#4 Stop bringing up John Cena
The feud between Nikki Bella and Carmella should have been an even better one for “The Princess of Staten Island”, but one thing that held her back was the constant references to Nikki’s partner John Cena.
I get that SmackDown Live wants to blur kayfabe and reality to enhance its plotlines, and it has mostly been successful in doing this.
Dolph Ziggler’s promos were so good because you could tell that some of what he was saying came from the heart – the frustrations at his lack of a push following big moments in his career, such as the cash-in against Alberto Del Rio.
More recently, the feud between The Miz and Dean Ambrose has done a nice job of involving Maryse and Renee Young.
However, there’s a difference between involving a partner, such as Maryse, directly into the feud, and merely using the partner as a way to get a cheap jab in. Most of Carmella’s insults and taunts seemed to reference Cena. In Nikki Bella’s current feud with Natalya, we’ve seen Natalya go to the Cena well often in promos.
She has done the “You can’t see me” taunt, and she once told Nikki that “John will never marry you”.
There’s nothing wrong with occasionally referencing Cena, especially if the joke is too good to pass up on. However, since I can’t see a way in which Cena could be reasonably involved in this feud directly, I just don’t see the point in using him.
Quite frankly, the constant references to Cena are mildly insulting to Nikki Bella, who doesn’t need to be hitched to Cena, and I’m sure Natalya can have plenty of savage insults that don’t involve “The Face That Runs The Place”.
This feud is capable of so much more than recycled insults that were used in Nikki Bella’s previous beef.
