John Cena recently explained the real reason behind creating WWE’s new John Cena Classic tournament. The WWE veteran revealed that he wanted his retirement run to help spotlight the company’s future stars instead of focusing only on celebrating his own career.
Cena first announced the John Cena Classic during WWE Backlash. The tournament will reportedly feature crossover matches between WWE main roster stars and NXT talent. Cena also revealed that the eventual champion will partly be decided through fan voting rather than traditional WWE booking. The concept has already received mixed reactions from wrestling fans online.
John Cena wanted his retirement tour to help WWE’s future stars
Speaking on The Rich Eisen Show, Cena revealed that the idea for the John Cena Classic came after WWE’s recent Saturday Night’s Main Event special. He said, “Man, I can tell you I’m pumped, and I can tell you this is an idea from me. And I can also tell you that this is gonna get a lot of chatter, too, because the audience is kind of every which way but loose on this.”
“I got the idea from that last event that’s Saturday Night’s Main Event where Gunther and I were the close of the show. But the idea for the open of the show and the way I wanted to promote it was instead of doing a 90-minute tribute showing highlights and interviews of folks to essentially my career, there’s no pay it forward there.”
He continued, “So, I chose to use the rest of the evening as showcasing marquee superstars as a way to get crowds in the building and keep them excited. You hear the music of your favorite superstar, that’s great, and pair them up against the future of our business. Names like Sol Ruca, Je’Von Evans, certainly Oba Femi, they all kind of debuted on our grand stage that night.”
John Cena explains why WWE added fan voting to the John Cena Classic
“I thought the event went well. Not only was it well received by the audience, aside from my part in the ending, which is okay because I’m the polarizing guy. I can bear the weight on my shoulders. When I promoted it, people enjoyed the idea.”
“When we executed it, people enjoyed the event and, more importantly, the talent. It’s not like the talent aren’t excited for the event, but the talent felt like they were part of something new, and that was really important. So, I got the idea from there, and then I kind of wanted to extend it a little bit more. I’m like, ‘How can we involve the fan base?'”
“So that’s where the fan vote came from. Then I tried to take it a little bit further by saying that if you’re a talent and you go out and you actually tear the house down, but you’re this close to winning and maybe you came up short, you still have the opportunity to be in the running to see if you won the fan vote enough to be crowned champion.”
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