For weeks, WWE has been teasing a WrestleMania 34 match between John Cena and the Undertaker.
The crux of the story is that John Cena wants a big match at WrestleMania, couldn’t earn himself one, doesn’t want to take a pre-show battle royal spot from one of the young guns, so he wants to fight the Undertaker.
Week after week, he came out on Raw, did a combination of pleading, pandering, or insulting to try to get the Undertaker to accept his challenge. And week after week, Undertaker ignored Cena like a petulant child acting out to get his way.
Tonight (Apr. 2) being the go-home Raw, surely this would be the night that the Undertaker, whether it be Deadman or American Bad Ass, responded and set up this epic match for WrestleMania. Right?
Nope.
Instead, this week’s segment at Raw in Atlanta ended like all the rest of them. Cena called out the Undertaker and got silence in return.
This is such a weird way to promote a match.
Unless they finish this up on SmackDown tomorrow, we are going into WrestleMania without this match being announced. John Cena is not advertised for SmackDown in Nashville, Tennessee tomorrow, and it wouldn’t make sense to finish up the story on Tuesday when it’s primarily been told on Monday.
This means either the match is going to be an unannounced match or not going to happen at all. Both are pretty wild options.
While WrestleMania sells itself to this point, it still would be a baffling move to not promote this match. John Cena vs. the Undertaker. These are two names that the most casual fans know and could convince them to pay attention to WrestleMania. This is a match that should be plastered on signs all over New Orleans. Perhaps WWE thinks that people and posts like this one speculating whether or not the match happens will more effective than actually advertising it?
The other possibility is this match actually isn’t going to happen. That after teasing John Cena vs. the Undertaker for a month, nothing will come from it. That would be more ridiculous than planning it and not advertising it.
Tonight was the night it made most sense to announce it. But now that ship has sailed and we’ll have to wait and see what they do with it.
Who knows? Maybe Undertaker will respond on Instagram.
It’s all really odd. But perhaps that’s fitting for a story about one of WWE’s biggest names pleading for a match at WrestleMania. The show is less than a week away so we’ll find out sooner than later. Until then, I ask you all:
What the hell is going on with John Cena & the Undertaker?