10 Embarrassing Times Wrestlers Tried To Be Funny
Where funny really doesn't draw money - featuring The Rock, John Cena, and Triple H...
Truthfully, this list could be entitled '1,000,000 Embarrassing Times Wrestlers Tried To Be Funny' because WWE Monday Night RAW exists.
WWE RAW exists, and it has existed throughout two decades of gradual viewership decline, as a show that does not acknowledge itself as professional wrestling. WWE RAW is sports entertainment. WWE RAW, from WWE's perspective, is better than the dreaded wrasslin'. In a weird strategic bid to get people who simply do not like wrestling to watch, WWE, alienating people who do like professional wrestling in the process, hire accredited writers from non-wrestling backgrounds under the belief that they are best qualified to write engaging long-term #content.
There is a kernel of logic here, but fans aren't into patently scripted verbal segments, and it's not as if WWE hires your David Mamet types. They hire dork hacks who are redundant in any case because Vince McMahon has brains in his worms at this point.
The net result is that RAW is excruciating. SmackDown outside of Roman Reigns is, too, but you are not allowed to say this. It's considered sacrilege, as if Jesus Christ himself screams ARE YOU READY FOR A GOOD TIME in the show open.
What follows is a particularly horrendous set of offenders...
10. John Cena: A Star Wars Story
If you were sat down and forced to watch three randomly-selected weeks of Super Cena's run, would you f*ck pop for his return.
You would boo the man out of the building and hope he'd never return. John Cena as the top star of RAW was utterly harrowing. You'd rather iron the tip of your c*ck than endure it a second time.
On the post-No Way Out 2012 RAW, John Cena recapped his Steel Cage main event against the Big Show using a Star Wars analogy. He claimed the cage was a "death star" in which he had to fight "Show Vader", a "Jedi" who had switched to the dark side. At stake was the job of the emperor, John Laurinaitis, and when Show Vader lost, the "ancient old Jedi Yoda McMahon" said "no chance in hell have you, fired you are".
John Cena thought this was a stitch, when, in reality, the promo died a death. Several new religious movements of the late 20th century had a more voracious appetite for life than the fans stuck in that arena. They groaned like Triple H scouring Showbuzz Daily when Cena ran through his Yoda and Vader impressions.
At least if he'd impersonated a different Vader, his sh*t might have looked halfway legitimate.