John Cena Urges WWE Stars To Focus On Storytelling During Matches, Not Just Moves

WWE

John Cena has urged WWE stars to focus on storytelling rather than just wrestling moves during their matches.

We seem to hear now more than ever from people in the company that WWE is a storytelling business, and that the story is just as important, if not more important, than the actual wrestling moves being performed in the ring.

One big proponent of this is John Cena, who has reflected on a word he shared with Booker T while Booker T was mentoring him early in his WWE career.

In an interview with The Collection, Cena spoke about how he and Booker would exchange the word “Shakespeare” as a reminder to prioritize telling a story during matches.

Tying this philosophy into his upcoming movie Little Brother, Cena explained:

“Booker was a mentor and teaching me how to find my way as I got a little bit of steam behind my character. We would trade the term ‘Shakespeare’ between each other, because those were the pauses and the ability for us to tell a story.

“The way this transfers to Little Brother is, in the world of physical performance for WWE, you can do physical things, but if you do them with no ‘why’ and no story, they’re essentially meaningless acts. Booker T would always be, ‘Shakespeare baby, Shakespeare.’

“It would be a mantra to say before we go out to make sure your ‘why’ is in order, do not rush, let everybody absorb the story, and if we did it well, I would see him when we come back and be like, ‘Shakespeare baby.’

“Now here we have Little Brother, a physical comedy about a tumultuous relationship between two personalities. Tons of gags, but if you don’t have the ‘why,’ everything is meaningless. I love this movie because not a gag is wasted, not a stunt is wasted.

“When I barge into my office and see an odd sexual situation between you (Eric Andre) and two others, it’s not just wasted for the sake of showing that. It’s, ‘I feel you’re invading in my world,’ and everybody else around me is like, ‘But they’re having fun, why don’t you have some fun?’ It’s not a wasted bit. It is literally Shakespeare.

“Booker, man. He was one of those. Tell stories. We are a storytelling business. If you can do physically great things, excellent. If you do them without meaning, it is worthless.”

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The Balance Between Storytelling & Moves In Wrestling

John Cena is of course absolutely right that the story is pivotal to a great wrestling match, as the emotional investment of the fans is paramount to a match’s success.

However, there have perhaps been times in recent years that WWE has relied too much on the story aspect and simply had too little physical motion going on in some of its high profile matches.

It certainly isn’t wrong to say that the story is just as important, if not more important, than the moves – but that doesn’t mean the physical aspect can be neglected entirely.

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• wwe
• John Cena
• Booker T

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