awesome when it happens. I would hope they are saving it for Wrestlemania, but they could build it up for a big episode of RAW as well.

Penta has been so awesome since debuting in the WWE. I would say I can’t believe AEW dropped the ball with him, but I lived through this same stuff with WCW so I can totally see how they did it. And his brother Rey Fenix is hopefully debuting very soon in the WWE. If you’ve never seen Rey Fenix, go watch some old Lucha Underground or something and be prepared to be wowed. Rey Fenix should have been a world champion in AEW. He’s that good and I can’t wait for that debut. Someone also coming back to the WWE is Aleister Black. He was hit and miss in AEW. Supposedly it was linguring back issues that always cause him to start and stop so who know’s if that is true. I honestly don’t know how you insert him back into the mix, but one would assume he’s going to Smackdown since his wife Zelina Vega is all ready there.

Wrestlemania season is heating up and it should be fun to watch as we roll our way towards Las Vegas in April.

I guess that’s it for this week. Once again if you haven’t watched that Cena promo, click on the link above. There’s many layer’s to this. Yeah it would have been great if he said why he did it with The Rock, but like I said I’m willing to let this simmer and cook.

As always you can leave feedback down below, on twitter or just email me at phantomlordnyc@gmail.com