Posted on 12/10/125 by Colin Vassallo
John Cena sat down with Chris Van Vliet at West Coast
Creative Studio in Hollywood, California to discuss the last
match of his legendary career, planning his Farewell Tour
for 3 years, turning heel and the criticism from fans, what
winning a 17th WWE Championship meant to him, becoming the
Intercontinental Champion, why his match with Brock Lesnar
at Wrestlepalooza was so short, his love letter to wrestling
with his match against AJ Styles, wrestling Dominik Mysterio
in 3 of his last 4 matches, who he feels is his wrestling
soulmate, and more!
How much planning went into the 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. I left
Intuit 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.”
Because you might get hurt?
“Because you’re doing a picture, and you’re being like,
‘Hey, I have Saturday off.’ That’s the thing a lot of folks
don’t understand. It’s like, ‘But you have the weekends off,
you can do this. Or they can shoot Tuesday through Saturday
if they want. You can do every Monday…’ You’re right, but
the liability of, hey, I’m doing this action movie, and then
I’m gonna go do, albeit choreographed action, but with a
high variable that I could get hurt. If I get hurt, I can’t
come back to shoot. Or I get my nose broke, or if I get a
black eye or something, we’ve already captured these moments
on camera, and now I’ve got to stop and wait for the thing
to heal before I can shoot another frame. So that’s
something that I had to learn the hard way of like, my
schedule is open. I can do it. It’s an insurance thing, and
this is what it costs. So trying to get a studio to leverage
that to let you go play stunt man is impossible. So you got
to a lot of times you got to come out of pocket, and that’s
a tough balance.”
What did winning that 17th championship mean to you?
“I want to choose my words carefully. I have been
apprehensive for quite some time for that, because I love
Ric, super mentor to me, always been a great guy to me, and
I love him. I meant what I said in the press conference at
Rumble, and this is another thing, I never wasted a second.
We want you to do the press conference. How do I make these
moments meaningful? I want to win 17 so I can shake the hand
of the performer that wins 18. So what it meant to me,
personally, was, ‘Hey, young uns, one of them is going to be
you. You better get working, because I don’t want to be in
the ground when 18 happens.’ I want to shake somebody’s
hand. And something that’s impossible is now possible. So
that’s what it means to me, hopefully, by my actions, this
is possible. Holy hell, this guy wants to shake my hand when
I pass it, and I can’t wait to do that.”
That intro for AJ Styles was great:
“I just wanted to do something nice for my guy. I didn’t
even show Alicia [Taylor] 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.”
I can’t imagine anyone had a problem with it?
“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.”
That match was so much fun:
“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, 2026 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.”