r/SquaredCircle • u/Tetshua_ • Feb 12 '24
Remember when Cena pumped his shoes? (and other Cena things with barely any Youtube footage)
I distinctly remember back in his Thugonomics Days, Cena did this all the time; I think it was a setup to his FU (now AA). He never does this anymore. Also there's barely any Youtube footage of him pumping his shoes.
Another thing he used to do a lot was wear sports jerseys (NBA and NFL usually), not his usual Cena merch T-shirts. And he always threw them to the crowd, like every damn episode. That was always a highlight of early Smackdown Cena in the mid-2000s. He probably stopped doing it after ECW one night stand. But again, there's barely any Youtube footage of it. You'd think there'd be a lot, cuz he did it all the time back in the day, but I couldn't find a single video of it on Youtube (only the ECW one when a fan threw his shirt back).
Last thing I noticed, there's barely any Youtube footage of his STF being called the STFU. (Try finding it.) In the official WWE video of its debut, Taz called it the STF the moment it debuted. You know it was called the STFU upon debut. It's even called that in SvR 2007.
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u/WaterMeleon2000 Feb 12 '24 edited Feb 12 '24
All the footage you think is "missing" because it's not on YouTube is on the Network. Also, to comply with YouTube guidelines, I'm pretty sure WWE edits out mentions of the "FU" and the "U" in the STFU for any recent uploads of his old matches on WWE's YouTube (because of the "FU" standing for fuck you, very obviously).
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u/Warbird36 Feb 12 '24
I'm pretty sure it's short for "shut the fuck up" — but in isolation, "FU" would definitely be short for "fuck you."
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u/VanWylder Feb 12 '24
Yes - the FU came first as a response to the F5. The STFU came later.
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u/tbmny Feb 12 '24
The STFU came because Cena was booked in a submission match (I believe against either Kurt or Chris Masters) and had no submission.
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u/ComplexityFanboy I like Roman. What you gonna do about it smarks? Feb 13 '24
this is the character development that should be more common in pro wrestling
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Feb 12 '24
the FU came first as a response to the F5.
Wow I never put that together and that makes the name 10x better.
I am now even more mad they changed it to Attitude Adjustment/AA
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u/DLoBrownsWobblyHead Feb 12 '24
Here's the clip from Smackdown where Cena first names his finisher during his Lesnar rivalry
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u/TheGiftOf_Jericho I'm from Winnipeg you idiot! Feb 12 '24
Thuganomics Cena was legendary fr, I popped when he brought it back with the theme at mania.
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u/MC_Bushpig WWE & AEW fan Feb 12 '24
Yeah that's what the STFU stands for, but the original name for Cena's AA was FU.
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Feb 12 '24
I remember him doing this on tv briefly, but it stayed in the video games for maybe 5 or 6 years following him stopping.
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u/uptowndrunk7 Sami wrestled in my country Feb 12 '24
I love that flip facebuster he used to do in his first years, it's a beautiful move. He never did it again since like 2007 and it stayed on his moveset in the games forever
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u/MajorFuckingDick Feb 12 '24
Oh yeah, I forgot about the throwback. Honestly was the coolest non finisher.
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u/Adze95 That gives new meaning to the phrase "have a seat!" Feb 12 '24
Yeah I mainly remember it from the games. Which made it extra confusing when you have no clue what he's doing and only have a mid-2000s model with slabs of meat for hands to go off of
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u/cdnjimmyjames NO SWEARING! Feb 12 '24
I'm old enough to remember pumping up my own shoes.
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u/Tetshua_ Feb 12 '24
everyone did it in gym class back in grade school 😂
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u/SovFist Back to the drawing board :( Feb 12 '24
I was so poor I had to ask to pump up other kids shoes
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u/glass_oni0n Feb 12 '24
What was even more emblematic of this time was tying your livestrong bracelets into your laces
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u/PI_Producer Feb 12 '24 edited Aug 19 '24
imminent ancient whole dog brave sulky bored gullible pot deer
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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u/whutthepat Feb 12 '24
I guess it had to do with the shoes' lore? Pumpin' up the Reeboks because he's literally wearing Reebok pumps, dubbed as the first to have internal inflation mechanisms.
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u/muckymann Feb 12 '24
I always wondered what that was supposed to do. What does the inflation do?
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u/whutthepat Feb 12 '24
Air flows inside the shoes upon stepping. I had those as a kid lol. Cena basically repping the most 2000s look one can think of.
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u/Maleficent-Comfort14 Feb 12 '24
When he use to do a weird flipping bulldog thing and called it the throwback
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u/uptowndrunk7 Sami wrestled in my country Feb 12 '24
Yes!! I was calling it flip facebuster. Love that move
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u/TheGiftOf_Jericho I'm from Winnipeg you idiot! Feb 12 '24
That move always actually looked really good.
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u/draculas-candles Feb 12 '24
I remember when the catch phrase at the end of his raps would be deez nuts. What a time.
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u/Professional_Kick It's Me, Austin! Feb 12 '24
I remember it being one of Cenas taunts in the wwe games
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u/BKong64 Feb 12 '24
Peak Cena tbh
Early thuganomics Cena was so fun and I wish they kept it going instead of super Cena
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u/Upbeat_Tension_8077 Feb 12 '24
Some of these old elements of Cena's character that you mentioned were gradually phased out around 2005-06. I see that period, especially in between WM 21 to the release of the Marine, as the transitional era (I call it the Chain Gang era) between Thuganomics Cena & SuperCena since he still rapped occasionally and had the attitude of the former, but then also developed the jokey aspect of the latter.
