Professional wrestling is filled with fake feuds to beef up the melodrama, but some beefs are all too real. That, sadly, is the case with the one between John Cena and Dwayne Johnson in the early aughts. Back in 2012 and 2013, the two got real angry with each other, to the point that it became uncomfortable, not entertaining. The two eventually patched things up and now, a decade later, Cena is taking the blame for it.
It all started when Cena called out Johnson during an interview, accusing him of caring more about acting in big movies than wrestling. Johnson didn’t enjoy that line. Then things got ugly before they got better. During a recent appearance on the Happy Sad Confused webcast, it was Cena who was attacking himself from ten or so years ago.
“I got selfish and me — living WWE at the point and not having any concept of growth or someone else’s perspective — I took Dwayne’s comments as not genuine,” Cena said. “My view was if you love something, be there everyday. Like, what a hypocrite I am, because I still love WWE and I can’t go all the time. And I just didn’t see that. I was so selfish.”
Cena says he should have reached out to him to settle the matter privately.
“Instead of going like, ‘Hey man, I’d like to try to do this thing to hook you back in and maybe we can collaborate and really make it big,’ I was just like, ‘Eff this, I’m calling this dude out. This is a moment. You gave me an opening. I’m going to kick the door in,’” Cena recalled. “And I was diligent and I understand why he got upset.”
Cena admitted that he didn’t get what wrestler like Johnson and Dave Bautista were doing by expanding into film and TV.
These guys are breaking down barriers, shattering ceilings, and on top of that, just transcending the art form,” Cena said. “I just got selfish and wanted a main event marquee match because it would better what I thought was the business. That was short-sighted and selfish. It worked! But it worked at the cost of two people who communicated and almost put it in jeopardy. There was a moment where there was a lot of bad vibes between us and rightfully so.”
Of course, Cena himself would go on to his own successful acting career, even playing the baddie in a Fast and Furious movie — which didn’t feature Johnson, in part because Johnson was involved in his own real-life feud with someone else. Luckily, that one has reached a truce, too.
(Via Deadline)