As you may have heard - if any of your neighbors are wrestling fans who were watching Money in the Bank last night (July 18) - Fast 9 and The Suicide Squad star John Cena is pro wrestling sports entertaining again.
It was awesome.
Having watched the above video and the rest of his roughly 90 seconds on the Peacock stream about 27 times, I humbly offer you a by no means complete list of the ways in which Cena’s return was awesome:
1. The way Roman Reigns’ face instantly turns from a scowl to “say what now?’ as soon as the music hits.
2. THAT POP.
3. Michael Cole’s what can only be called orgasmic call.
4. Pat McAfee creatively keeping the You Can’t See Me joke alive by reponding to Cole’s “CENA’S HERE!” with “WHERE?”
5. This kid...
6. THAT POP THOUGH.
7. How, unlike something like Edge’s entrance on SmackDown last Friday where they rapidly cut from one side of the ramp to another before he got to the ring, the production team sticks to only having one camera shot of Cena from stage to slide.
8. Speaking of that camera, Cena including cameraman Stu in his pre-sprint pep talk. He always does that, and it was just one element in his usual ritual of dancing to his own theme song, holding up the towel, etc. But it was a moment that really, really made me think, “God, I’ve missed this dork.”
9. John’s latest, and probably best yet, attempt at integrating his glory days buzzcut hairstyle with the unfortunate reality many men deal with as they get older (you didn’t think I, the pre-eminent chronicler of Cena lewks, was going to let that pass without comment, did you?)
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10. FOR REAL, THAT POP.
11. That in the few seconds he interacts with Roman, we get both cartoony goofball Cena (mockingly stepping closer to Reigns) and F-U Cena (dropping the grin for the “You Can’t See Me” own).
12. How we’re gonna see him again in a few hours when he kicks off Raw!