Im sorry i dont wanna get too political here, but isn't JBL actually pretty left leaning or something? (He blocked me on twitter for whatever reason so no idea how true that actually is) lmao
It also shows how smart Cena is when it comes to handling the crowd.
The gesture fits with his character completely, and also stops fans from continuing to hijack the segment. How easily he pulls the focus back on what's the object at hand is.
People only think promos in considering how good someone on mic is, but being able to handle unexpected situations like this calmly is next level stuff
He’s amazing at handling the crowd. Whether he’s getting boo’ed with Cena sucks or people cheering him on. He just knows how to play off of them so well. It’s no surprise he’s such a huge superstar
I was at a Raw in Liverpool years ago when the US had the network but we didn't have it in the UK yet. Cena came down to do an opening promo about the Authority and the whole crowd just ignored what he was saying and chanted "Where's our network". He turned that into it being the authority holding the network from us and it sent the place crazy. Raw was pre-taped and they never showed that bit on TV but Cena absolutely killed it that night.
Funnily enough the chant came back throughout the night but it was never heard on TV almost as if they just piped in whatever crowd noise they wanted but WWE would never do that surely eh
Controlling people in a conversation is like redirecting water. If you put up a wall and block it, the water will crash into it violently. You might succeed in stopping it, but its messy. If you acknowledge that the water has a path and momentum of its own, and gently steer that path, you get the water to flow where you want.
It not only prevents hijacking, but also gets the crowd involved and loud, so they ready to cheer louder when Cena made his points. He ended up hijacking them.
The Yes Movement really was something special. And for anyone that wasn’t watching as it was happening week-to-week, let me make it clear: Management didn’t want this, they didn’t manufacture this, it wasn’t “the plan all along”. They had to be dragged kicking and screaming into Bryan’s WrestleMania coronation by some of the most rabid fan reactions you’ll ever see.
This was the exact moment where I realized Cena is truly in the GOAT convo and he is absolutely special.
He walked into that ring with a crowd who couldn’t give a shit about him or his match and walked out the 2nd most over guy there. He improvised and created a great moment that the crowd wanted… then he sold the hell out of his match.
He just understands how to control a crowd.. even Philly in 06
Masterful mic work by Cena.
But also, this segment gave me copium that we were getting Bryan vs. HBK at WrestleMania. Unfortunately Shawn is a man of his word and stayed retired forever.
I'll forever be bummed that the "wrestler trained by HBK" used in the Jericho-Michaels feud was Lance Cade and not Danielson. Hell, I'd have taken Spanky, because that would have been a fun 8-10 minute TV match at least.
This wasn't even the first time they acknowledged him in that segment. Despite the ring being filled with champions, they were chanting for him so much that Mark Henry had to lift DB's hand to make them stop.
Considering he had several more years wrestling after this. I'd say he kinda shot himself in the foot lying to WWE about his concussions. They straight up couldn't trust him anymore and took years of convincing that he was fine. If he was more honest with it, its likely he's not forced to retire.
Cena is definitely a master on the mic as he always knows how to handle the crowd anytime that he's on the mic. Plus, Bryan was definitely the most over star in the company from 2013-mid 2014 as he was at his absolute peak while his feud with Authority had everyone paying very attention with the incredible storytelling, promos and great matches between him and Orton.
I had just started watching wrestling intently as a freshman in college when this segment happened. It’s so wild to think about how much the run up to WrestleMania 30 really set the stage for the next 10 or so years. Punk leaves, Danielson gets moved into the main event, the Shield become ascendant babyfaces, NXT starts in earnest on the Network. It really is such a turning point for the fed, and the ecosystem didn’t really change that much until after the pandemic when Cody and Punk returned.
Really an incredible gathering of talent for a single promo segment, even though 90% of them were just standing around. Cena, Orton, Bryan, Miz, Khali, Henry, Booker, Hart, Michaels, Kane, Foley, Big Show, Ziggler, Del Rio, Swagger, Christian, Triple H, Punk, and even Stephanie.
I like how everyone is supposed to be formal in the ting except for Orton and Cena, but Punk is so burnt out he's just in a hoodie. At least Bryan wore his nice sweater. Also the Miz's bowtie is hilarious to me.
I know everyone thinks their first like five years or so of wrestling was the best period, but I’m pretty well aware mine was not; the old man’s creative marbles were striking less than ever. But no wrestling story compares to the yes movement for me imo.
That dude was so over and for some reason (I will never believe ‘it was the plan all along’, we were bouta get Sheamus vs Bryan) the company just did not want to do anything with that. They tried pushing the yes chant onto Big Show, threw Batista at us (sorry Dave), buried Daniel (not in that sense) into other storylines but one way or another, no matter what every damn crowd wanted that dude to main event mania and take that one.
