JOHN CENA

I can probably sum up my disdain for the corporate American ethos in one man: John Cena. World Wrestling Entertainment (formerly the World Wrestling Federation) is part of the bread and circuses for the American hoi poloi, although it has become a global concern, with ever more wrestlers being draughted in from Mexico, where such wrestling is perhaps even more of a staple entertainment for the masses. Stadium crowds for the yearly Wrestlemania extrevaganza rival those of the Superbowl. Cena has been the golden boy of WWE since Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson left for Hollywood in 2004, only returning for the big paydays on pay-per-view. If 'The Rock' was nauseating enough with his vulgar fake-macho posturing and loud displays of mixed-race insecurity, Cena's ingratiating wigger persona is absolutely vomit-inducing. We have come a long way since the days of Ric Flair and Hulk Hogan and their less than closeted disdain for persons of colour.

 

 

 

John Cena is a man blessed with many advantages: he is handsome, a fast talker and a natural athlete. Even if we admit the steroid use, of which all wrestlers are guilty, he played American football at college level. The Chairman and CEO of WWE Vincent Kennedy MacMahon was repeatedly investigated and put on trial for the distribution of performance enhancing drugs. Inevitably, the Teflon-coated donor to both Republican and Democrat Parties was always cleared of any wrongdoing, just as he has been after the deaths of Owen Hart and Chris Benoit. In spite of any PED use - and some say testers have found traces of urine in his steroids - Cena is, according to giant wrestler Paul 'The Big Show' Wight, whom Cena has lifted and slammed, the strongest wrestler pound-for-pound. He could easily have gone on to become a genuine athlete. Instead, Cena became a circus clown in a clown world where the wrestlers themselves blur the lines between their role and their real selves to such a point where they actually become the character they portray. Witness the descent into madness of James 'The Ultimate Warrior' Hellwig or the failed MMA career of Phillip 'C M Punk' Brooks.

 

 

 

Every wrestler has his gimmick. Cena's is superficially a synthesis of contradictions: on the one hand, he portrays himself as a white rapper ostensibly from the ghetto in the Eminem and particularly Vanilla Ice mould, the Doctor of Thuganomics; on the other, he is a loyal company man who reels off a series of scripted clichés praising the WWE and the fans who buy into it every episode of Raw or Smackdown he features in. Yet these are not contradictions. When one thinks of corporate yes-men, one thinks immediately of chinless men in grey suits, an image that has been handed down to us by the corporate false consciousness of Hollywood, where rebels against the system are portrayed with tattoos and teenager streetwear. This is exactly what Cena wears. He may not have the tattoos, but is always kitted out in baseball caps, baggy T-shirts, denim shorts and trainers, like some overgrown teen. Cena is 43.

 

 

 

His attire is always available in the foyer for purchase and his army of consumer fans are ever ready to puchase the latest baseball cap and armbands and the latest T-shirt in the latest colour with the latest slogan emblazoned on it. Cena changes wardrobe every month or so to keep the WWE cash register ticking over. So much for sustainability and caring for the environment. As regards the slogans, they are a mixture of vacuous verbalised fist-pumps and corporate-sponsored SJW propaganda: 'Never give up', 'Hustle, loyalty, respect', 'U don't C me', 'Respect, earn it' and 'Rise above hate'. Away from the ring, he dresses in the corporate attire of suit and tie, which says a lot about the authenticity of his rapper persona. Yet like Cena, the rapper is just another part of corporate America, whose lyrics are tailored to seem controversial, when in fact they were vetted and approved by corporate bosses like (((Jerry Heller))) and (((Rick Rubin))).

Several years ago, in the build-up to his departure from the WWE, the aforementioned wrestler C M Punk mocked Cena for his corporate slave persona and merchandising. Of course, it was all fake - or kayfabe, as they call it in the wrestling world - and the exchange between them was as scripted and rehearsed as the matches themselves. C M Punk has all the tattoos of the phony rebel against the system the corporations promote through their media control. His disastrous foray into the world of real fighting was well-documented. In the UFC octagon he was exposed for what he was and most wrestler's are, with the odd exception: a tough-talking actor no different to the stars of action films. Cena himself has also starred in action films like The Marine, adding a military salute and dog tags to the rest of the fakery.

 

I could have chosen several other WWE wrestlers as my figure of hate (and I see no virtue in allegedly rising above my hate), but what makes John Cena particularly egregious is that he always kow-tows to Dwayne Johnson like some white hanger-on in a blaxploitation film, and that he has actually had a vasectomy so that he cannot have children. The reason for this is because he thinks having children is incompatible with the needs of his career. For all his physical attributes, mentally and spiritually he is the embodiment of white ethnomasochism at the behest of global corporations. And this is the role model superstar held up for impressionable white kids everywhere.