WWE legend and 17-time World Champion John Cena appeared on the No-Contest Wrestling podcast to discuss various topics, including the necessity for pro wrestlers to evolve.
Cena said, “Shawn Michaels gave me some great advice. You can evolve or be a dinosaur. And I’m at that point where I look fondly towards the future. But I want a fan seat, because I don’t know if I can evolve with it. Because I’m hardwired to operate a certain way. And when it’s like, ‘But we don’t do that anymore.’ What do you mean? And you see the smoke and the bolts and like, ‘What’s going on?’ It’s interesting to learn.”
On how he apologized to WWE: Unreal producers for his attitude towards them on the first two seasons:
“I just did a sit down with Unreal for season three. I led with, ‘I’m sorry.’ Because those motherf***ers tried to get me for season one and season two and I’m like, ‘I’m not spoiling any stories. I’m going to be curt and short with my answers. You guys are from football. This is a business that’s way more nuanced. You don’t know what you’re doing. You’re taking a swing and the institutional knowledge that I have says we never do this. So you’re going against everything I believe in.’ Now they’re on season three. I have to admit I’m wrong, they’re right. I have to. because it works, people want to see it. Yeah. So, I have to sit down — if you want to fight it, don’t watch it.”
On embracing fan criticism:
“And there’s some sentiment from the professional side, which I get and respect, of ‘Would you please just be a fan?’ No. Get as vocal and critical as you want, because you are the fuel that powers our business. And all of the voices are simply data points. By the way — you know, WWE is going through a great renaissance, like a golden era, and we’re advertising that. Heavy is the head that wears a crown, you are going to get critiqued. So you got to be ready for that. It can’t be all good news. You got to be able to take the criticism and listen to the criticism. Maybe you can learn and get better and also take it as a data point. ‘We don’t like Unreal.’ Everybody watches that s**t. So like, do you not like it or not? I don’t know. Something of like, ‘Ah, I don’t want to go to events. It’s too much trouble.’ Just don’t go. But it’s exciting and fun and like we’re now on par with marketplaces that we compete with. Yeah, I can understand every single choice that’s made. I can also understand the criticism for that choice. ‘It’s always been done this way.’ That’s not a good answer. That’s a ‘because I said so.’ ”We’re doing this to take a swing. It might not work, but what we’d like to try to do with our relationship with Netflix is provide more content in a different storytelling capacity and show a different dimension of WWE.’ That is not ‘because I said so.’ I can still be apprehensive, but then eventually I got to be like, ‘That’s the business.’”
You can check out the complete podcast in the video below.
(H/T to 411Mania.com for transcribing the above quotes)
