John Cena reveals ‘epiphany’ he had before WWE retirement
Right up until the end of his career, John Cena was still learning new things about professional wrestling.
Cena revealed during his “What Do You Wanna Talk About?” appearance that, just one day before his retirement, he had an epiphany about wrestling. Matches are like a conversation where the performers and audience each get to say their piece. When you’re having a conversation with someone, they’re going to tune you out if you just talk at them and don’t allow them to contribute as well. It’s important that wrestlers understand that and give the audience time to contribute to the match.
Understanding this has helped Cena give advice to young talent. Instead of being another old-timer telling them to slow down, he can articulate how crucial it is for them to let the fans play a part in their performance.
“The epiphany was crazy, right? And it’s just an example of like, let’s never stop learning,” Cena said. “This is Friday, I get this, like, ‘Holy sh*t, I found a way to say what I’m actually feeling.’ I was just reading through a book and it was about the ability to have fierce conversations. And you want to, you want to let everybody contribute. You want to have a conversation. And they were talking about the power of the pause and the silence, essentially slowing down. It’s those moments where you do action — it’s your piece of the conversation. And then you slow down to allow the arena to have their piece of the conversation. I’m like, ‘Holy sh*t. I think I can finally articulate what’s up here to a Je’Von Evans at 21 years old.’
“Be like, ‘Je’Von, if I talk to you for 45 minutes, you’re not going to care. But if we can talk, if you can tell me what’s on your mind and I can talk to you, and then maybe we both walk away having grown a little bit. Just make sure you do that in your matches.’ You know what I’m saying? Where I don’t have to say, ‘Slow down, kid. You’re going too fast.’ That immediately puts you on the defensive. ‘Slow down? You can’t keep up, old man.’ It’s not about that. You’re going to feel it when you feel it. But now you got a chip on your shoulder to prove me wrong and prove working fast is going to work. I’m not saying it doesn’t. I’m just saying — just make sure you always have a conversation with them out there. And that happened the day before I retired. So what I love about it is, you’re learning all the time.”
For Cena, the ending of his retirement match against Gunther at Saturday Night’s Main Event was also a conversation he was having with the audience. Cena struggled in a sleeper and ultimately tapped out with a smile on his face. Cena said the decision to smile while giving up was him going out peacefully after giving everything he had.
Cena made a couple of visits to the WWE Performance Center ahead of his retirement match — and it was his idea to include NXT talent on the undercard of the SNME special. Evans teamed up with Leon Slater in a loss to AJ Styles & Dragon Lee that night. Oba Femi and Sol Ruca were also featured in matches.
Joseph Currier is the lead editor of F4WOnline.com, directing daily news coverage and writing articles on professional wrestling. He is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts, obtaining a journalism degree in 2016. Joseph joined F4W during his time at UMass and has now been writing about the industry for nearly a decade.
In addition to his work with F4W, Joseph has previously contributed to Sports Illustrated's wrestling coverage. He lives in Massachusetts and is a diehard fan of the Boston sports teams and Liverpool Football Club.