#2423 - John Cena

Summary

The Joe Rogan Experience #2423 – John Cena
Recorded: December 5, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode of The Joe Rogan Experience features John Cena, wrestling legend and actor, in a wide-ranging, candid conversation with guest co-hosts Doug Stanhope and Tony Hinchcliffe (standing in for Joe Rogan). The discussion covers Cena’s journey in WWE, his personal philosophy, learning Mandarin, the unique culture and grind of professional wrestling, dealing with controversy, pain management, success stories, and gratitude. The tone is introspective, honest, and often humorous, offering rare insights into the mechanics of performance, personal growth, and what it means to lead a life of purpose.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Learning Mandarin and Cultural Challenges

• Cena’s Motivation: Cena learned Mandarin to help WWE expand into China, motivated by wrestling’s lack of traction there. WWE’s talent was offered a free second-language program; Cena led by example and took Chinese.
  • “I should stand up and tell them to. I'm like, nah, fuck that. I'm actually gonna lead by example and take a language. So I signed up right then, then and there for China.” (John Cena, 03:36)
• Difficulty: Despite a decade of study, he found fluent cultural communication extremely challenging.
  • “Just because you know a language doesn't mean, you know, the culture. So that was a fantastic experience.” (John Cena, 00:57)
• Controversy in China: Cena discusses a major career misstep, when he accidentally referred to Taiwan as a country in Mandarin during a press tour, igniting geopolitical backlash.
  • “It was a Ron Burgundy moment. Like, go fuck yourself, San Diego. It's like the most offensive thing you can say.” (John Cena, 06:24)
  • He apologized to China in Mandarin, which angered many Americans—an event he’s reflected upon as a hard but valuable lesson.
  • “My mistake was just because you know the language doesn't mean you know the culture.” (John Cena, 07:44)

Timestamps:

• Mandarin journey & wrestling in China: 00:22–08:23
• Apology and public reaction: 06:24–15:03

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2. WWE’s Culture, Grind, and Opportunities

• Evolution of WWE: Cena recounts how WWE evolved from a carnival attraction to a global company, with initiatives like language programs.
  • “The origins of the business are carnival related…it is like a carnival attraction. And then it was, like, ruthlessly territorial. And then when it became national, I was still trying to find its way.” (John Cena, 04:30)
• Travel and Performance Schedule:
  • Wrestlers used to do over 200 shows a year; now it’s about 70, but the grind remains unparalleled.
  • being on the road and responsible for your own transportation, hotels, and logistics mimics the stand-up comedy lifestyle.

Timestamps:

• WWE’s growth and opportunities: 03:46–05:26
• Wrestling vs. comedy touring: 44:53–48:52

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3. Pain, Injury, and Personal Limits

• Pain Thresholds: Cena has had over 10 surgeries, including neck fusion and major muscle repairs, but never took pain pills, citing fear of addiction and keen self-knowledge of his pain tolerance.
  • “Never taken one pain pill. Wow. I have all the prescriptions in the bottom drawer of my house filled.” (John Cena, 28:22)
• Individual Differences: The group discusses how people process pain differently, shaped by upbringing, genetics, and experience.
  • “I would agree with. Pain is, is a, is a personal experience.” (John Cena, 39:52)
• Value of Losing: Cena credits growing up with brothers and losing fights as formative for resilience—valuable for competition and managing pain.

Timestamps:

• Injury and pain management: 28:03–34:33
• Broader discussion of pain: 40:02–42:17

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4. Persona Development, Happy Accidents, and Taking Risks

• The Accidental Superstar: Cena explains how being open to taking risks (freestyling, using a rapper persona, inventing catchphrases) carried him through challenges in WWE, often by happy accident rather than grand design.
  • “Stephanie heard me rap in the back of the bus and was like, yo, you want to do that on TV?... So it was Stephanie’s idea, and it was a fucking accident, dude.” (John Cena, 55:47)
  • “Just a fucking happy accident, man.” (John Cena, 58:19)
• Crowd Connection & ‘Noise’: Cena measures success not by titles but by the ‘noise’ from the crowd, analogous to a comedian seeking laughs.
  • “Just give me a chance to go out there and get the noise and whatever else falls into place, fuck it. Cool. Because what I want to do is just go out there and be in the arena.” (John Cena, 97:39)

Timestamps:

• Happy accidents and persona shifts: 53:12–58:34
• ‘Noise’ and measuring success: 97:38–99:19

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5. Creativity, Control, and Storytelling

• Creative Collaboration: Cena highlights his approach to WWE production—soliciting input from lighting, production, camera, and talent for his iconic bad-guy (heel) entrance, instead of dictating every detail himself.
  • “I don't have enough depth of field to touch all the bases. But I will go to every department and say… what do we do for lighting? What do we do for production?... okay, that's a good idea. Let's do that.” (John Cena, 63:24)
• Improvisation & Long-Term Storytelling: Echoing wrestling, Tony Hinchcliffe discusses how Kill Tony borrows the dynamic, long-arc, crowd-driven storytelling from WWE, favoring spontaneity and audience interplay.

Timestamps:

• Creative process in wrestling: 63:10–65:22
• Storytelling parallels to comedy: 70:24–72:20

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6. Mindset, Philosophy, and Gratitude

• Gratitude for Opportunity: Cena places huge emphasis on being grateful for the chances he’s received, regardless of their origin. He sees ‘gratitude’ as a fundamental value, reframed even amid setbacks.
  • “From what I’ve tried to boil down to it, the best way to honor that opportunity is to do your best to try to live a good life. And a good life is… where the sleep is sound, the love is real, and every day you’re driven with curiosity and purpose.” (John Cena, 110:05)
• Learning from Failure & Flexibility:
  • “It's a matter of understanding that it's happening. Don't get in your own way.” (John Cena, 88:48)
  • The need to adapt, say “yes” more often, and not anchor self-worth to fixed ideas—whether about winning, titles, or recognition.
• Staying Useful: As he contemplates post-retirement life, Cena expresses a desire simply to remain “useful,” open to acting, new experiences, and personal connection.

