John Cena explains why he believes his WWE retirement tour still worked even without The Rock and Travis Scott being part of the story.
Cena shocked the wrestling world by turning heel at WWE Elimination Chamber, he did so alongside The Rock and music star Travis Scott. The moment felt huge and unexpected, but when both Rock and Scott later exited the storyline without any explanation, fans criticized that Cena’s retirement tour lost its impact.
Speaking on What Do You Wanna Talk About? With Cody Rhodes, Cena explained why he believes his final run was still meaningful, even without those major names involved. “Let’s walk down hypothetical street,” he said. “Let’s say everyone who showed up at the Chamber is active until August. That robs us of John Cena–Randy Orton. That robs us of John Cena–CM Punk, John Cena–Ron Cena, John Cena–AJ Styles, John Cena–Logan Paul… me and you for the last one, mano a mano.”
Cena said keeping every original piece of the story would have taken away several special matches fans ultimately got to see. “So yes, the story that might have been might have had star power, and gravity and who knows what, but what we got by just being like ‘these are the pieces left’. What we got, for me personally, was beautiful.”
“I’m not trying to change anybody’s mind. I’ve released art into the world, they can think what they want about it. I’m just also saying that like, is it a wise investment in time, and what I’ve learned about like credible wrestling critiques, of course it is because you want chatter and clickbait.”
John Cena reflected on sharing the ring with WWE’s top stars
“But lets analyse what happened, I was in the ring with you, I was in the ring with Randy and Punk and Ron Cena, Logan Paul, AJ Styles, and it was really loud. So, judging by the wise man Shawn Michaels, does that mean we did okay? Sometimes all these hypothetical things, lets just figure out what it is, why we’re doing it, and climb that hill in front of you man, because it’s gonna change. They’re gonna have a plan for (Cody), and it’s gonna change.”
Rather than focusing on what could have happened, Cena encouraged fans to appreciate what actually took place. “Here’s the thing, the WWE audience, the people who critique our work, they’re so understanding when the reason is injury. Someone gets injured, they can’t compete, okay, we gotta give that up. Totally blows the story, injury, I get it.”
“What if it’s an emotional injury? What if we deem things aren’t working out? What if somebody says I just can’t make it? I just doesn’t work sometimes, and instead of bitching about what we could have had, the imaginary thing, look at what we got. Again, when I reflect on Saturday, I went peacefully, I closed this chapter peacefully, and man, fun, fun stuff.” [H/T: Wrestletalk]
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