WWE legend and the fucking 17-time World Champion John Cena spoke with Uncrowned about several topics, including his farewell tour and match against Cody Rhodes at WrestleMania 41.
Cena said, “I think it’s a great template for when I talk to young talent — and I try to do this all the time, I remind them to swing big and don’t be afraid to fail. A lot of them think I’m talking from a glass house of like, ‘Yeah, sure, it must be easy for you, because you, you never fail.’ And then I’ll look back, especially on that last year because the retirement tour did have a lot of eyes, and I’ll say I took a big swing at WrestleMania and we stunk up the joint. We failed. But what did I do? I got back up, we dusted ourselves off, course-corrected the ship, and we culminated with a fantastic finishing of the story, as Cody would put it, at SummerSlam. As far as the last match goes, gosh, there were a lot of easy routes we could have gone creatively, and I appreciate the bold swing at the end. So, it’s authentically me. I didn’t leave anything in the tank physically. I gave it my all, got to work with a great opponent. I thought we had an ending that surely everybody talked about. Regardless of whether it was acclaimed or criticized, it sparked conversation and thought, which I think is really cool.”
On the reputation he’s built over 25 years:
“I believe over a quarter century, at the very least, people are like, ‘That guy is who he says he is.’ Then you add the ability to be reliable to back that up. For 20 years, I worked a full-time WWE schedule. Five live events a week, 52 weeks a year, for a global territory. It was a different city every night. There’s a couple lanes of success in the performance business. You can make yourself exclusive and show up for a limited amount of dates and it’s a huge thing when you show up. That’s a heck of a way to create buzz. Or you can just be that lunchpail guy, that blue-collar guy that’s going to be there all the time — and that’s a reliable, comfortable feeling. Now, that isn’t built overnight, and you do risk overexposure. But at the same time, if the work is good and it’s authentic and you really care, it pays off. I can’t tell you how many people come up to me and say that I’m the ‘never give up’ guy. I think I’ve said ‘never give up’ on television maybe twice. The reason that they correlate me with persistence is because of reliability.”
