John Cena Recalls Rebelling Against WWE Authority
John Cena has admitted that there was a time in his career when he went against what his bosses in WWE wanted to do.
Over the last 22 years, John Cena has built a legacy as one of the greatest superstars in World Wrestling Entertainment history.
Veteran WWE announcer Michael Cole isn’t shy about calling Cena “the greatest of all time” due to Cena’s longevity as a main event talent for over a decade and Cena’s 16 World Title reigns, which are tied for the most of all time with Ric Flair. All of Cena’s WWE World Title reigns were in WWE while only two of Flair’s were.
This past Monday on the Raw after WrestleMania in Philadelphia, John Cena made a surprise appearance by teaming up with R-Truth and The Miz to defeat The Judgment Day’s Finn Balor, JD McDonagh & Dominik Mysterio.
That appearance on Raw followed Cena’s surprising appearance at WrestleMania 40 Sunday when he put Solo Sikoa through a table during the Roman Reigns-Cody Rhodes WWE Title match. The Rock gave Cena a Rock Bottom, but after Cody got the win, Cena celebrated with the new WWE Champion Rhodes.
As for when his in-ring career might be over, the soon-to-be 47-year-old Cena has stated matter-of-factly that he wants to stop wrestling before he turns 50 years old and has admitted it may be sooner than that.
John Cena Didn’t Like WWE’s Dress Code Policy
In the mid-2000s while John Cena was doing his rapper gimmick and gaining popularity with the fans, the company instituted a dress code policy for the talent. There was an exception with The Undertaker due to his character, but everybody else had to do it. In Cena’s case, he didn’t do it because he had to portray his character outside of the ring as well.
While appearing on Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert podcast, Cena admitted he was the rap gimmick all day, every day.
“24/7, I was in the rap gimmick. They instituted a dress code in WWE soon after I changed my gimmick and raised my hand, I said, ‘I’m not doing it,’ in front of everyone, in front of my peers.”
“I rebelled against authority, because you guys are gonna kill my character, they’re never gonna believe it. We’re going from city to city to city and we’re traveling with everyone else, we rent cars from everyone else, we go to the hotel with everyone else, we pull up to the arena and there are fans out there. I used to freestyle battle kids in parking lots in front of the arenas.”
Since Cena would become a top guy who was WWE Champion for the first time in 2005, there were never any issues with him going against the dress code policy.