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John Cena Admits “It Took A While” To Properly Respect WWE Legend

By Gaurav Singh • Published Jul 03, 2026 05:09 EDT
John Cena WWE
John Cena - Source: WWE.com

John Cena recalled how a WWE legend finally earned his respect after some issues between them. The legend in conversation is The Rock.

Back in 2011, The Rock made his return to the WWE in the midst of his successful Hollywood career. He kicked off a feud with John Cena, and their match was officially announced for WrestleMania 28 in 2012. The dream match between Rock and Cena was highly promoted as one of the biggest matches in history.

During the build-up to their major showdown at WrestleMania 28, The Rock and John Cena shared some heated promo segments, and the two allegedly had some real heat with each other. Meanwhile, Cena recalled his backstage equation with Rock during their mega rivalry.

John Cena respected the WWE legend after a while

In an interview with Slice Joint, John Cena highly praised WWE legend The Rock for his success in different fields and compared his own journey from wrestling to acting with his:

He’s great. You have someone who has a high level of success in one realm of entertainment, and then switches relatively quickly to another realm.”

I’m inching along, dude. I did a lot of bad movies early in my career, I came back with bit parts, one thing at a time, trying to get a little bit more in the window, and here we are talking about a big release of Little Brother coming out on Netflix. Fantastic.”

John Cena also admitted that he has utmost respect for Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, but it took a while before Rock earned his respect:

Dwayne is selling out arenas and then goes straight to The Mummy. I think it was so groundbreaking that when I was talking trash about him, I didn’t understand it. I have the utmost respect for Dwayne Johnson as a professional and as a person. And it took a while.”

Cena concluded by revealing what his original issue was with The Rock and how he lacked wisdom at that time:

My original issue with him was, this is a long time ago, ‘He says he loves the business but he’s never around.’ Yeah, he’s never around because he’s making an awesome name for himself, and by making a name for himself, is doing better for people like me. So again, it was just me not having the wisdom to know when to open my ears and shut my mouth.” [h/t WrestleTalk]

Also read: John Cena Personally Requested That WWE Turn This Heel Star Babyface