Backstage News On If John Cena and Roman Reigns Went Off Script On Raw

How do John Cena and Roman Reigns really feel about each other?

Slated to do battle at WWE No Mercy, the two Superstars made their match official last night on Raw and tore each other to shreds on the microphone, with Cena knocking Reigns as a “protected,” “corporately created” knockoff of Cena himself.

Reigns replied by labeling Cena as a “part-timer” who maintains his position by holding down any young talent who might one day surpass him, while Cena got the last word by proclaiming he was only still around because Reigns hadn’t stepped up enough to take his spot and that he was a better “part-time” Superstar than Reigns was on a full-time schedule.

On the post-Raw edition of Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer said the segment was “completely” scripted ahead of time. The main verbiage for the promo was mostly from the writing team and not Reigns or Cena ad-libbing. Reigns, however, did get lost once and Cena called him out on it.

It was reported earlier that Samoa Joe was scheduled to face Cena on last night’s show, but missed it due to a knee injury. Meltzer noted that while Joe’s injury caused changes to the show, the Cena – Reigns confrontation was always the plan for Raw and was not added due to the show being revised.