Mark Henry Recalls John Cena Crying During Legendary Unscripted Segment

WWE Hall Of Famer Mark Henry has revealed that John Cena’s tears during his fake retirement speech on Raw were real, and that parts of the segment were unscripted.

Back in 2013, Mark Henry was involved in one of the highest regarded segments in Raw history. Having teased his retirement following Extreme Rules in May, ‘The World’s Strongest Man’ teased on social media that he could hang up his boots, and that June he headed to the ring to give an emotional retirement speech.

John Cena, WWE Champion at the time, joined him in the ring as Henry lamented his wrestling career. At the end of the segment Cena hugged Henry, only to receive a World’s Strongest Slam and for Mark Henry to make it clear there was “a lot left in the tank”.

Speaking on the Busted Open podcast, Mark Henry opened up about how many months of thought were involved in putting his speech together, and that John Cena wasn’t aware of everything that was going to happen.

That retirement speech, it was over nine months of thought. Nine months of thought is why I came across so clear and so, ‘Wow, that was a thrill.’

John didn’t know nothing. The only thing that John knew was that at some point I was going to pull him in, that’s all he knew. When John was on the apron crying, that was real.

When John came in feeling sorry for me, that I had never held the WWE title, and he tried to give it to me and I said ‘no’. ‘You take that, you earned that.’ That was unscripted, there was no rehearsal. That was real sh*t. He was crying because he hated to see me go.

Mark Henry has since joined AEW, and has commented that leaving WWE “felt like a divorce”.

With thanks to Sportskeeda Wrestling for the transcription.