Timestamps:

• Philosophy, gratitude, and moving on: 109:12–113:20
• Final stories and practical gratitude: 115:34–119:06

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On language and culture:
  • “My mistake was just because you know the language doesn't mean you know the culture.” (John Cena, 07:44)
• On taking risks:
  • “Happy accident. My brother dared me to do it…And I did it on a dare. But, like, I also had…I was in a place to be able to tell my brother, Okay, I can waste two seconds on an inside joke between you and I. That's the dare. It's not going to ruin the match, but if you're watching…if you're the only one person watching Velocity that night, you'll be like, inside joke. Got it. All right.” (John Cena, 87:14)
• On persistence and the grind:
  • “Every day I show up saying, if I don't do this, we could fail, and I'm going to work seven days a week…You want to be at the top of the heap. When you see something difficult, look easy. There's a bunch of 4:30 in the morning, wake ups that made that happen.” (Doug Stanhope, 50:25–51:12)
• On crowd connection:
  • “Just get me out there… I'll make it the best fucking time they ever had. It doesn't matter.” (John Cena, 98:55)
• On gratitude and purpose:
  • “I just want to go in when it's my time. I want to know that I honored the luck I was given by not fucking squandering it, by not wasting it…live a fulfilled life where the sleep is sound, the love is real, and every day you're driven with curiosity and purpose. And I don't know what the fuck that is.” (John Cena, 110:05–112:06)

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Key Timestamps

• Learning Mandarin & WWE in China: 00:22–08:23
• Controversy over Taiwan comment: 06:24–15:03
• Pain & injury management: 28:03–34:33, 39:52
• WWE persona, “happy accidents,” crowd ‘noise’: 53:12–58:34, 97:38–99:19
• Creative process, entrances: 63:10–65:22
• Philosophy, gratitude, moving on: 109:12–113:20
• Practical gratitude, early hustle stories: 115:34–119:06

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Conclusion: Takeaways for Listeners

John Cena’s journey is a case study in humble perseverance, adaptability, and intentional growth. Through wrestling, acting, or navigating public storms, he exemplifies leading with gratitude, taking responsibility for mistakes, embracing happy accidents, and persistently connecting with the crowd (or audience, on any stage). The episode is filled with actionable wisdom on career, mindset, recovery from failure, and living a purposeful, curious life. As Cena puts it, whether you’re “on the beanbag” or wrestling at the pinnacle of your field, stay grateful, stay ready, and keep saying yes to the moment.

Transcript

[John Cena]

Joe Rogan podcast. Check it out.

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The Joe Rogan Experience.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day.

[Doug Stanhope]

Rolling. What's up? John Cena in the house. Yeah. Let's put these on, pretend we're professional. What's up? Good to see you, man.

[John Cena]

Thanks so much for having me. My pleasure being here.

[Doug Stanhope]

And there's no way I'm having a pro wrestler on without Tony Hinchcliffe.

[John Cena]

Of course.

[Doug Stanhope]

Possible. He's the expert. He knows more about pro wrestling than I know about ufc.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Yeah. Sometimes I translate little things here and there.

[John Cena]

That's cool. It's all right.

[Doug Stanhope]

Yeah, he has to. He has to. And he's a giant fan of yours too, you know. Else is a giant fan of yours is Brian Simpson. Brian Simpson was going on last night about how intelligent you are. It was really interesting, you know?

[John Cena]

Sure was me.

[Doug Stanhope]

Yeah, man. Well, you do speak Mandarin, which is kind of crazy.

[John Cena]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Doug Stanhope]

How long did it take you to learn that?

[John Cena]

Man, I was. I was doing that for quite a long time. I've since kind of. Kind of declined on the studies. A wonderful takeaway from the study of Mandarin. Just because you know a language doesn't mean, you know the culture. So that was a fantastic experience with. But I studied Mandarin for, like, a decade, and I would say, like, not even conversationally fluent. It was a really tough hill to climb for me.

[Doug Stanhope]

It seems like a really big hill.

[John Cena]

Just. It's. It's just different. And, you know, you get used to language and the structure. Read it, you know, I didn't even bother to read and, like, reading all the characters, understanding everything. Yeah.

[Doug Stanhope]

How long did it take you to learn?

[John Cena]

Around 10 years.

[Doug Stanhope]

Whoa.

[John Cena]

Yeah. And then, like, I mean, I. I would dream in Mandarin and, like, have conversations and kick down in that. So it became like a. Like a. A second language. But, you know, I lived in China for a little bit. I filmed a movie with Jackie Chan. So I was there for, like, six or seven months. I lived there, and, man, we were in Mongolia, Yinchuan province. So, like. Like in China.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Wow.

[John Cena]

And it was fun. Yeah. Yeah.

[Doug Stanhope]

You were in Mongolia?

[John Cena]

Inner. Inner Mongolia, yeah.

[Doug Stanhope]

What's the difference?

[John Cena]

I don't know, because I've never. I've never been in Mongolia. But Inner Mongolia was. Man, I was. I was the only person that looked like me there. And everyone would say, look, it's. It's big white guy. Hyundai by Ren Hande. Byron, that would call me.

[Doug Stanhope]

Wow. Yeah, wow. So what motivated you to learn that? It seems like such a task.

