CASTING CALL FOR WWE STAR
Movies keep Cena out of ring till July
It looks like WWE fans have to continue sitting tight to see John Cena re-enter the ring, as The Champ is taking a longer hiatus than anticipated so he can work on his Hollywood notoriety.
As of now, Cena isn’t advertised to resume his WWE activities until SmackDown Live’s July 4 show. The televised event, which will take place at the Talking Stick Resort Arena in Phoenix, Ariz., is the only upcoming WWE show that lists Cena in the match lineup.
To jog your memories, the last time Cena was seen on a WWE broadcast was back in early April at WrestleMania 33 down in Orlando, Fla. After winning his match alongside then-girlfriend and fellow wrestler Nikki Bella against
The Miz and Maryse, Cena shocked us all by asking Bella to marry him.
If Cena doesn’t appear again on WWE until the expected July date, his break from the wrestling biz will be just over three months. And his growing work on the big screen is likely to blame.
Cena’s schedule has been marked by more and more movies in which he is acting. Here in Massachusetts, we have seen him shooting “Daddy’s Home 2” with Mark Wahlberg, John Lithgow, Will
Ferrell and Mel Gibson. But the WWE star has also been working on “The Pact,” a comedy in which a group of fathers try to stop their daughters from engaging in certain activities on the night of their prom that is slated for release in 2018.
And around the same time Cena is supposed to make his SmackDown return, “Tour de Pharmacy” is set to come out. The HBO mockumentary — which was created by Andy Samberg and stars Cena, Orlando Bloom, Dolph Lundgren, Mike Tyson, J.J. Abrams, Maya Rudolph, Kevin Bacon, Danny Glover, Jeff Goldblum, Phylicia Rashad, Will Forte and Chris Webber — pokes fun at the doping controversies within the sport of professional biking. The movie will premiere July 8.
While the famed wrestler focuses on his film career, the WWE is left to figure out how to carry on without one of its most popular personas being a regular.
This past week, Cena was removed from SmackDown’s new opening video. Meanwhile, other wrestlers seem to be being groomed for WWE stardom. SmackDown is pushing new names with its promos, most notably Shinsuke Nakamura, a 37-year-old wrestler from Kyoto, Japan.
As Cena continues to put wrestling on the back burner, fans may have to get used to sporadic appearances and pick a new preferred performer.