John Cena has become such a big star in the WWE that it seems he’s rarely actually in the WWE anymore. If he’s not hosting the Today Show, he’s filming a movie like the upcoming Transformers spin-off/reboot Bumblebee. It can be frustrating for wrestling fans when a star never seems to have time to actually wrestle match anymore. Cena in particular has been pretty forthright about his evolving career, and in a recent interview with ESPN (with thanks to WrestlingInc for the transcription), he explains that when it comes to stepping foot in the ring, it’s just not up to him. You can’t wrestle while you’re making a movie, because too many other people are depending on your body working and your face not getting rearranged.
The biggest difficulty is trying to juggle stuff because I have learned, and I’m trying to fight this system but I’m losing, once you’re in production for a movie, they don’t allow you to wrestle. Because I can’t go to a WWE taping and have my nose put over here. Not only doesn’t it look good, it’s, “Man, you don’t look right.” So they shut the whole movie down, 150 people that are expecting a paycheck for that movie and I just screwed them out of their wage. It ups the budget of the movie, so I just put the movie behind the eight ball of possibly being a financial success.
Cena even admitted he was wrong to attack the Rock in the past for spending so much time away from wrestling to become a movie star:
As much as I want to do everything, you can’t, and this is a giant misunderstanding that I had about what Dwayne was doing, about what The Rock was doing. Because he does movie after movie, after movie, after movie, and I know the feeling of wanting to go back. And I’m going back as soon as I can, but I can’t go back until I’m done with this. So, I totally get it. And I kinda called him out for it and that was me being an ass, and I was totally wrong, and ignorant, and young, and stupid, and I’ve told him I’m sorry but I think that’s something our fans don’t understand.
As for the latest project that’s kept John away from wrestling, Bumblebee opens on December 21st, and WWE just released a new behind the scenes video that offers Cena’s perspective on making the movie.
