How WWE Legend Pitched Rivalry With John Cena
John Cena has given some insight into the creative process regarding one of his greatest rivalries.
When AJ Styles signed with WWE in January 2016, after spending the previous 14 years in TNA and Japan, he arrived with a reputation as one of the best wrestlers of his era.
By the time Styles got to WWE, John Cena (who is the same age as Styles – both men are 48) was firmly established as one of the greatest superstars of all time. A few months into AJ’s WWE run, he started a rivalry with Cena in the summer, and they produced a lot of great matches.
During his appearance on the Bill Simmons podcast, John Cena opened up on his rivalry with AJ Styles that saw the two men have classic matches at SummerSlam 2016 and Royal Rumble 2017 among other big ones. Cena praised Styles and called him the nicest human being in their business.
“I never ask, ‘How can I look good?’ When I sit down with an opponent, I love anecdotes. The first time I ever worked with AJ Styles — he is the nicest human being in sports entertainment. And I always have some sort of, I can find some energy of, like, ‘You said this about me in an interview once’ or ‘Man, I don’t like the way you work’ or whatever. AJ’s such a good guy.
And I sat down, and I’m like, ‘Man, this is going to be okay. Why are we fighting?’ It’s like, ‘What do you mean? Why are we fighting? I want to be the champ.’ That’s not good enough. ‘Take a second to yourself, figure out why we’re fighting.’ I went on my bus, scoured the web to try to find out anything this guy’s ever said. Just anything, a sentence. Never speaks bad about anybody.”
John Cena Liked What AJ Styles Pitched To Him
The initial rivalry between John Cena and AJ Styles didn’t involve a title, so Cena asked Styles to come up with an idea for their feud.
“So then I came back to him and literally after two and a half hours, he was finally like, ‘Okay, this is AJ, this isn’t Allen. But maybe AJ’s thinking that if you were never around, I would be where you’re at and I’d be so much better. Because when in that ring, I am better.’ I’m like, ‘We got it.'”
John Cena went on to explain how they built the story from there. At Royal Rumble 2017, Cena beat AJ Styles to win the WWE Title in another incredible match.
“And we built our story, culminating with even the match at the Royal Rumble, with — ‘I, AJ, am a better in-ring performer. You are charismatic, but hella lucky. You put these two in a ring together and I will run circles around you every time.’
And that’s where [Cena fans] are like, ‘Hell no, that’s my guy.’ Anybody that watched TNA would be like, ‘Our guy is finally getting a shot. This dude’s awesome. Wait until he can do his stuff.’ And now you’re divided and now you’re interested. And that’s an issue that you can run with. But you have to sit and ask, ‘Why are we fighting?’”
At WWE Crown Jewel in October, John Cena faced AJ Styles for a final time in a classic match that paid tribute to their past rivals by hitting moves they used throughout their careers. It was praised heavily as one of the best WWE matches of the year.
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