John Cena recalls ”one hell of a callback” from William Regal after his WWE retirement match.
WWE legend John Cena recently sat down for an interview with O’Shea Jackson Jr and TJ Jefferson on the No-Contest Wrestling podcast. During the conversation, he looked back at some of the bad matches he had during his early days as a wrestler.
John Cena recalled asking William Regal’s feedback on one of the matches. Regal simply replied that he’d look like a proper wrestler if he got himself a pair of boots.
“I remember getting an opportunity to do some dark matches at Anaheim and LA, and I share this moment with, I call him Commissioner Regal, William Regal,” John Cena began. “And man, you want to talk about one hell of a callback. We shared the story for each other for years. I just had bad matches. It was blocky, unorthodox, as Michael Cole would call it. I know the man in the mirror.
“I really idolized William Regal. That European Fit Finlay, that catches can style. I liked the kinesthetic awareness of it. I loved how it was just like physical poetry. So, he was there, and I asked him, ‘Hey, did you see my match?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘How was it?’ His feedback was, ‘Lad, if you get yourself a pair of boots, at least you look like a proper wrestler.’
William Regal was subtly telling John Cena the match was bad
John Cena was performing in bodybuilding shoes at the time, and didn’t have proper wrestling boots. Coming from someone he idolized, he took the advice as a wake-up call to invest in himself. But Regal was diplomatically saying the match was poor without hurting young Cena’s confidence.
“And I was like, ‘Yo,’ but here’s the thing, perception is reality. I was like, ‘All I need is a pair of boots!’ Like that’s how I took it,” John Cena continued. “But obviously, he was being very polite, very stiff upper lip, and it was the shits. So he was honest. But thank goodness he didn’t tell me it was bad. Because I was wrestling in bodybuilding Otomix shoes, and I’m like, ‘Yo, I just gotta get boots.’ Invest in yourself is what I took away from it.
William Regal moved Cena with a powerful callback after his WWE retirement match
John Cena left his boots and wristband in the ring after losing his WWE retirement match against Gunther. Speaking further, he recalled the conversation he had with William Regal in the back after the contest. In a callback to their interaction from 25 years ago, Regal moved Cena by saying he’s a proper wrestler even without his boots.
“In the callback of all callbacks, the night I retired, he literally came up to me and said, ‘Even without boots, you’re still a proper wrestler.’ And yo, like I’m getting weird. It was. The day was real busy, but all he needed was one sentence. You never know what effect one sentence can have.
“That was like a 25-year callback. That motherf****r waited on that for 25 years. And every time I would tell the story around him, all he would do is just say how bad the match was. He would never give me the nugget. And then the last day, in the best way possible, he did,” John Cena said.
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