John Cena Changed Everything For WWE Star
John Cena’s impact can’t be underestimated.
Much is often said about John Cena’s on-screen performances, but during his long and storied career, he’s also had a huge impact backstage.
As he nears retirement, WWE stars past and present have been discussing their memories of working with and alongside Cena, and that includes Grayson Waller.
During a new interview with Chris Van Vliet, Waller opened up about his desire to remain patient as he waits for a spot as a singles star on Raw. He noted that in the past, he’s not always been content to play the long game.
“I think some people fumble the bag stressing about that time period where you’re kind of sitting and waiting. At the end of the day, like, we get paid to travel the world and do these cool things. I think my perspective has changed a lot.”
Waller went on to recall a locker room talk with John Cena shortly after he was moved to SmackDown. The Aussie star said that Cena’s comments that night really resonated with him and changed his perspective on the wrestling industry.
Instead of seeing certain aspects of his role as something to complain about, he now sees them as a privilege.
“Maybe two years ago, I was kind of freshly on SmackDown. He did a little, kind of like a locker room thing. We had a little meeting. We had to talk about some stuff.
He got up and he said something that really stuck with me, where he talked about like, you know, you don’t have to do the Netflix break promo. You don’t have to wrestle before the show. You don’t have to do the dark match. It’s like — you get to.
Like, you get to, three minutes, say whatever you want on Netflix. You get to wrestle before the show when they’re the hottest, when they’re the most excited and you get to wrestle another great [Superstar].
And when he said that, it changed my perspective a little bit. I’m like, who are we to complain about — I have mates at home who would, like, literally give everything in their life to wrestle before Raw.
Who am I to go, ‘Oh man, I’ve got to wrestle.’ Like, I hated that I even possibly thought those things. So once he said that, that changed everything for me. And I look at everything as ‘get to.’
Anything you give me, you give me 30 seconds backstage, I’m stealing that. I’m going to make sure people online are going to reshare the 30 seconds that I have. I’m going to make sure whatever moment I have is going to be something. That’s the mindset I think you have to have.”
John Cena Tournament To Get Underway
During Saturday Night’s Main Event, John Cena announced the creation of the “Last Time Is Now” tournament to decide his final opponent. On the following episode of Raw, it was revealed that the first two matches will take place on the red brand on November 10 in Boston.
Those first two matches will see Sheamus battle Shinsuke Nakamura, and Damian Priest square off against Rusev.
Cena is set to wrestle his final match on December 13 at a special Saturday Night’s Main Event in Washington, D.C. In recent days, there’s been growing speculation that the United States President Donald Trump and disgraced former WWE boss Vince McMahon could be in attendance.
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H/t to f4wonline