WWE’s YouTube channel has uploaded a video of John Cena looking back at some of his most iconic matches ahead of his showdown with Solo Sikoa this Saturday at the Crown Jewel PLE. Here are the highlights:
On his Payback 2014 match with Bray Wyatt:
“I really enjoyed performing with Bray. We were cut from the same cloth in that regard. Both storytellers and both wanting to do bizarre things. And I think we’ve all we, him and I have always tried to do. Different things, and we’ve embraced each other’s creativity. Using the child at the door of the cage. The Firefly Funhouse match. Those are ideas that come from a unique individual. What I like about the Last Man Standing on Anything Goes matches is in any other match, your canvas is sort of the ring. And I love trying to push the boundaries of what we can do now that we have the whole arena. And there are so many organic things with how we load into an arena and how we set up our event that can be used and that can be incorporated in these matches where you can go all over the building. I always like trying to think of that stuff in any sort of scenario. What do I have at my disposal? I always loved William’s creativity. He never strictly leaned on the physicality of anything. It was always about the art and the story.”
On his Bragging Rights 2009 match with Randy Orton:
“I think the great thing about an Iron Man match is you can have the luxury of a three count. The three count can elicit excitement. So if people aren’t interested. You can give them a pinfall. The match had a different dynamic to it. Anytime I can get in there with Randy is great. He and I fit together well and we work together well and I love working with him. This is the fourth premium live event, as we now call them, and we had done a lot of stipulations before, and we’d added tons of stipulations to this match of anything goes and if I lose, I leave Raw. One could speculate that the possible audience fatigue of watching performers together for half a year is a lot of interaction. So I do remember the concept of. Maybe he should. It hit the pyro and tried to explode me and him being okay with it and not only going to be okay with it, like he really made that work. I think that just goes to show that if we were coming up with concepts like that, we would certainly have exhausted every traditional method of competition. But the fact that both of us could be like, yeah, that’s a good idea, and let’s wholeheartedly try it. It’s a cool concept, a cool idea. And we were brave enough to try. And that’s, I think, when you’ve had such a history with someone and being in the ring with them. So many times, we both kind of knew like, well, we’re going to have to do some different stuff here. Randy is my generation’s Shawn Michaels. He has an understanding of nuance and how important it is. He has the best timing of anybody. Like he’s always there, he’s never late. He shows emotion as a performer. He’s incredible. He makes difficult look simple.”
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article, please credit WWE’s YouTube channel with an h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