[John Cena]

Honestly, man, it Was. Everything in my life seems to be wrestling related. It was wrestling related. Like, WWE's reach spread everywhere. I mean, I've been able to lucky enough to perform everywhere from, like, Moscow, Philippines, South Africa, Bangor, Maine, every place in between. Except China. China was like the one place that didn't understand what we did. So it's literally like. It's a. It's a universal language because you can turn. It's like ufc. Like, you turn the volume down, but you can see like, oh, this is two guys. Best guy wins. I get it. The Chinese just didn't get it. So I figured if, like, one of our superstars spoke the language, maybe that would help break down the barrier. And we got in.

[Doug Stanhope]

This was your idea.

[John Cena]

It was my idea. But the WWE offers, and I think they still offer it. They offer a free second language program. So, like, when they rolled out the initiative of, like, financial advice and, you know, they'll pay for portions of your secondary education and free second language. This is like 2011, 2012, big talent meeting in like an auditorium. I'm one of the old guys at the time sitting in the front, being like, these kids don't know how good they have it. I should stand up and tell them to. I'm like, nah, fuck that. I'm actually gonna lead by example and take a language. So I signed up right then, then and there for China. Chinese, because I wanted to get us into China.

[Doug Stanhope]

Wow.

[John Cena]

And like I said, it worked, but it kind of only worked. And they. I think. I think actually right now China is experiencing what wrestling is to them because, like, there's. I've read articles that there's promotions over there that are thriving. So like, now they get it.

[Doug Stanhope]

Oh, so they have their own promotions?

[John Cena]

Yeah, yeah.

[Doug Stanhope]

This is a fairly recent thing, I think.

[John Cena]

So. I, like, I just read recent articles that, like, pro wrestling is thriving in China and they have their own, like, their own way of doing it.

[Doug Stanhope]

Wow.

[John Cena]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Doug Stanhope]

Wow. That's wild. It's wild how, like, expansive the pro wrestling business is that they would be that open minded to say, like, let's give second language programs to the athletes.

[John Cena]

Well, you know, I just. It's. It's weird. The origins of the business are carnival related. It is like a carnival attraction. And then it was, like, ruthlessly territorial. And then when it became national, I was still trying to find its way. It's almost like you see pro sports doing it. You know, the more a sport succeeds, the more benefits they offer to their competitors and athletes. So, you know, WWE kind of hit that stride.

[Doug Stanhope]

Yeah, it's just such a smart thing to do, you know?

[John Cena]

Yeah, well, you give your channel, give your talent the opportunities to. To gain knowledge and wisdom. And the sad thing is I don't know how many people did it or do it still, you know.

[Doug Stanhope]

Was there anybody other than you that.

[John Cena]

You know of two other people who. Claudio Castagnoli, who speaks, I think four or five languages already, and he just wanted to take like a brush up course. And Natty Neidhart.

[Doug Stanhope]

Wow. Yeah, that's it.

[John Cena]

That's. Everybody else is like, not gonna do it.

[Doug Stanhope]

Too much work.

[John Cena]

Yeah.

[Doug Stanhope]

What was the not knowing the culture aspect?

[John Cena]

So, man, I got. I got put in a bit of a hotspot with.

I made a pact to myself when I was like, okay, I feel fluent. We would do these global press tours. And I just happened to be on a global press tour. And I'm like, you know what? I'm gonna do 70% of my media in Mandarin, like in dialogue. And I gotta say, I did it. Like I went over there, spoke. People were taking off the translator headphones. Like, life was good. Everything was great. At the very end of the day, as with all these press tours, you do like a bunch of prompter reads. So I'm doing prompter reads for everywhere. And it's like, hey, go this place and see this movie. Go this place and see this movie. And no, my bad. I didn't check the reads because it's like an end of a 10 hour day. You do a million of these things and one of them said like, hey, Taiwan, see this, this? And.

It was all in Mandarin. And the opinion described Taiwan as a country. So be the first country to see this. Now over there, they look through a different lens. Like, geopolitics are murky waters, man. And that's what. When I learned of like, I just said, it left. Everybody was cool. I did my thing. I read the prompt. It was like a Ron Burgundy moment. Like, go fuck yourself, San Diego. It's like the most offensive thing you can say. So I'm like, man, good job, John. You said you did 70% and people understood what you were talking about. And then they put that out and everybody was like, what the fuck did you just say? We don't. That's not how we do it over here. And again, just. Cause like my takeaway. And it was a pretty tense moment for me, like I had to apologize to China. And in apologizing to China, I pissed off my home country. I'm a patriot, I love the United States of America and everything it stands for. But, like, no one. It was never enough. Nobody was happy. Everybody was fucked up. And it was like, murky waters for me personally. And it was weird. Like, I'm not. I think I might have been the only guy almost to get canceled for doing his homework, you know, like trying to, like, learn, like, learn and try to do something. But the cool takeaway, you know, we can learn from every mistake. My mistake was just because you know the language doesn't mean, you know, the culture.

[Doug Stanhope]

Did they even refer to as Taiwan? I think they referred to as Chinese Taipei.

[John Cena]

Right, man. What was in the. I know what I read in the thing. So that's. Again, I don't know enough depth to know that. And now, like, people like, oh, man, can you speak Mandarin for this? I just won't do it. It's a skill that I have, but it's a skill that's gonna remain with me because I don't understand, I don't have the depth of field to know what to call that place in that region of the world. And I haven't done enough research and I don't have the wisdom and I don't have like the cultural fluency, you know, so it was a cool lesson. It sucked. Cause I thought I was just trying to do something good, but it was a cool lesson.

