lol’d – John Cena calls Taiwan a country, gets massive backlash from China, apologizes, then gets heat from the industry that made him
I don’t really have an opinion on the whole is Taiwan a country thing, and frankly I don’t really want to. I have no horse in this race, and I have friends and acquaintances that are both Chinese and Taiwanese, and it’s really none of my business to what my opinion might be.
But what prompted this post is that throughout his wrestling career, John Cena has been something of this stoic, unflappable icon, that in spite of the internet’s general disdain for him, has been somewhat of a maestro at navigating through time, shifts in fandom and I have a tremendous amount of respect for everything that he’s accomplished. Scuttlebutt may disagree, but I feel that he’s aged extremely well and has gracefully transitioned from wrestling into movies almost as well as the Rock did.
It’s safe to say that John Cena has kind of transcended into something of a brand throughout the years, based on how methodical and clinical he’s conducted himself throughout his wrestling careers and his transition into Hollywood. Look no further than his time on Total Divas to realize that nobody was a bigger diva than John Cena; he’s such a company of a man that he basically has the equivalent of a pre-nup for a live-in girlfriend.
So in the whole adage of as much as people love heroes, they love see heroes fail, it’s noteworthy and hilarious to me, that of all the things in world that could possibly trip up a machine like John Cena, it would be a subjective opinion on China that would land him in global, public hot water.
Honestly, regardless of the cringey, pandering and embarrassing apology to all Chinese people, a Fruedian slip-like blurting out of a statement like calling Taiwan a country is clearly what he believes, and there’s nothing wrong with that – it’s an opinion, and we’re all entitled to them, no matter how much criticism they’re subject to.
Frankly, I’m more disappointed in Cena’s response to the whole Chinese backlash, because contrary to the hustle-loyalty-respect brand he built himself on throughout wrestling, he kowtowed and crumpled like a burning piece of paper when it came to upsetting an entire country and very obviously at the behest of a Hollywood studio, he tucked his tail between his muscular legs and made a pretty immediate apology.
He, and the studio could’ve sent a powerful message to the world by digging in and standing their ground, but because the Chinese economy is basically the strongest in the world, they couldn’t possibly risk upsetting them and their coffers, so they showed their hand at what they prioritized above all hustle, loyalty or respect.
In the end, John Cena has basically jobbed three times in a row, which is probably a new record and something he didn’t even do, even in the post-Ruthless Aggression era. He jobbed to China by looking like a bitch kowtowing to them, which makes him job to the wrestling industry that made him, because his peers now reportedly have heat with him for being a bitch, and of course, he’s jobbed to himself, because this course of action is most definitely something that the John Cena brand really wouldn’t be doing, if not for the tainted influence of Hollywood money.
