UPDATE: While most people backstage saw Shinsuke Nakamura’s dropping John Cena on his head during last week’s WWE SmackDown Live! broadcast as a fluke, one important name didn’t. As reported on Wednesday here on eWrestlingNews.com, Sports Illustrated ran a story saying that Vince McMahon was “livid” over the incident, particularly since Cena is still considered the face of the company at this point. It should also be noted that Cena has always been looked at as the “teacher’s pet” who can do no wrong in the eyes of Vince McMahon.
As Andrew noted earlier (h/t Sports Illustrated), McMahon being “furious” was not an indictment of Nakamura, but rather a defense of his main guy – John Cena. The site says that McMahon has not lost faith in Nakamura despite his anger over the situation. However, if Nakamura makes another mistake like that in a major spotlighted moment, he will likely have a very different opinion of the Japanese star.
Cena himself wasn’t upset about the moment. Multiple sources claim Cena was “fine” backstage after the match and wasn’t upset at all. Cena reportedly saw it as nothing more than a fluke accident and knows things like that can happen in the ring. Nakamura apologized, to which Cena said, “Don’t be sorry.”
ORIGINAL (h/t Andrew Thompson): According to Sports Illustrated, WWE Chairman Vince McMahon was upset with Shinsuke Nakamura following the exploder-suplex spot with John Cena last week on SmackDown Live.
Here’s an excerpt from Sports Illustrated:
“Yet Nakamura did not escape the wrath of McMahon, who has come to depend on Cena as the face of his company for the past decade. Despite McMahon’s anger, which was more in defense of Cena than it was an indictment of Nakamura, he has not lost faith in the Japanese star. However, if Nakamura makes another mistake on a grand stage, Sports Illustrated learned through channels close to WWE, then McMahon will have an entirely different opinion of Nakamura.”
