Every WWE Firefly Funhouse Match Easter Eggs And Breakdown

Ruthless Aggression

Speaking of Ruthless Aggression, Bray Wyatt is next standing in a ring cutting the Kurt Angle promo from Cena’s Smackdown debut – with Cena coming out in front of the old Smackdown fist in his original shorts gear. In the ring, Cena keeps doing the same thing over and over again – saying Ruthless Aggression and swinging a punch which Bray Wyatt ducks.

This is likely a reference to criticisms of Cena’s lack of in-ring prowess, but also his initial run when he just did the same thing over and over again expecting a different result – which is what nearly got him released. Bray even says, “I am literally living your biggest failure right now… It’s sad. I guess I can see why you almost got fired.” And speaking of failures, Wyatt also sings the entrance theme of Nikki Bella, a reference to their failed relationship.

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Big Sweaty Men

We then cut to Saturday Night’s Main Event, WWE’s old show from the 80s which the UK-only video game challenge TV show GamesMaster once described as the “muscle and hyperbole of the World Wrestling Federation”. Why yes I do co-host a podcast that is reviewing every episode of GamesMaster thanks for asking.

In this segment, Wyatt – now in Muscle Man Dance gear he did it better than I did – highlights how WWE as a business has always had a fascination with big sweaty men with their big sweaty vanity muscles and you didn’t actually need in-ring talent to get over. Bray says, “that’s what being a stud is all about. Having muscles, no matter what little talent you possess”, before bringing out his tag team partner Johnny Largemeat, aka John Cena.

This again ties into those criticisms of Cena’s wrestling skills and his five moves of doom, and also adds to the comparisons of him and Hulk Hogan who was the star of Saturday Night’s Main Event. Cena was the Hogan of the Cena era, the superhero who was always on top even though more talented people could or should have been given a chance.

Cena works so hard in this segment to keep up his physique that he literally cannot move anymore, a damning indigent of the WWE system if there ever was one. Adam Blampied wrote in his notes for this about the reference to the old school WWF big blue cage that Cena here is “trapped in a cage of 80s masculinity”.

Even the name Johnny Largemeat is a slam on the lazy WWE stereotype of big men with big names like The Big Show and Braun Strowman.

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Keep Your Hands Up

Interestingly in this segment, we get Mr. McBossMan – who is doing commentary with the Randy Savage inspired Mercy The Buzzard – says, “dammit, keep those hands up” – which is a reference to Vince McMahon’s instructions to wrestlers to always have their hands up when another wrestler punches them because that’s what you would do in a real fight.

Kevin Owens talked about this on an old Talk is Jericho podcast, noting that he now can’t unsee that wrestlers don’t put their hands up when they work. It’s considered by wrestlers who have worked for WWE just one of those weird Vice quirks that I’m sure Brodie Lee will also make reference to at some point.

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Doctor of Thuganomics

The segment ends with a Stan Bush-like inspirational track about angels [12] – see, there’s that angel reference – and Bray telling Cena, “What you gonna do when you realize egomania has been running wild on you.”

And his egomania runs wild into the next segment where Cena – for the second time in two years – appears at WrestleMania as the Doctor of Thuganomics. A gimmick that people have fond memories of, but also doesn’t hold up in the cold hard light of day due to the problematic nature of him simply making jokes about people being gay.

Also nice to see the green screen footage of the puppets dancing from the Muscle Man Dance is reused here for the Thuganomics entrance, but that’s neither here nor there, back to the segment. Cena is dressed in New York Yankees gear, a possible reference to the CM Punk promo in the build to Money in the Bank 2011 – more on that later – about how Cena had become the thing he hates, which was pointed out to us by SwaftNation member Matthew Muldoon, so thanks for that one.

Cena can only talk in rhymes here and says that Wyatt will never take away his limelight before calling him fat. This references the problematic nature of the Thuganomics gimmick but also points out that – yes that’s the problem John, you wouldn’t let people take your limelight. And him making light of the weight of Husky Harris – Bray’s old gimmick while he was in the original NXT – is a reference to the report that Bray was told to lose weight or he would be fired, which had previously been referenced in the Muscle Man Dance episode of Firefly Funhouse, which Bray still did better than I did.

• Firefly Funhouse
• Bray Wyatt
• WrestleMania
• wwe

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