Above is a video WWE published to its YouTube channel today entitled “Go behind the scenes of John Cena’s return to SmackDown Live.” Only the first 14 seconds of the video, which is 3 minutes, 27 seconds long, features actual “behind the scenes” footage. The rest is just a slowed down, stylized reproduction of what we saw on USA Network.
That raises the obvious question: does WWE know what “behind the scenes” means?
What’s unfortunate about this is that while I’ll never cry “clickbait” at anyone online — literally every headline you see is clickbait, considering the point is for you to, you know, click in and read the post — anyone clicking hoping to see actual behind the scenes footage of Cena coming back to SmackDown is going to be supremely disappointed. And there’s real potential in a backstage video of Cena meeting with the boss, or catching up with the wrestlers he sees less and less now that he’s doing so many other projects out in Hollywood.
They had the right idea, they just didn’t execute it.