On a recent episode of Edge & Christian's podcast, "The E & C Pod of Awesomeness," the former tag champs discussed the infamous dueling promo between John Cena and Roman Reigns from last week's episode of RAW, which you can watch in its entirety in the video above.
Christian: “I like (promos) to feel organic, in a sense. ... Where it’s not scripted. I don’t think they’re the type of promo that should be done a lot. And I think it’s kind of the right time for something like this to happen. And they addressed a lot of the (rumors and perceptions about Cena and Reigns) and sometimes when things are addressed that are on the internet or out there in the dirt-sheets, brother, that sometimes they ignore or pay no attention to or whatever, which is what you have to do most times. But sometimes, it’s good to do something like that. It’s like, ‘whoa, hold on a second…’ They’re addressing all of the things people say about them or think about them and people think there are legit facts about certain situations and they threw it back and forth at each other and turned it into a real situation that was something that could help a feud like that. These guys are kind of in the same boat. They kind of get similar reactions, so it’ll be interesting and I think it added maybe a little bit of a personal edge to if they’re going to have a match or a feud for however long it’s going to go. I think that it gave them that something personal instead of two guys, ‘I want your spot because you’re leaving – you keep coming back – I want your spot’ kind of thing.”
Edge: “It’s all the things people assume they think about each other and now it was just validated, like, ‘yeah, that really does happen.’ So here’s where I’ve got to start: why No Mercy? Why? There's got to be something going on there. You don’t do this at (No Mercy). That’s a WrestleMania match! Back to my Brock Lesnar/Samoa Joe soapbox. Imagine you put Brock Lesnar/Samoa Joe and Roman Reigns/John Cena on WrestleMania. Sold. Hold on! I’m great-balls-of-fired-up about it, man! You put it on Great Balls Of Fire and you put it on No Mercy. Come on! Like, what? ... They each have all kinds of opponents. You didn’t have to do it now. That’s all I’m saying, man. There's loads of people that you could’ve got through and started those around Royal Rumble season and nobody would’ve touched each other and you have two fresh matches that haven’t happened that people want to see and want to talk about. That’s my take on that.
“Now, the promo itself, here’s what I thought it did. John's been in that situation before whether it’s with The Rock… he's had to deal with that before and he’s good at it. Reigns hasn’t and you could tell. You could tell that this was his first (time). Kind of, ‘okay, how exactly do I do this?’ But I will say, it’s the best promo I’ve ever seen him do because you could tell he really felt what he was saying. Now, I think with more practice, more tune up, he's got it because there were a lot more points that he could’ve hit about John that he didn’t. I mean, he could’ve speed bagged John with some of the stuff he could say and he didn’t go there.”
Christian: “I found kind of a shift (in the back and forth) where seemingly (Roman) ran out of words to say and John called him on it and said, ‘this is the reason I had to come back, because you’re not ready to do this.’ ... ‘If you’re in this spot, you’re going to have to be able to do this.’ And he called him on it on live television. You could see Roman, almost the steam coming out of his ears. And I think that almost took him to another level. I’ve been there and gone blank on live TV and it’s not a fun feeling and it does something to you.
“You can’t go out there and rely on somebody else’s words, right? Somebody can’t hand you a sheet of paper and say, ‘go out there and read this and you’re going to get over with what’s written on here.’ (You need to) take the bullet points of it and have the gumption, the initiative, to make it your own. Sometimes things happen out there that aren’t necessarily a bullet point or on a piece of paper and you have to take advantage of those and you can’t be afraid to take advantage of those, right?”
Edge: “That was a hard way (for Roman) to practice, but I think that was a good learning lesson for Reigns. But I think that’s where he needs to get to with all of his promos. And that’s how I always looked at things. If you get to a certain place and ‘oh, okay, that is the pocket I need to get to for a promo to feel authentic, genuine, fired up. That’s when people believe. And if you can get there for every promo and find that space and whatever that trigger you need to get you there, that’s where you’ve got to get to in every promo and not every promo needs to be screaming and yelling, but he needs to get to that place for his promos. And if he can find that place for all his promos, man, if his promos catch up to his work and his look, now he is ready to take over and John can go do The Today Show or whatever it is. You’ve got to be able to think on your feet, know what you’re trying to get across, and go from there. And like I said, I thought that was the best, most impassioned kind of promo, that I’ve seen out of him. I mean, it was a very tough situation to have to do it. And, sure, there were some awkward moments for him, but I think he stepped up. I really do.
"But it was supposed to be awkward. I mean, that’s the feeling people were supposed to have coming away from it, right? It got people talking and that’s what it’s about. Whether it was awkward, whether he got confused in his head and didn’t have the right words to respond to John to, but it was a great moment, like, it was impactful.
“A couple of those moments got to John too. I know John’s reaction when things get to him. That got to him a little bit, but it was good. Again, it’s WrestleMania. I don’t know why it’s happening at No Mercy. There's got to be something scheduling-wise as to why it’s not. Otherwise, ‘WTF,’ as the kids say these days.”
You can listen to the entire podcast at this link.