[Doug Stanhope]

Was it really that big of man?

[John Cena]

I thought, like, I was filming Peacemaker Season 1, and when they came out with all of this stuff, I went directly to James Gunn and was like, hey, man, if you have to fire me, I understand. Wow.

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[Doug Stanhope]

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[John Cena]

And it was that serious? Yeah.

[Doug Stanhope]

But it wasn't even words that you wrote someone else. The WWE wrote it.

[John Cena]

That doesn't. No, no, it was. It was for the movie I was promoting.

[Doug Stanhope]

Right. So the movie, the people that made the movie wrote it.

[John Cena]

So I don't know. Like, when you do these press tours, let's say if I'm doing a movie for Warner Brothers, let's say, let's use Peacemaker as an example. I'm doing a global Peacemaker tour, and we go into China or we go into South America. You meet like the PR person there and they have all the stuff you're supposed to do, and they curate your experience and they hold your hand. You're like, okay, now we're gonna go to this station then, by the way, they just want you to do some shout outs. So anytime I go anywhere, globally. Now, as much as I wanna thank fans for their attention and, you know, investing in the product, I really shy away from, like, speaking the language because I don't understand the cultural nuance. You know, I just. I just want to be like, yo, man, thanks for watching what we do. And I love the fact that you're entertained, but I want to speak to you at a level that I understand that I'm fluent because your boots on the ground here every day. And I might say something that's a nice gesture but completely fucking offend you, and that's. That's not good. That's not good for anybody.

[Doug Stanhope]

So was the teleprompter in English and you translate?

[John Cena]

No, everything was in Mandarin. And in. In Chinese, they have the characters which are virtually impossible for me to learn. There's, like, an infinite number, but they have. They also have what's called pinyin, which is. It's kind of spelled out in English with phonetics, so it has the four tones.

[Doug Stanhope]

Okay.

[John Cena]

So if you were to put something in front of me in Pinyin right now, I could definitely read it. And I got good at reading pinyin. So I was like, man, I could. I could send all these messages in Mandarin and more people will know about this movie, and more people will know about me, and more people will know about wrestling and more people be excited. Looked good on paper. Just my follow through was a bit weak, you know, it doesn't even seem.

[Doug Stanhope]

Like that was your fault, right?

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

It's probably a PR's assistant. Assistant that's typed. That's probably in charge of doing the grunt work of typing in all the different languages and the different countries. Like, it's tedious.

[John Cena]

From what I know. I know I'm gonna learn a lot about you guys in this episode, but from what I know about you, you're into looking at. Looking at things through different lenses and different perspectives. It also could have been somebody being like, I'm gonna get this kid. Ooh. But here's the thing. I do appreciate you saying, like, it's not your fault. That's not true. It was my fault. And I think that's when I can start to work on, like, well, what did I learn from this? And I could easily blame a pr, an assistant. I could say somebody had a target on my back. All that stuff. I fucked up.

[Doug Stanhope]

Did you suspect that somebody might have set you up? No. Well, you're saying it like it's a possibility.

[John Cena]

Well, man, when it happened, every. Every theory came, like, here's the thing. The world doesn't revolve around me, but my little world, everybody was like, they fucked up. They did this on purpose. I was like, well, first of all, who's they? So I was able to kind of eliminate all that. And once I realized I could still go on working, I really made a lot of people angry. And for that. That, I'm sorry. Like, again, I was just trying to.

[Doug Stanhope]

That's crazy. Just by saying that Taiwan's a country.

[John Cena]

In Chinese, though, right? You know, like, those are murky waters to begin with. You know, Like, I'm not even thoroughly fluent on the US Policy I think it's, like, territorial ambiguity or some shit like that. Like, it's so weird, and it's so fragile, and.

I got into some water I shouldn't have been swimming in, but that's on me. It was my fault. And I think that's important for me to bear the burden of that and be like, yo, what? How can I course correct? What did I learn? Who Do I really, really genuinely have to apologize for offending? The. The biggest thing that was a kick to the nuts is when, like, people stateside got pissed off because you apologized. Yes. In. In Chinese. And. And I understand it. I mean, completely, like, bowing down to the demand of this. That, gosh, what a. What a shitty move by me. Like, I just. I should have taken a breath again. What did I learn? Don't be reactive. Take a breath. Find out what's going on. Find out the best path of action. Maybe give it a few days. Maybe give it a hot second.

And then move forward. But immediately I was like, oh, they're mad. You want us to do this? Fine. No problem. I'll fix it right now, man. Not only did I not try to fix the hole in the boat, I sunk the Titanic, so. But again, it was a learning experience.

[Doug Stanhope]

Well, it speaks to your character that you don't blame anybody else, because I'd blame everybody else. I'd be like, who fucking wrote that?

Don't you know what you're saying or what you're making me say?

[John Cena]

The release you guys have for the show, I read it, and you might.

[Doug Stanhope]

Be the only person.

[John Cena]

So that was whoever handed it to me. That was what they said. Like, I think you might be the only person that's ever read it, man.

If you're gonna take liberties with me, at least I want to be able to read that. You are right. You know what I'm saying? And I can't say I'm perfect with doing that, but, like, I was handed a release. I'm like, oh, man. Can I just glance this over for. Oh, this says what I think it says. Okay, let's go.

[Doug Stanhope]

Trump didn't even read it. Just.

[John Cena]

To each their own.

[Doug Stanhope]

Yeah. No, it's very smart of you to read it. You know, who knows?

[John Cena]

You know, who knows?

[Doug Stanhope]

So this is Tony. Is this the full trifecta now is, like, if you've gotten all of your heroes on this podcast now, there's a.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Couple more we can knock off out of the pro wrestling world.

