Jim Cornette, speaking on the latest edition of The Experience, shared his thoughts on John Cena and LA Knight vs. Solo Sikoa and Jimmy Uso at WWE Fastlane. Cornette was all praise for the match, going as far as to call it perfect. He began,
“It was all psychology, told a story, accomplished pretty much every point they wanted to accomplish, whether you agree with those points or not, and was pretty much perfectly done to give the people exactly what they came to see.”
Elaborating on his point, Cornette highlighted how the match was built to get LA Knight over, while also letting John Cena avoid any high-risk spots. He said,
“The way that they did this was perfect because Cena starts, and you were talking about earlier that La Knight is getting the rub but not being the little buddy, and this was constructed exactly to make LA Knight a star instead of the little buddy. They got John Cena at the start, and he shined a little bit, and then Solo cut him off. They got the heat on Cena for the next fucking 10 minutes, and LA Knight had never gotten in yet.
So not only was he going to get a pop when he got the hot tag, but it was going to be a bigger pop because they hadn’t seen him do anything yet. This was a complete working match. Cena’s not going to take any risks; he can’t. He’d be an idiot. He’s got to go back and do a movie or finish a movie or whatever. But the way they built this with personalities involved, he didn’t need to dive off the goddamn biggest ladder in the world.”
Cornette then ran down the match and its finish, before he was asked about the aftermath, wherein John Cena went to raise LA Knight’s hand, but Knight denied the offer but instead reciprocated the gesture as a sign of respect. Cornette said,
“Yes, it was planned out, I can guarantee you. But here’s the thing, and probably John probably said this. If LA Knight had raised Cena’s hand right off the bat, then all the attention would have gone to Cena as the Big Star. LA Knight goes to raise Cena’s hand, and that would have gotten a pop right. But LA Knight, being deferential to the star, obviously stops it and raises his hand. Then the attention went on LA Knight raising John Cena’s hand, and LA Knight looks like a fucking nicer guy for it. You see what I’m saying? So just that little bit of interplay, it changed the dynamic. It wasn’t like he just went over and did it first, like, ‘Yeah, this is the big star, and I’m glad to be with him.’ The big star was going to do it first, but the new big star said, ‘Oh no, I’m much too humble. Allow me to give the old guy a round of applause, folks.’ That changes… just little things like that change the way people see things.”
If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Jim Cornette’s ‘The Experience’ with an h/t to Wrestling Headlines for the transcription.