John Cena recently appeared as a guest on INSIGHT with Chris Van Vliet for an in-depth interview covering all things pro wrestling. During the discussion, Cena gave his thoughts on Logan Paul:
“I actually told him, I’m like, ‘The old me would have hated it.’ The old me would have been like, ‘What are you trying to take from us’, and that’s just an archaic way of thinking that I was taught and I understand why. Old carnival business, don’t trust this guy who’s coming into our territory. That idea was archaic in the 80s. We bring in outside influence to help us and then you have someone you don’t really need to convince that much to come on in, and then somebody who embraces our world and is completely respectful and risks a lot more than I would in the ring, like does stuff that I’ll never be able to do every single time he’s out there. He knows how to set a story. He knows how to drum up interest. He’s using all of his talents that he’s built over the years in our universe. He’s been doing what we do; he’s just been over on his own channel. The me now appreciates the fact that he is bringing his world into ours and respectfully so.”
His match against Bray Wyatt in 2020 was originally supposed to be a standard match:
“I remember three days before we filmed the Firefly Fun House match. It was the last TV taping where they came in and they’re like, ‘You’re gonna have a Firefly Fun House match’, and I remember there were three people in one of the conference rooms in NXT with me. I said, ‘What’s a Firefly Fun House match?’ They said, ‘I don’t know.’ I said, ‘Great! What can we do’, and that was like, oh, man, again, control the controllable. I wish we had an audience. Performers are like. I wish there could be blood. I wish we could do chair shots to the head. I wish we could swear. I wish I could flip people off. Control the controllable. Use the tools in your tool belt. How do we make something entertaining over a two day period with no audience, and they gave us a stipulation. Everybody else has a regular match and it’s your stip. It’s not a doctor of Thuganomics match or a Hustle, Loyalty, Respect match that’s completely different. You have these definitive characters. You have all this ammunition. You have all this personality and that’s what people really radiate towards. Holy sh*t. We can make this a meta look at my life and we can get away with it. What do we have up in the warehouse? We have the fist. We have the blue cage. I can get some NWO stuff. We can make this work. I remember this the only match I’ve ever written from start to finish. My poor wife, I made her print it out and I’m writing and giving her paper. She said, ‘What is this? What does it even mean?’ ‘Just print it. I need it’, and somewhere I still have the original draft in my handwriting of the Firefly Fun House. Bray couldn’t have been better. He knew what was up and he knew the whole thing. I wrote it the night before so I’m trying to text these guys like, I got something weird. I think I might have a picture of the draft still in my phone. I don’t have it with me, but I have it saved as a text that I sent him the night of the match, especially after we saw The Undertaker’s match the night before. Oh, my man, they crushed it, and there was a whole lot more physicality. We got one punch and I texted him how nervous I was, but I wanted to thank him for being so brave and trusting me and I think I couldn’t have done any more. I think we gave it our best shot and hopefully, it works, and it was an effort that I am very proud of.”
You can check out the complete interview below:
(h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription)
