10 WWE Storylines That Horribly Backfired
10. WWE Is Publically Shamed For Homophobic Scripting
As whitebread babyfaces go, theres Captain America, Superman and John Cena. For around a decade, WWE bobblehead Cena has been the companys poster boy: dressed more like a childrens television presenter than a professional wrestler, hes remained the same indomitable, square-chinned boy scout because of the lucrative draw and merchandising pull that his character has for the young and impressionable. And for a good two-thirds of that decade, John Cenas young and impressionable audience have regularly heard him deliver homophobic taunts to his opponents schoolyard taunts that insinuated that they were gay and therefore worthless. Its odd that he would think that these wholly scripted taunts were acceptable, especially considering that his own younger brother is gay he certainly had the clout backstage to have new material written for him, but chose not to exercise it. Its nothing new, of course: the Rock, in particular, had that promo market cornered throughout his pro wrestling career, cheerfully jumping back into gay-bashing character to this day whenever he comes within five hundred yards of a wrestling ring, and Cena was just continuing the Great Ones great work. In February 2011 however, something changed the media monitoring non-governmental organisation GLAAD finally got wind of it, and publically named and shamed the WWE for remarks made by Cena to the Miz and the Rock himself. The WWE were forced to issue a groveling apology as well as a commitment to never allow offensive language of that kind on their programming again. For those of us who've suffered through this kind of offensive rubbish for a decade or more, it was beautiful. Interviews with Cena since then have indicated that the company man believes that his remarks were taken out of context and that it was a one time deal, blown out of proportion. Thats kind of like Steve Austin expressing surprise that people have formed the impression that he likes a beer or two after winning a match.