[John Cena]

There's a couple more, if you don't mind. If I can indulge Talk. Pro wrestling heroes. Who. Who do we need to knock off? Who do we need?

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Well, I mean, in all reality. And it's a diabolical, diabolical man.

[John Cena]

He can. He can kind of invite.

[Doug Stanhope]

He.

[John Cena]

You can't. You can invite anyone you want in here. You just kind of got to give him the wish list.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

I mean, you got to. You got to start with the number one, without a doubt, Vince McMahon, who started this gangster and spread it around.

[Doug Stanhope]

I would definitely have him as a little man.

[John Cena]

I. Yeah, he would be great.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Yes.

[John Cena]

I. Whatever magic you have out there, and you have a lot of gravity.

[Doug Stanhope]

Do you think he'd be interested in doing it?

[John Cena]

Are you kidding me? I think he would love it.

[Doug Stanhope]

Really?

[John Cena]

I think he would love it. I don't know when the right time is, but, man, don't. Don't miss out on that. At least. At least send it out to the universe.

[Doug Stanhope]

Yeah, well, I would definitely. Vince, if you're listening, Vince, if you're listening, let's go.

[John Cena]

I think this would be a great. I think this experience would be a great one for you.

[Doug Stanhope]

Is he still involved? Is he out?

[John Cena]

Is he in?

[Doug Stanhope]

He's out.

[John Cena]

He's out.

[Doug Stanhope]

He's out. Totally.

[John Cena]

Yep.

[Doug Stanhope]

It seems like he's the guy that'll be out for a little while, and then something will happen. They'll bring him back in.

[John Cena]

No, well. Well, I don't know. Again, that's. That's way we were talking about. Like, why is your last event in this place? I'm like, man, because I don't choose the events. Like, I don't. All that stuff is so far above me. But I know now he's out. I. In my eyes, I. I'd like to think that, like, time heals everything. And I believe in forgiveness, and I also believe in, like, looking at the body of work. But I also. I also noticed a lot of fragile stuff going on there. I don't know. I don't know, man. I don't know.

[Doug Stanhope]

Yeah, it's a hot subject. It could get us into another Chinese Taipei incident.

[John Cena]

Well, no, no, man. Again, I've learned to become a little bit more accountable for what I say. And just how. Just because I feel a certain way about a person doesn't exonerate them from being accountable for their actions.

[Doug Stanhope]

Right?

[John Cena]

And just because he did start, quote, unquote, all this gangster shit.

That doesn't mean he doesn't need to be accountable for his actions. So let's figure out what that means and then figure out if we can Move forward and bring that back in the fold or if it stays the way it is.

[Doug Stanhope]

What do you think, Tony? You think he's coming back?

[John Cena]

I think he would come here.

[Ad Read / Sponsor]

Yeah.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

I think he would come here too. And I think he. That's one of the more entertaining people of all time. He created the entire universe. You got to remember Hogan's. Hogan because of him. Cena scene. Yeah. Every single Stone Cold, he's like, that sounds good. Yeah. Keep it going. We'll do the glass breaks thing and they'll throw you beers.

[John Cena]

I like it.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Let's do it again next week. So everything that we think when he.

[John Cena]

Sits here, you got to do that impression.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Stone Cold's another one that hasn't been on.

[John Cena]

Steve would be great. I think you would. You dig Steve?

[Doug Stanhope]

Oh, yeah, I'm sure. Yeah. He lives out here too, doesn't he?

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Yep.

[John Cena]

Does he?

[Doug Stanhope]

Well, actually doesn't have a ranch out here.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

I think he does some. He does, yeah. But I think he's based out of somewhere else now. New Mexico or Arizona. He's on the. He, like. He's like, kind of cool and reclusive. He like, doesn't really do a lot. It's amazing.

[John Cena]

He'd be a good get. And I. I'm pretty sure, I guarantee he would do it.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Yeah.

[John Cena]

Steve, if you're lit, I know you're watching. Come on, come on. Come on in. Let's talk. Let's talk some wrestling.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

I mean, everyone has him on the, you know, the Mount Rushmore Triple H. Who runs it now? The son in law of Vince McMahon. Yeah, I mean, he runs the entire thing.

[John Cena]

I mean, you want. You want answers to those high level questions.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Yeah.

[John Cena]

There's your guy. Yeah, that's the guy. You need to get a lot of the stuff you'll probably. You probably ask today. I'll be like, that's way above my pay grade.

[Doug Stanhope]

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[John Cena]

No way.

[Doug Stanhope]

Yeah, yeah, he was offered a job to write for the WWE because, you know, Tony was a giant pro wrestling fan. And you know, he already had a Netflix special, so he was known as a comic before that was it. Before the Netflix special, the first one, the one that you released yourself?

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Yeah.

[Doug Stanhope]

Really?

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Yeah. It was only a couple years into me doing stand up like seven nights a week at the Comedy Store all the time. And somehow I ended up. Someone's like, hey, I have a friend in WWE if you want to have a meeting with them and just talk. And I went in with straight up ideas. This, that, the under Undertaker's brother comes back again. This, that, the next, like everything back and forth. I can't even remember any of them. It's been so long. But I went in with the whole thing. This guy's like, where the hell did you. Like, what? This is crazy. You just like did this. I'm like, yeah, I found out a couple days ago we were gonna talk. So. But yeah, they offered it, but I would have had to move to Connecticut and take a train to New York every night to go do stand up. And that would have just been exhausting and everything. I heard because Patrice o', Neill, the late, great Patrice o', Neill, wrote for WWE for a while.

