Examining John Cena's response to burial claims

#3 Cena’s Response

The Cena Shoot Promo has been his greatest weapon

Following the burial promo by his opponents, Cena’s rebuttals would always come during the course of their feud. Sometimes it would take a few weeks or it could be directly after the promo in question, but Cena’s response would always boil down to these talking points.

Step one for Cena generally would be to remind people that those arguments have been around for years. This is usually done to dismiss the claims and argue that it’s been said so long by so many people that it’s become the go-to excuse for those who can’t hack it.

This point may be followed up with the list of superstars who benefited from making these claims and defeating him like CM Punk, Daniel Bryan, AJ Styles, Kevin Owens, and others.

Step two would be to dismiss the claims of burials and backstage manipulating by discussing what he could’ve done versus what happened. Cena brought this up when he claimed he let Styles hold the belt for so long, but was especially noticeable in the buildup to Cena's WrestleMania 33 match where he said the following to The Miz.

“If I was really this black arts manipulator pulling all the strings this close to WrestleMania, you think I would be standing in a ring toe-to-toe, face-to-face with you? Hell no, I’d be standing face-to-face with The Undertaker.”

The final step in Cena's promos would be to remove the credibility of his opponents by shooting on them. This is when Cena exposed every flaw in his opponents and hit them over the head with some thought-provoking points; some exaggerated for storyline purposes, some 100 percent true.

Cena may include some corny insults in these promos, but the overall promo comes across as serious. There is a very distinct difference between Cena's insults against The Nexus and his promo against CM Punk before Night of Champions 2012.

Cena's promos have only gotten more personal over time and blur the lines between reality and kayfabe. There was a gradual increase in his controversial talking points from his promos in 2012 to 2016.

But the inclusion of the burial and part-time arguments called for stronger rebuttals as seen in his responses to The Miz, AJ Styles, and Roman Reigns.