John Cena was asked at a Saturday press conference for WWE Fastlane about his own hypocrisy in his former feud with fellow wrestler-turned-Hollywood-actor Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.
Cena has said that his beef with Johnson was fueled by his anger over Johnson abandoning WWE in order to become an A-list Hollywood actor, which is exactly the career move Cena would later take himself.
Cena admitted in May that he was “short-sighted and selfish” in feuding with Johnson, and now he told press that “I 100% see and understand” how people could consider him a hypocrite for calling out Johnson and then following in his footsteps.
“If you’ve been following what I’ve tried to do, especially as of late, publicly and personally to Dwayne Johnson, I’ve stated that although I thought I was trying to do what’s best for business,” Cena said about starting the feud.
“I went about it the wrong way. I violated his trust and I made allegations about his perspective that I knew nothing about. And deep down, I was a fan. I wanted The Rock back [in WWE]. I wanted to do anything to get The Rock back, but I did it the wrong way.”
Cena continued, “I didn’t do it the respectful way, so I had to eat a little bit of crow. I had to say, ‘I’m sorry and I was wrong,’ because I am sorry and I was wrong, and that’s a very humbling experience. Dwayne is a hell of a guy… I became who I despised. I see that perspective and I understand it. It was a great learning experience from my mistake with feuding with The Rock.”
With his Hollywood career currently on pause because of the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike, Cena decided to once again return to the world of WWE for the Fastlane event. Asked whether or not Hollywood plans to take him away from WWE once the strike is resolved, Cena answered, “They do. They do.”
“I made it perfectly clear you can’t do both because of the liability insurance,” Cena explained. “If I were trying to juggle both that’s very selfish because I’d put a whole lot of people in the movie business out of work if something happened to me.”
“I stopped a project in the middle of [the strike], and I cant talk about it because of the strike we’re in,” he added. “We’re in the middle of it. As soon as we get back to work, we go back to work. I don’t control any of that. I’m crossing my fingers and hoping we can find a resolve that everyone is happy with. For right now, I think this is the best way I can help… by coming home to my family.”
Watch Cena’s full press conference in the video below.