[Doug Stanhope]

Did he really?

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Yeah, yeah, for like a couple years, I think.

[Doug Stanhope]

What did he just wrote lines for them? Like, what did he do?

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

The whole shebang. When you're a WWE writer, they, they make you write. It's not like A cute job at all.

[John Cena]

No, there's a lot of. There's a lot of television or there's a lot of content every week. Yeah. Right now I think they got. They have three weekly shows, so that's 20. I think one of them's going back to three hours. 16. It's like 50 segments of TV.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Yeah.

[John Cena]

Every week.

[Doug Stanhope]

Yeah. But I remember when you were talking about it.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Yeah.

[Doug Stanhope]

When you're talking about potentially doing it.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

It was like, yeah, it was tricky.

[Doug Stanhope]

I was like, dude, you do not want to live in Connecticut.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

No, that's the main thing. It was anywhere else other than Connecticut. It kind of would have made more sense if it was in New York City. It would have been a no brainer if it was in la, definitely.

[John Cena]

But like, fast forward now, you're. You're more and more involved. Yes.

[Doug Stanhope]

Well, this is the crazy thing. Like, we had talked, like, during the, the old days, like, we would talk in the green room. I'd be like, that would be your ultimate dream job.

[John Cena]

Yeah.

[Doug Stanhope]

Like, to make it as a comedian and somehow be involved in the UFC the way. Or, excuse me, in WWE the way I'm involved in the ufc. Like, very similar.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Yeah, it's.

[Doug Stanhope]

And look crazy.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

It's insane. I'm going tomorrow night. I'm going to be in the front row at the arena in my hometown.

[John Cena]

Are they here?

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Yeah.

[John Cena]

Oh, man.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Are you messing with me? Are you gonna. Is your music gonna hit?

[John Cena]

No, I'm not there. I got one more left.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

This is what they do, by the way.

[Doug Stanhope]

Oh, yeah.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Oh, yeah. I didn't even know they were gonna be in town.

[John Cena]

He's correct. There's a lot of. You mess with people. You're right. But then somebody like me will actually shoot you straight and be like, I'm not going to be there and I won't be there. And you'll be like, oh, now I'm just. I'm building the equity for people to mess with people. Like, I'm giving 20, 20 mulligans out there tomorrow. No music plays.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Exactly. I heard a great story. You'll probably love this. You might even know the story. But the Undertaker, his wife and his podcast co host went to WrestleMania. They're up in a fancy suite. This was. Which one was it? The Rock made an appearance. Did you? Yes. You were there, right? This, that huge finish at WrestleMania, like three years ago, it was just boom, boom, boom, boom. And all these legends were coming out.

[John Cena]

This huge finish. Just like, they.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

They can't even, like, follow it. The ultimate climax of a Wrestlemania. And one wrestler comes out, interrupts this huge main event. Then another one, then another one. Anyway, the Undertaker, his wife and his podcast co host were up in the suite. Undertaker goes, I'm gonna go use the restroom. They're like, he's been gone a while. The light out, the bell tolls. They're watching from the suite. He's been gone for like 10 minutes, 20 minutes. He went and changed real quick.

[John Cena]

And then now he came out as the Undertaker.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Yeah, came out as the Undertaker. They're in the suite, like, oh my God, it's the Undertaker. They don't tell anybody. It's so old school and awesome that they keep secrets so locked up that their own loved ones. His wife didn't even know.

[Doug Stanhope]

That's hilarious. That is so crazy.

[John Cena]

It's. It's fun to be able to surprise a live audience. Oh, yeah.

[Doug Stanhope]

Oh, yeah. I mean, it's got to be a big part of it. How did you get involved in pro wrestling? Were you a fan as a kid and then.

[John Cena]

I sure was. I think we have the same gravity of like, man, I was a super fan as a kid, but then I fell out of it, admittedly, kind of when Hogan went to wcw.

So, like, I was into wrestling and then I wasn't. Then I got into sports or whatever and then I got back into wrestling when everyone else did. When like Stone Cold Steve Austin became big, the Rock became big, the Attitude era hit and I was just working a dead end job over at Gold's Gym, Venice, and, like, didn't know what I wanted to do with my life. How old were you? 21. Wow, 21. I'd moved out to California. Not to be famous or anything. My degree was in Kinese and I wanted to, like, that was the center of the fitness universe in 99, 2000. So like, all equipment manufacturers were there. I'm like, man, I'll go get a job with Hammer Strength or Cybex or like, maybe Golds or like put that piece of paper on the wall to like, get a good paying job. It did not work. So I ended up like, front desk cleaning toilets, selling protein bars in that order. So don't ever buy a protein bar. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. But no, I was kind of like a jack of all trades over there. And a friend of mine, Chris Bell and Mark Bell.

[Doug Stanhope]

Oh, I know those guys.

[John Cena]

Yeah, yeah. They literally were like, dude, you talk about WWF all the time. You know, we train down in Orange county and at that time, Chris Bell was Kind of like writing for this promotion. Like, would you want to do it? And I. Man, I. That doesn't happen without them accidentally saying, like, yo, we. We train to do this.

[Doug Stanhope]

So his documentaries are fucking incredible. Bigger, Stronger, Faster. And then the other one, the pill one, what was that one called?

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Magic Pill.

[Doug Stanhope]

No, what was the one? The addiction one.

That Chris released. But Bigger, Stronger, Faster is such a great documentary.

[John Cena]

The Bell family, I've been. I've been friends with them for a long time.

[Doug Stanhope]

Great guys.

[John Cena]

Yeah, that.

[Doug Stanhope]

That documentary, like, blew the lid off of, like, the reality of steroids prescription thugs. Another great one. Yeah. Crazy thing is he got addicted to pills while he was doing that. Because he had surgery while he was doing that and got addicted to pills while he's making a documentary on people being addicted to pills. That's how potent pills are. A guy making a documentary about addiction, he just thinks, well, I'm just taking these because I got hip surgery and I'm in fucking agony. And then gets hooked.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Oh, yeah.

[Doug Stanhope]

Like, that's how crazy it is.

[John Cena]

Yeah. They're strong.

[Doug Stanhope]

Yeah, I would imagine.

Did you ever have an issue?

[John Cena]

No, no. As a matter of fact, I've. I've had fusion in my neck, right? Pec, completely detached. Reattached, both triceps. Reattached, both triceps scoped.

Nose relocated. Like, I got. I probably. I'm in, like, 10 physical surgeries where they got to go and correct something. Never taken one pain pill. Wow. I have all the prescriptions in the bottom drawer of my house filled. And it's weird because at every facility, the first thing they. The first hill they climb is pain management. You wake up from anesthesia, you're, like, gray and murky. And I've been in a bunch of surgeries, a bunch of different facilities. The protocol is always the same. Do you want something for the pain? Here, we gotta make sure you take this with you. Cause you're not in any pain.

[Doug Stanhope]

Yeah.

[John Cena]

Like, I understand. Because you. If you leave, if you're feeling okay, maybe you're high off adrenaline, I don't know. And then the operation sets in of, like, holy fuck, this is a 10 out of 10. I can't. I need something. I get that, but I. I guess from falling down and hurting my body a lot. Like, I know my pain threshold.

[Doug Stanhope]

Yeah.

[John Cena]

And when I. The. The worst one was probably the putting the whole pec back on and then attaching it. But when I woke up, I was able to, like, mess around with a stress ball. And I never took one Pill.

[Doug Stanhope]

That's amazing.

[John Cena]

And I still have the. The full bottles of, like, Some are labeled 2008 is when I had my first surgery. And they're just all there.

[Doug Stanhope]

There's a lot in them right now.

[John Cena]

Going, count them all.

[Doug Stanhope]

They're still good. But find out what John Cena towards them.

[John Cena]

It was weird because the medical staff couldn't. Couldn't believe it. Like, they're like, you don't want anything? No, because, man, it's a. I know how I am with this.

[Doug Stanhope]

It's. Yeah, it's a slippery.

[John Cena]

And I would just. I'd be high on opiates, opioids all the time.

[Doug Stanhope]

I got my first knee surgery, I think, in 93 or 94, and they gave me. I got an ACL reconstruction, and they gave me Vicodin. I think pretty sure it was Vicodin. I took one one day, and I felt so stupid. I was lying in on. Lying on my couch watching tv, and I felt so dumb, and my knee still hurt, you know, it was just like, it was distracting me from the fact that my knee hurt. But I'm like, I can't be this dumb. I'm dumb enough as it is. I can't add to my dumbness with pills. Like, I just saw it coming, you know? And also, I knew a bunch of guys who had pill problems. I wound up selling my pills to a friend of mine that would sell pills.

[John Cena]

I should have taken your idea.

[Doug Stanhope]

I only made, like, a couple hundred bucks or something. I don't remember. It was, like, in the 90s, but. But I remember just that one pill. And so then every surgery I've had ever since then, they always offered me stuff, and I never took anything. I got my other ACL reconstructed in 2003. Never took anything. I got in my nose fixed. It's like 2008, I got my nose reconstructed. Deviated septum.

[John Cena]

Yeah.

[Doug Stanhope]

The guy was insisting that I. He gave me two prescriptions for pain medicine. And I was like, I don't want anything. I was like, is it going to get worse than this? He's like, it could get. I go, right now it feels like nothing.

[John Cena]

Yeah.

[Doug Stanhope]

It's like. But if you've been. Again, like, you. You've been beaten up so many times, your body, you're so used to just being in pain. And I think for some people, just the. The daunting anxiety of pain itself is like, they just want a pill before they even realize. Like, I could kind of just. Yeah, it sucks, but it's not going to suck forever. It's going to heal. So let's just deal with the suck and just lay here, put some ice on it or whatever and just relax.

[John Cena]

And along with that, it's kind of like your, your body's natural way of saying, like, okay, maybe push a little bit more. Try to get a few more degrees of range of motion in physical therapy. Like if those senses are numbed and like shut off.

[Doug Stanhope]

Right.

[John Cena]

First of all, you do feel just like, I don't want to do anything. So you won't work in many cases, you won't work to do the work to get better or you're just numb. You don't know the messaging. You can't listen to your body. Like, if it's really, really in pain, maybe your body's trying to tell you something.

[Doug Stanhope]

I always assume that people feel pain differently. I mean, I just would imagine like, like people feel hot sauce differently. Like some people, they can't have any spice. Some people can have like, you know, death peppers and they're fine.

[John Cena]

So. All right, I'll throw that out to the group. Is pain a personal experience?

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

I mean, there's no way I'm as tough as you guys, so yeah, it has to be.

[John Cena]

But I think in other dimensions you might be way tougher. I don't know. I don't know. Maybe. I think, I think there's something you don't know, Tony.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

I can't imagine the dimension. I went and visited a firehouse the other day and I was going down the pole going, wee. Like, you guys wouldn't do that.

[Doug Stanhope]

I would do that.

[John Cena]

So, so in that, in that aspect, you're tougher than me.

