WWE is gearing up for its biggest show of the year, WrestleMania 39, and there is arguably no bigger stage for the Show of Shows to be on than under the bright lights of Hollywood! In preparation for the show, the wrestling juggernaut has been having some fun with its marketing, creating parody vignettes of some of Hollywood's biggest films and series starring some of the company's top talent. Tonight during Monday Night RAW, the latest of these vignettes debuted and took inspiration from Netflix's beloved series Stranger Things, the winner of the 2023 Royal Rumble Match, Rhea Ripley, taking the role of Eleven and was put through a psychic test overseen by John Cena.The minute-long vignette sees Ripley reenacting the scene from Season 1, Episode 3 of the series "Chapter 3: Holly, Jolly" where Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) relives an experiment overseen by Dr. Martin Brenner (Matthew Modine) of her crushing a Coca-Cola can with her mind. Where Ripley takes the role of Eleven, Cena plays Brenner as his voice comes over a PA system. Where in the original scene, Brenner is a passive observer in the experiment, Cena asks Ripley if she is feeling the pressure of the upcoming event where she will be in a featured match for the SmackDown Women's Championship against Charlotte Flair and attempting to redeem a lost from 2020's WrestleMania 36. The prodding from Cena works as Ripley crushes the can with her mind which, as it did for Eleven, causes her nose to bleed. Along with Ripley, Cena will also be performing at WrestleMania 39, competing for the United States Championship against current champion Austin Theory.This is just the latest vignette released by WWE that is part of the promotion for "WrestleMania Goes Hollywood", with RAW Women's Champion Bianca Belair and her husband Montez Ford, member of the Street Profits tag team, did a parody of Titanic, which recently saw a rerelease to celebrate its 25th anniversary. Other parodies that have been released include a Top Gun parody starring The Miz and Maryse and a Seth Rollins and Becky Lynch-led parody of the stair dance scene from Joker. With a show as popular as Stranger Things, which was the most-streamed show of 2022, it only makes sense that the series was represented in WWE's list of inspirations for this entertaining ad campaign.
WrestleMania Movie Parodies Return
This isn't the first time that WWE has done movie parodies to promote WrestleMania, with the company doing a similar ad campaign back in 2005 for WrestleMania 21, which is the last time the event was held in Los Angeles, California. These vignettes included parodies of A Few Good Men which also starred Cena, Pulp Fiction starring Booker T and the late-great Eddie Guerrero, Gladiator led by Stone Cold Steve Austin, Braveheart featuring Triple H, and Taxi Driver, which saw several wrestlers performing the "You Talkin' to Me" scene from the Martin Scorsese classic. When this year's WrestleMania was announced to be in Hollywood, many fans voiced their want to see these parody vignettes return and have been a welcomed inclusion in the promotion for the event.
WrestleMania 39 streams live Saturday, April 1, and Sunday, April 2, at 8 ET/5 PT exclusively on Peacock. The two-night event emanates from SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles. You can watch the Rhea Ripley and John Cena-led Stranger Things vignette down below: