During the latest episode on Insight with Chris Van Vliet, John Cena spoke on his last match coming up this Saturday, his heel turn, his farewell tour, his match with AJ Styles at Crown Jewel and more!
On how he feels heading into his retirement match this Saturday at SNME:
“Great, truly great. We’ve been able to put programming that’s held the attention of folks out there for a year, been able to leverage individual intellectual property and create attention through things like the time is now tournament, stuff like that’s important, even when you can’t be there, you kind of help him get eyes on the product. Gosh, I’m super excited about the 13th because they bought what I sold them. I would love for it to be, rather than just a tribute show, I want it to be a look ahead. I’ll have my last in-ring performance. That is for certain. I’m not doing anything after that. But in doing so in the night too, we get big WWE Superstars so they can say they were on the card in non-canon exhibition matches against the best and brightest we got in NXT. So gosh, what a way to go out. Using those few hours that Peacock has given us and Netflix internationally to be able to say goodbye to a chapter in my life that’s very important, and in doing so, hopefully get eyes on what could be the next two-decade run, or maybe give somebody that boot in the butt that like, Yo, this is what the noise sounds like. I’m really, really happy, man. I feel great.”
On how he pitched his farewell tour to WWE:
“We have two options. At 48, I feel I can compete using magic, hocus pocus and all the tricks and wisdom I have, but the pace of the product has passed me by. I either post, ‘I’m done’, which is a post, or I can pump the brakes on all other activities for the year and dedicate this to being the last year. I know it hasn’t been done, but this is what I think could possibly happen creatively. I’m allowing you to do whatever you want. I just want to try to use whatever energy I have to pass on and hopefully give audiences memorable moments. I think, I don’t know if people understand it right away, because no wrestler ever retires, I’ll be the first, but it’s been great to see audiences get it and audiences understand. So now to be at these shows is something special, and we’ve had great moments come out of these shows. I’m not saying I’m the sole driving force behind it, but a lot of people are showing up to be like man, this is the last time I can see John, and then the show’s been great enough to be like yeah, but I want to watch them fight too. So I’m very happy they bought it, and I think I would say everyone internally is happy, and I would say everyone externally has an opinion about it, which is good. Here we are in early December, looking forward to the 13th. I don’t think there is apathy out there. I know some people are critical of it. Some people may be upset, some people may be overjoyed, but there isn’t apathy, and I think that means we did okay.”
On how much planning went into the retirement tour schedule:
“The whole thing was like 3 years. So by then [2022], I knew I had a lot of opportunities outside of WWE, and those are very difficult to balance, not just being everywhere like the first half of this year for the tour, I was flying back and forth to Budapest and Morocco, making PLE dates. The day I announced, Jan 6, I left to land in Budapest to shoot the next day. That’s a scheduling. The biggest hurdle to climb is insurance, and insurance is super pricey. Every date, the cost goes up, whether it be $500,000, $1,000,000.”
On if the heel turned planned as part of his retirement tour and if he was excited about it:
“No, that stuff you see on Unreal is real. ‘We need to make Chamber big, so let’s do something that’ll shock everybody.’ ‘Hey, man, we got this idea.’ No problem, I’ll do the best I can. I’m excited about everything. I like the riddle. You see my stuff. I’m not exactly the most gifted athletic performer. I give you all I got.”
On how he felt about the turn and the months that followed:
“This is just my perspective. What I like is people are talking about it. And the cool thing is, people who are critical of it, apparently had some idea in their head about what they wanted, which is great, because that means you’re attached, that means you care. I enjoy that, and I hear that criticism. When we did it, we did it as a big moment, but with a purpose. Hey, this is going to ignite something with you and Cody. It’s going to start in February and end in August, because you only have 36 broadcasts and Intuit and Rumble are gone. So now we’re down to 34. Then we need some on the back end, with you actually being a good guy. So let’s take it down to 24. We kind of have to tell a story that should be two years long, 52 weeks a year, plus 14 to 18 PLES. We got to do it in like 20 episodes of television. Okay, so it took my focus on Cody, on the championship and on frustrations that I’ve had, it all comes from a genuine place, things I could say. I’m so happy to say that I wouldn’t retread the course, because I gave everything I had my poor wife. I’d wake up in the middle of the night writing promo lines and thinking about spots and stuff. The opponents I had were great, but I remember everyone talking in February and be like, this is how things change. Yes, this is a good plan. Okay, guys, if I’m gonna ruin this thing, like I’m gonna I’m gonna wrestle methodically, I have an idea of what ruining wrestling is.”
On the introduction for AJ Styles at Crown Jewel:
“I just wanted to do something nice for my guy. I didn’t even show Alicia until I handed her the paper. You don’t get those moments unless you get the sh*t beat up. I wanted to do something special. I went about it the wrong way. I went into business for myself. I should have gotten permission to do that, and I would have gotten permission to do that, but I told no one about it, because I wanted to do something special, and in doing so, the people running the show felt surprised, and that’s not a position I ever want to put them in because they award me such creative liberty. We’re all trying to make these moments special, and we’re all on the same team, and it shouldn’t be me doing something outside that realm. If I tell my teammates, hey, let’s do it. I can keep it from AJ, I can keep it from Alicia, but if I tell my teammates who are crafting this show, maybe they make it look better. The first thing I did was thank AJ, the second thing I did was pull a few creative individuals aside and say, ‘I’m sorry. That will never happen again. I know where I f*cked up. I’m so sorry, and I went into business for myself. That’s not me. I hope you look at my body of work, and all the times I’ve asked for permission, and this is the one time I ask for forgiveness.’ It got the best of me, but I wanted to do something nice for AJ.”
His thoughts on match with AJ Styles at Crown Jewel:
“I just want to get that ball rolling. All right, they’re wasting the heel turn at WrestleMania, and they’re like, Oh, the Randy thing. And then the Punk, and then Cody, and then Logan in Paris was even kind of dope. And then you go to Brock, what? What are they gonna do next? And then you get the payoff, and we look at them all in individual moments, but it’s why, until now, I have refused to give anyone any information about any of this, because I don’t want to lead the witness. The last one is going to be the last one. We have told the story, everybody knows the drill, a tournament to decide, this is going to be it. I want the last one. I want people to look at the road ahead, 26 and beyond. I want them to take away some Superstar’s name from the 13th. But now we can reflect on the year. We get caught up in these moments, thinking that’s all you get and not realizing that this is the commercial spot before the reveal, before the big finish. We’ve just had to digest it as it has been a year storyline, and reflecting back on it, I get excited and again, I don’t feel I could have given anything else. So I’m very happy with how it’s gone so far.”
All quotes are courtesy of Insight with Chris Van Vliet.
Cena also talks on his favorite matches, his Intercontinental Title win and more!
You can watch the full interview below: