WWE legend and 16-time World Champion John Cena recently appeared on the Howard Stern Show, where he talked about a number of topics including how he had complete creative control over his character except for the fact that he could never turn heel.
Cena said, “I think it was two-fold. One, my body was like, ‘You say you can do this forever. I’m going to give you another five years, max.’ That was me saying, ‘If I super take care of myself, I can stretch it to ten.’ For me, ten years is like, ‘I’m going to live forever.’ That’s a blink of an eye in WWE. You’re on the road so much, you blink, a decade goes by. I realized it’s something that I can’t do forever, combined with the fact that I didn’t have a lot of wild creative freedom in WWE. I had complete creative freedom over how I could curate my character, but I couldn’t turn bad. That limits what you’re capable of. Playing the same character over and over again for 15 years, every week, without an offseason, I still love it, and I still do, that’s why I go back. Then, someone gives you an opportunity like, ‘You want to be this weird, awkward, naked guy?’ ‘Fuck yeah, that sounds great, let’s do it.”
(H/T to Fightful for transcribing the above quotes)
