John Cena recently appeared as a guest on the No Contest Wrestling podcast for an in-depth interview with O’Shea Jackson Jr. and TJ Jefferson.
During the discussion, the WWE legend revealed what the original plans were for him at WWE Crown Jewel, as well as how he was originally supposed to win his record-breaking 17th world title back at WWE SummerSlam 2021.
Featured below are some of the highlights from the interview where he touches on these topics with his thoughts. Also embedded below is a complete video archive of the discussion.
On original plans for WWE Crown Jewel calling for a match against Drew McIntyre, not AJ Styles: “I try to plan it as a year of creative experiences, but you have to be able to pivot. You don’t have Rock, you don’t have Travis (Scott). ‘We’re going to do this and this.’ AJ was supposed to be Drew. We pivoted. You want to have a feel good moment because they were listening to the data points. They do. It’s real. You have the Brock moment, people are pissed off. You have the AJ moment, and things are great. You have this three appearance run with Dom, which is fun. Then, the Ring General.”
On how he was originally supposed to win his record-breaking 17th world title way back at WWE SummerSlam 2021: “In the last moment, we had a surprise guest booked, he came out after the match was over. Brock [Lesnar]. They didn’t secure Brock until 5 PM that day. I was going to win 17. We were going to have someone come out and restart the match, Roman was going to take it back. This is creative. The way we were going to put together the match, we were going to give them a hell of a match. Everything out the door. No rules, no nothing. Tons of finishers because I was going to win, and then Roman was going to take it back. You have this hard fought battle, and through a nefarious set of rules, match is restarted. Then, we secure Brock. [Talent relations] comes and says, ‘I need to see you. We’re switching the finish.’ ‘To what?’ ‘Roman over. Clean.’ ‘Okay. Let me talk to Roman and Paul.’ We go in, ‘You got the news? What do we do?’ I said, ‘One spear. That’s it. Whatever match you want to have, that’s fine. You beat me with your finish once.’ I love Paul, Paul Heyman has been a great mentor. He gets it and he recognizes somebody who sees it’s not about them, it’s about the story. This is going to make Roman better. It switched. Right there. An hour before. It happens to everyone. I didn’t flip out. It happens all the time. I was supposed to win 17 that night.”
Watch the complete John Cena interview from the No Contest Wrestling podcast via the YouTube player embedded below.
