"There's your look right there" - WWE Hall of Famer on his ideation behind John Cena's persona
WWE Hall of Famer Rikishi recently shared how he pushed John Cena's freestyle rap and overall persona early in his career.
When Cena started his career in the company, he was often spotted freestyling on his opponents while donning a cap, a chain and a padlock around his neck. It has now been revealed that Cena had help in putting the iconic look together, and Rikishi had a big part in it.
In a recent edition of Sunday Dhamaal, Rikishi discussed how he and Yokozuna were the ones who added the iconic chains, basketball jersey, cap and padlock to the 16-time world champion's look:
"We took John into the magic spot where we call the area behind TV where they create all this stuff for TV. We went through the wardrobe part, we open up the closet, we found a basketball jersey. We open up the drawer, we found a chain. We opened up another door. We're looking for a some gold, bring the padlock then put the padlock on that, he had his jeans on. I said, 'Dude, there's your look right there. That's you right there. You just go with jeans', and and then there you go, the rest of it is history." (3:34 - 4:07)
Check out the entire interaction below:
Rikishi helped push John Cena's freestyle rap into his gimmick
On the same edition of Sunday Dhamaal, Rikishi talked about his time touring on the bus with WWE legends Yokozuna and John Cena. He stated that they would often listen to hip-hop music and freestyle rap, and he noticed Cena listening to music via headphones with a pen and pad.
Rikishi added that after hearing the Cenation Leader's freestyle rap, he took him to showcase his skills to Vince McMahon, Stephanie McMahon and Triple H, who were all immediately taken with his talent:
"Mr. McMahon’s door's open with Stephanie, they're all in there. And we got John Cena, we walked in with John Cena and told him, 'hey, you need to go, let's go in here so Vince can hear you rap.' We walked in there and then I said 'John, throw a rap on Vince and Stephanie and Hunter.' I think Hunter and somebody else was in there. And then you know, Vince looked at us like, you guys are wasting my time. Like, no you gotta hear this. So John went in there right off the dome. Boom, John hit that freestyle rap, put Vince and Stephanie's name in there, they were blown away." (2:36 - 3:14)
Rapped his own entrance theme, made a rap album, made a spinner championship belt, walked to the ring freestyle dissing his opponent? Doctor of Thuganomics @JohnCena HANDS DOWN #WordLife #BasicThuganomics #BadBadMan twitter.com/wwe/status/153… https://t.co/Xh1RvtwZOW
WWE is celebrating 20 years of John Cena's career this month. While he has made sporadic appearances in the company in the past couple of years due to his Hollywood obligations, Cena seems to have his eyes set on a feud with current United States Champion Theory in the near future.
It would be interesting to see a clash between the two superstars for a championship which John Cena made popular during his tenure in WWE.
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