John Cena Apologized To Major WWE Star’s Mom After Huge Match
John Cena has admitted to apologizing to the mother of perhaps his greatest WWE rival.
The main event of WrestleMania 28 in 2012 was a unique one because it was John Cena facing The Rock in a non-title match billed as “Once in a Lifetime.”
What made that WrestleMania 28 main event so different is that it was announced a full year in advance, on the Raw after the prior year’s WrestleMania. Never before has WWE promoted a WrestleMania match a full year in advance, and they probably won’t do it again.
In the build up to Cena-Rock, the two WWE icons exchanged a lot of insults to build up anticipation for the match. Cena’s gripe was that Rock left WWE for Hollywood and took over seven years to return for a match, while Rock felt he had earned a certain level of respect as a WWE legend. Some people sided with Cena, some sided with Rock, and that set up the match.
The Rock beat John Cena in the WrestleMania 28 match while Cena was left to wonder if he was one of the greatest wrestlers of all time.
While speaking to Vanity Fair about significant moments in his legendary WWE career, John Cena said he apologized to The Rock’s mom after the match, likely because of the insulting things he said about Rock on the road to their WrestleMania 28 match.
“After the show is over, the very first thing I do is apologize to Dwayne’s mother because she was the first person I saw. And I apologized and said, ‘I hope you understand I was just trying to do what was best for tonight.’
She, having the experience and wisdom – of course – she was extremely gracious and a class act like she always is, but it was important for me to get that weight off my backpack.”
As noted by Cena, The Rock’s mother was very familiar with pro wrestling, having been the daughter of a wrestler and promoter. She also married a wrestler named Rocky Johnson, and as Rock’s mother, she knows a great deal about the business.
John Cena Feels He Had A “Wonderful Journey” With The Rock In WWE
A year later, at WrestleMania 29, they did the match again, and this time John Cena beat The Rock to win the WWE Title to end the feud.
In the same Vanity Fair video, Cena discussed that storyline with The Rock and how he knew he was losing at WrestleMania 28 long before it happened.
“John Cena versus Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson at WrestleMania 28 in Miami. Once in a lifetime. Although we did it again the next year. This was a wonderful journey to get to this. Lots of live moments before this WrestleMania. Sometimes in sports entertainment, we do toe the grey area between entertainment and realism, and I think that’s a lot of the cache that WWE and sports entertainment has.
[…] You would think that, man, going to the actual stage would be the worst part, that was the easy part. I knew I was losing the year before the fight. All of those promos you see, all of those speeches, every single one of them, I knew that I was gonna finish in second place.”
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