Yes, I admit I watch Total Divas. To some, this shouldn’t be much of a surprise, given the fact that I’ve been a fan of professional wrestling pretty much my entire life. From the kid who used to believe that it was all real, to the smarky, kayfabe-wise adult I am now that knows the whole thing is all scripted and pre-determined, but no less enjoyable from varying other aspects.
Anyway, I knew I would end up watching Total Divas, because I’m a wrestling fan, and even though it’s a show aimed at a primarily female audience, I was pretty sure that I wasn’t going to be the only guy around who ended up watching it, because frankly, WWE Divas are pleasant on the eyes, and who wouldn’t want to see some eye candy? Furthermore, and as full of shit as it might sound, I just like the idea of getting a glimpse of the supposed reality of the wrestling industry as well, even if it was going to come from the divas’ perspective, primarily.
To be perfectly honest, having seen all the episodes, it was about as enjoyable as I thought it would be. There were plenty of interesting glimpses of life backstage, and how the wrestlers, male and female, are outside of their personas and outside of the ring. Also, it was interesting to see in passing little tidbits of insider stuff, like that the NXT (WWE’s minor league) champion appears to be backstage during events, and how the WWE Performance Center (their training ground) appears to be ironically staffed by mostly former WCW retired talent. Aside from Cameron AKA Ariane’s TMI sex-life and femme-bits issues that were addressed, it wasn’t too much estrogen for a male viewer.
That being said, I don’t necessarily associate the term “Diva” as one with a positive connotation, regardless of how the WWE is trying to own it as a term to describe a strong independent woman who can do everything in the ring a man can. Sorry, it’s just way too saturated with a negative connotation for me. So to get back to the point, and anoint the biggest diva of Total Divas, we’re going to go a little bit outside the box; not too far, because this diva was in pretty much every episode and got a very generous amount of screen time in spite of not intentionally being a primary cast member.
The biggest diva of Total Divas was John Cena.
Now over the last few years, it’s been cool to hate on John Cena. Cena himself (or his character) is fully aware of it all, and is not only able to capitalize on the fan reactions to his existence, but has actually managed to parlay it into padding his pockets too. Personally, there were lapses in my wrestling watching habits in prior years, likely due to baseball coming into season, so I kind of missed out on the birth of the hating Cena trend.
Personally, I don’t fully get the Cena hate. I get that fans claim that they’re “sick of” seeing John Cena getting so much screen time and that he’s a modern Hulk Hogan, but in my opinion, I don’t think it’s not warranted; no matter if people think he sucks, he’s an extremely hard worker that genuinely appears to pour his very heart and soul into the business and gives the proverbial 110%. He’s a far better wrestler than fans want to give him credit for, and his ability on the microphone (which is a major factor in the wrestling industry FYI) is loud and sometimes obnoxiously cliché, but he’s as sharp as a whip, and capable of improvising on the fly, which isn’t something a lot of guys can do.
Ultimately, I think for every legitimate John Cena hater, there are about five sheep who do it just because others are doing it. There are maybe 10-15 guys that occasionally go to WWE live events and pack the front rows with “WE HATE CENA” shirts, and people see them, how they conduct themselves, and then think it’s ironically cool, and follow suite. And this is how a bandwagon starts rolling.
But anyway, back to the point about John Cena being a diva, I think I’ve made myself clear that I don’t have a problem, or “hate” the wrestler John Cena. But having watched all of Total Divas, one of the biggest takeaways I got from the show was how much I don’t really care for John Cena the human being, or the human being we’re lead to believe is the real one.
Stone Cold Steve Austin once said that the recipe to his success, and the evolution of the wrestling industry in his era was “being himself, but with the volume turned up to eleven.” In other words, become an exaggerated version of yourself, and run as far as you can go with it. It worked for Steve Austin, it worked for The Rock, it worked for Mick Foley, and several others.
This logic does not work with John Cena, if what is seen on Total Divas is genuine and true. If such is the case, the recipe for John Cena’s success lies in the fact that his on-screen persona is a complete opposite of his off-screen humanity, turned up to eleven.
Where his on-screen persona is a loud, overly-righteous, catchphrase-slinging, street talking, kind of a wigger, the “real” John Cena is this neurotic, quiet, stoic, practically OCD, machine-like, devoid of emotion and consideration of others, businessman who speaks too often in legalese. In other words, the “real” John Cena is a complete diva.
Throughout watching Total Divas, Cena gets a more-than-adequate amount of screen time, because he’s romantically involved with one of the Bella Twins, Nikki Bella. Throughout the duration of the show, the Cena/Nikki storyline involves with him asking Nikki to move in with him into his gigantic museum-like mansion in Tampa. But then in kind of a cruel bait-and-switch, once Nikki Bella moves in, he hits her with the equivalent of a non-marital pre-nup that basically strips the notion of boy-asking-girl-to-move-in of all romance, sentiment and love. Furthermore, the show concludes with Cena having difficulty with another person living in his mansion, using his plumbing, actually cooking in the kitchen, and accidentally putting dirty clothes in hamper #2 instead of hamper #1. And the cherry on top is Cena’s complete inability to possibly consider marriage or children in his future, in spite of Nikki Bella’s desire to be both a wife and a mother someday.
In other words, if such circumstances existed between a couple that weren’t on reality television, we’d all be taking bets and making a pool of trying to extrapolate when they’re going to break up. Real or not, there’s no way John Cena and Nikki Bella stay together, as long as the guy we see on Total Divas really is the real John Cena.
I have to say, I was pretty neutral-to-supportive of John Cena in the beginning, but after seeing how he “really” is in Total Divas, I don’t really like him at all. All throughout the show, other significant others are shown repeatedly, including Daniel Bryan and Jimmy Uso, who are both involved with Brie Bella and Cameron AKA Trinity respectively, and both those guys are completely chill and seem very much like their on-screen personas, with the volume proverbially turned up a little bit more. But John Cena is isn’t just an ordinary man outside of the ring, he’s this living breathing brand that is so paranoid about his lifestyle that he’s unwilling to compromise even the littlest things to the woman he proclaims to be in love with.
I used to think that turning John Cena into a heel would be an extremely difficult thing to accomplish, given the fact that so much of the WWE audience already treats him as if he really were one. Wrestling personas are pretty gray as it is these days, so I believed that turning John Cena into a pure heel would be somewhat more challenging than him double-crossing Daniel Bryan or CM Punk with multiple chair shots. But honestly? Get more WWE fans to tune into Total Divas so they can see the John Cena outside of the ring; I’m sure he’d get the sheep and the undecided to think he’s a douchebag too, and they’ll boo him not because it’s what the cool kids are doing, but because they think he’s an unlikeable tool.
Total Divas is a good show, and it’s definitely good for the unheralded Divas division. It’s also a convenient plot device to use in WWE storylines, such as AJ Lee’s fuel for some pretty brutal promos. But I gotta say that the biggest casualty of the show had to have been John Cena, because it turns out that he’s the biggest diva of them all.
Unless it turns out that Total Divas too was one gigantic scripted ruse too, which would make for some completely even more line-blurring meta shit.