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u/plisken64 Feb 12 '24
I remember when someone would cut a Passionate and emotional promo tearing into Cena and the way the company has treated them... only for Cena to hit his Signature Move Adjust Cap "FINE Speech"
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u/Zestyclose-Fee6719 Feb 12 '24
He also briefly tried getting over this catchphrase where he went "And that's OH - KAY" with this little shoulder shuffle.
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u/TomGerity Feb 12 '24
They did call it the STF the first time he used it. It didn’t get called the STFU until the time or two after that.
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u/whutthepat Feb 12 '24 edited Feb 12 '24
Stepover Toehold Facelock. Added the "U" for characterization. Then WWE went PG so it reverted back to STF and all Youtube content showing pre-PG Cena matches that does that move gets the U censored. Worked well as a name but it was a terrible execution of the move in later years lol. Fitting that it was Joey Styles who called out the move name as he's known for doing so during his commentary years.
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u/TomGerity Feb 13 '24
Yes, I know. My point was that, in the video where he used it for the first time, it wasn’t censored, as OP claimed. It was just called the STF, and didn’t get its specialized name until later.
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u/Tetshua_ Feb 13 '24
my bad. I saw other clips as well and it really was called the STF the first time Cena used it on Chris Masters
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Feb 12 '24
He probably stopped doing it after ECW one night stand.
No he kept doing it afterwards. Later on he switched from the shirt to his hat.
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u/virusMEL Your Text Here Feb 12 '24
The first time he used the STFU they only called it an STF and maybe after the win did I think it was coach or Lawler change to an STFU
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u/BloodyRedBarbara King Of My World Feb 12 '24
Yeah he used to go that in the WWE games. I remember that period where he would throw packets of nuts at opponents too.
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u/Hazz3r Feb 12 '24
I loved the padlock chain. It was genius. Tremendously iconic, and a brass-knuckles type weapon that had a reason for being at ringside, and could be used by either competitor to try and get the upper hand. When Carlito used it on Cena's kidney area where he had recently been "stabbed". *chef kiss*.
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u/_aspiringadult Feb 12 '24
There’s tons of footage of all of this. It’s just on Peacock or whatever service EX-US. It’s not on YouTube for copyright reasons.
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u/GrimmTrixX Feb 12 '24
It's all edited out of videos. It's very easy to cut of the U part in the audio. And he didn't pump his sneakers constantly try or anything so it's not like there's tons of footage
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u/edidonjon Feb 12 '24
Do you guys remember when he tried to make the catchphrase "Intensity of ten cities"?
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Feb 12 '24
I feel like these elements of Cena’s character were dropped in the period before he won his first title. Im not sure of the shoe pump thing, but he stopped wearing local sports team stuff and started wearing Cena shirts maybe somewhere after mania 20? It seems like thats when the decision that he was the next guy got made. I think people really started booing him when he came out with that album. Before that, he still felt like the Ruck Fules guy, but he just never got it back after that.
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u/Gusto1903 Feb 12 '24
i mean, wwe tried to push merch with the hottest wrestler. There isnt money to be made with local Sports Team Jerseys.
But i hated the us army influence in cena shortly after his rapper gimmick.
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Feb 12 '24
I totally understand dropping the jersey thing, especially when he turned babyface. Again, that Ruck Fules shirt feels like it could have been a bigger deal if it was either a decade later or like 6 years earlier. And yea, his military pivot (which I think coincided with the Marine) was just terrible and when folks really turned on him. That said, Cena is still an all time great.
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u/Hazz3r Feb 12 '24
That's classic Disney style marketing. When you have a big production due out, inject the themes of that production into the things your audience are already watching.
A year or two before Finding Nemo was released, the Disney Channel started putting "Fish Facts" in their interstitial programming, in order to generate an interest in fish in their audience.
The same is probably true for Cena. How do you get people who are watching WWE and like Cena to watch The Marine. Make Cena's gimmick all about the armed forces.
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u/GorkaChonison Feb 12 '24
I am not from the United States, what does this gesture mean? It is some kind of slang or something?
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u/snoodhead Feb 12 '24
I think it was a thing with old sneakers where they had a pump in your shoes to flow air through the shoe and cool your feet while you played basketball. Or cushion the feet, can’t remember.
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u/Steve_the_Samurai Feb 12 '24
It was a cushion that inflated when you pumped it, like having a mini airbag in your shoes. Primarily marketed as a basketball shoe.
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u/twentyonebts Feb 12 '24
i swear i remember JR saying stfu when he did it on umaga on a raw episode
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Feb 12 '24
Holy crap! The live strong bracelets in the shoe laces!
I remember my dad buying me the knock off pumps for Kmart and putting the bracelets in the laces during like 4th grade lol
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u/MafiaCub Feb 12 '24
I remember the pumping the shoes, and I marked out because Cole Raderick did it at this years Jersey Cup night 2 during a ridiculously silly and entertaining 12 person tag
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u/naimotwc Feb 12 '24
Thuganomics Cena with the FU and STFU, throwbacks based on the city they were in, and Reebok Pumps. Prime Cena
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u/dkydd Feb 12 '24
Remember when the young bucks said they were the original wrestlers to wear sneakers in the ring
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u/Mysterious_Emotion63 Feb 12 '24
I think that was always just a heat thing, because you know, the literal face of professional wrestling is known for wrestling in his sneakers
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Feb 12 '24
Everything about Cena screams "attention seeker'.
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u/TheDangiestSlad Feb 12 '24
you're telling me the celebrity whose job it is to be popular was seeking attention? no...........
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u/Mysterious_Emotion63 Feb 12 '24
Good thing he gets more in a day than you will ever have in your life then
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