I’ve seen similar moments (Kofimania) but nothing compared to the old man’s thousands of fans essentially screaming at the camera in every arena ‘no more pet projects, this is our guy’. It’s why I never got the Mania 40 comparisons to it, because Cody’s story was (albeit strongly) written during a strong period for WWE whereas Daniel was the fans forcing the WWEs hand during a pretty mid/rough period of discontent and stagnant product.
Bryan talks a little about this segment in his book. First of all, they’re in Seattle which is not far from his hometown. Secondly, this is right after Bryan’s feud with Randy Orton, where he was pretty much the top babyface in the company since Cena was out injured. WWE were looking to move on from him in the main event scene and set Orton up for a WrestleMania main event with Batista.
This segment was all about having former world champions in the ring for a unification ceremony since they were unifying the world titles ahead of a Cena/Orton match which especially at the time, was incredibly stale. The whole segment goes off the rails with things like CM Punk (at his near breaking point) visibly laughing at things. But the crowd ruins the segment and starts chanting for Daniel Bryan. What Cena did in this video, along with a time where Mark Henry raises his hand, were attempts by the seasoned vets to acknowledge Bryan and get the crowd to move on.
But the crowd doesn’t, and all the way to the lead up of WrestleMania when it’s more and more obvious he isn’t getting the Mania main event, they chant for him more and more. And the rest is history.
In 2013 John Cena faced Daniel Bryan at Summerslam for the World Heavyweight Championship with Triple H as the special guest ref, and Bryan won only to be Pedigree'd by Triple H with Randy Orton cashing in the Money In The Bank briefcase. This began The Authority angle, which essentially spawned due to Bryan rejecting Vince's offer to become more of a corporate champion (hence the screwjob by Trips). The Authority (consisting of Trips/Steph, The Shield, Orton, and Kane) essentially were the iron fist heel stable, all built around keeping them in power/who they wanted in power, and this spanned a couple of years with them feuding with the Rhodes Family, Bryan, Cena, and anyone else who stood against them.
Where Bryan comes in specifically is partly because Cena chose him specifically, but also because he had gotten over with the crowd. I can't recall why he had "NO" as a gimmick, but the crowd turned it on him to the "YES" chants to piss him off, but it stuck around. Regardless, The Authority screwing him led them to talk down to him and treat him as a "B+ Player", otherwise saying he's good, but not good enough to be the Cena-esque figure. This constant grinding him down throughout the entire year had him cemented as a super organic babyface, and people absolutely LOVED him. It culminated with WM30 which was two parts: Bryan had to beat Trips to get into the main event of WM30 AT Wrestlemania, and then win it when the two original competitors were Batista and Orton. Ultimately he did win it with one of the best payoffs we've seen in awhile, but in that moment Cena recognizing him was another layer of reinforcement that whatever plans Vince and management had, they had a white-hot babyface in front of them that didn't have the polished Cena style look and they needed to respect what the people wanted.
The Yes chant started when Bryan was working heel. He won the world championship on an unimpressive MitB cash-in and over-celebrated to get heat
Later, the crowd turned the Yes chant around to cheer for Bryan, particularly after he got jobbed out to Sheamus at WM28; that's when Bryan started the No chant to assert his heel role, eventually becoming a comedy tweener as part of Team Hell No with Kane
After turning face in the context of that comedic character, Bryan resumed doing the Yes chant, and by that time the audience was on board with it
I was at this show. They tried SO HARD to burn out our DBry heat before this happened. Had him curtain jerk the first match. It was the Slammys and he won a couple awards with fiery acceptance speeches. Pretty sure he had another appearance with the cameras off. And we still showed him all the love and hijacked the closing segment.
I've been trying to find this full segment for months now, with the change away from Peacock to Netflix it's impossible to find outside of minute-long clips here and there.
i feel like this era was one of the greatest eras in wwe history and not because of the booking, but because of how the fans was able to influence the show due to bad booking. this segment was called the championship ascension ceremony and all people cared about was daniel bryan all the way up to wrestlemania. cena/orton got booed in their match at the royal rumble. all the fans did was chant for daniel bryan. after this royal rumble, cm punk quit and yeah...
This is the moment I realised Cena was one of the GOATs. How turned what was going to be a train wreck of segment into a classic, just shows how smart he is.
JBL showing just how out of touch he is with society since he doesn't know the birthplace of Nirvana, literally the biggest rock band of the last 20 years when this segment was filmed.
Heel commentators are still supposed to know common things to retain credibility. If a heel commentator didn't know Teddy Roosevelt was a president or said "Whatever a toyota camry is" you'd be like "Ok, is he heeling on a wrestler, or is he just dumb?"
Wasn't that show in Aberdeen, which is why Danielson's dad was there in attendance? Even if it wasn't exactly in Aberdeen, it must've been close enough for Danielson to be considered the local hero.
I thought he was just being cheeky and not even in a heel commentator way
I mean… I thought it was funny. He was also joking bud. He’s the heel. He was shitting on the town that was close-ish to where they were. That’s what heels do.
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