John Cena Received Backstage Heat For Helping Ex-WWE Champion

WWE Legend John Cena was generous towards this former co-star of his, and that got him in trouble.

John Cena has received praise from a lot of his co-stars for being a good mentor, very respectful and professional, and a kind of quiet leader.

Cena, who had his own humble beginning by making a name for himself after answering Kurt Angle’s open challenge in simple trunks and no gimmick, a far cry from the John Cena that everyone knows and remembers.

He was always known to ‘give back’ to the business, and even after he reached stratospheric levels of fame, he agreed to lose his final bout before retirement to Gunther last year, effectively passing the torch.

One such example of generosity, though, got The Champ in trouble as described by former WWE star Paul London.

Paul London Reflects On John Cena Getting IN Trouble For Helping Him

Former WWE Cruiserweight Champion Paul London was the guest in a recent episode of Chris Van Vliet’s Insight podcast.

When Van Vliet asked him if the story of John Cena allowing London to land a lot of offence on him during a match was true, London explained the background of this story, detailing how he had first found out about Cena in WWE’s developmental brand OVW, where he was called The Prototype.

Yeah, that was in Dallas, Texas, when he had B Squared ringside. Super cool guy. John’s amazing, by the way. I think he’s the Mick Jagger of pro wrestling, and he was just super cool. Mind you, I went out to UPW in California after he had left, so I was very familiar with him. I knew he was The Prototype, and I’d watched that documentary on Discovery Channel or something like that.

That’s how I found out about UPW, and that’s what led me out to California. But they had already gotten their developmental deal taken away from them, but they didn’t tell me that before I moved out here, and then they told me that they still had it. I moved out here, and I was like, What the f*ck?!

But John was amazing, and the funny thing with John is, so we went out to the ring, and he said, ‘What do you want to do?’ We start talking. I’m like, ‘I do this slingshot…’ Because he’s asking me. I was always taught when the veteran, or who the match is engineered for, when they’re asking you questions, you just shut up. For any vet, you just stop and listen when they ask you questions, then you answer, but you give your input when they ask you for it.

London recalls allowing Perry Saturn to get a lot of offense on him and, in putting Saturn over, impressed Paul Heyman, who asked to sign London, but he wouldn’t get signed until a year and a half later.

And Heyman’s running down the hallway. ‘Sign this kid. Sign this kid, I swear.’ What the hell is happening here? I think I wasn’t signed for another year and a half later, but that match with John was another tryout match, dark match, or it was on Velocity, but it was for him. I wasn’t signed, but he said ‘What do you do?’ I do this slingshot head scissors. [He said] ‘Show me.’

London says that he learnt that John Cena got in trouble for helping him out by allowing himmore offense until later at OVW.

We get in the ring. This is before the fans get in the building. I’m parallel to the ropes coming over. He’s supposed to catch my ankles here and go this way. But it went [crash]. I was like, oh sh*t, I’m f*cked. I’m done, I’m done, I’m done. He’s like, ‘It’s not ballet. Come on, let’s do it again.’ And we hit it, and it worked in the match, so just super generous. I didn’t find out until later at OVW, when John came to work out with us, he’s like, ‘Why are you here?’ He was like They got mad at me for giving you what I did.

Also read: What John Cena Told Lyra Valkyria After Disastrous WWE Match Revealed