[Doug Stanhope]

Yeah. You could take ridicule. We could take ridicule really easily, but I don't know how, what it feels like for other people. You know what I'm saying? I mean, I would assume that everybody feels the same, but you know, one of the reasons why I think maybe it is like, it's different, but because my mom, my mom has a crazy tolerance to pain. Like my guy, who, my stem cell guy in la, my mom had a real knee issue and he was treating her as well. And he goes, it's hilarious. Your mother's just like you. She just takes it like she doesn't even flinch. She's sticking it. Like he's like, that doesn't happen with like 75 year old ladies. Like take a needle and shove it in their knee and, and push it and she just doesn't move. And you know, she's like, oh, it wasn't painful. It was no big deal. It's like, you know, a lot of 75 year old ladies would be sweating and freaking out seeing the needle.

[John Cena]

Pretty sure I would be, yeah.

[Doug Stanhope]

But I, I, I don't know, you know, I don't know what it feels like to other people. Like, when I got my acl, my right ACL reconstructed, it was a lot easier because it was a cadaver. And I recommended to anybody the difference between a patella tendon graft recovery and a cadaver recovery is literally like six months. The difference is really, the cadaver was so much quicker. Wow. Oh my God. Because the cadaver, they take it, I mean, it's all swollen and everything afterwards, but it's somebody else's tendon. They take an Achilles tendon off of a cadaver so it's 150% stronger than an ACL. They screw that sucker in place. Little tiny orthoscopic holes, not nearly as invasive. And then five days later, you know, Matt Lichtenberg, I went to his party for his birthday party five days later, just walking around and he was like, did you just have surgery? I go, yeah, like, it's not that big a deal, man. Like it feels fine, you know, it's, it was so much easier. The left one was brutal because they take a slice out of your patella tendon and then they could take a chunk out of your shin bone and a chunk out of your kneecap. And then they use those to screw this new tendon that they created into the shin bone and into your, your thigh bone. That was rough. That one was painful as and took a long time before it felt normal. It took a long time before I could go down on one knee again.

[John Cena]

When was that?

[Doug Stanhope]

You said that was it in the 90s.

[John Cena]

And then the other one was 2000.

[Doug Stanhope]

Early 2000, 2000, like 2ish. Somewhere around 2, 3.

[John Cena]

I mean, 10 more years of performance surgeries, 10 more years in medical.

[Doug Stanhope]

I just think it's the diff because they still do that. Patella tendon graph. And I think George St. Pierre had it done that. I know a bunch of people that I, I'm friends with had it done that way. And I was like, oh, don't do that one. Yeah, do the cadaver. But people are worried, like, what if you get aids? Like you, Jesus Christ, you're not going to get AIDS from it. Stop. And it's also, it's like you feel better before you are better, unfortunately, because the way the tendon works. So when they replace a tendon With a cadaver, it's not like you have this guy's tendon in your body. What it is like is that tendon is a scaffolding. And then your body re proliferates that with your own cells. So over the course of six months, my body had filled in all of what used to be a cadaver with my own cells. So you have, you. You'll feel like it's better before it's better. So a lot of MMA fighters, they. They start training too quickly and they blow it out again, man, because it's still soft.

[John Cena]

That's always the concern. It's always in any. You feel good? Yeah, man, I can, I can do this.

[Doug Stanhope]

Especially animals, you know, guys are just used to pain and used and used to pushing, you know, and they just pop it out again. I know multiple MMA fighters that have had knee surgery and then blew it out while they were recovering.

[John Cena]

And just a few months more they could just.

[Doug Stanhope]

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[John Cena]

All right. It's impatience. You want to get back in there.

[Doug Stanhope]

And then it's even worse because you got to drill into the same holes and pull it out and open you up. But it's more invasive surgery. They got to remove the screws and.

Yeah, but I just, I don't think everybody feels pain the same. I think it's a genetic thing. I, I'm, I, it's just an assumption, obviously, because I don't feel what other people feel. But I think some people just. Any kind of pain, it's just, they can't function. They're. They're just in agony. And I think those people are way more vulnerable to the pills. That's just my assumption.

[John Cena]

That's a decent perspective. I definitely, I would agree with. Pain is, is a, is a personal experience. Like there, there are people who.

I mean, I've seen people like, I can't believe you go through that. And then people be like, but you get the kicked out of you. I can't believe you do that. It's all, it's all relative. I would, I would be cufflinks. If you get that stem cell needle out, I would be sweating right until the fucking final moment. Like some, some stuff I can't take, you know? So I guess it is, it could be combined with like what we fear in life or maybe, maybe fear of hard work or fear of effort. Who knows? I don't know. I don't know.

[Doug Stanhope]

I think it's also being accustomed to pain, you know, so if you did you wrestle when you were younger?

[John Cena]

No, I played football.

[Doug Stanhope]

You played football? Well, that's just like that, in that you're always in pain. I mean, if you're playing football, you're always colliding with people. You're always. You got a shoulders fucking with you, your backs fuck with you. It's like it's never ending.

[John Cena]

I've always said that there's something, there's some value into losing a fight.

[Doug Stanhope]

Oh, yeah.

[John Cena]

Like, I grew up with four brothers, and we kicked the shit out of each other, and I'm. I was not always on the winning side. So very early on in my life as a young person, you know what it's like to lose a fight.

[Doug Stanhope]

Oh, it's very valuable.

[John Cena]

And I think that that's. There's a lot maybe to do with the pain conversation there of, like, just flat out getting your ass kicked and then being able to dust yourself off and be like, I'll get you next time, you know, Like. Like, it's not over, you know?

[Doug Stanhope]

Right.

[John Cena]

We're brothers. We're gonna fight again. You know, like, it's also knowing, like.

[Doug Stanhope]

Why did he beat me? What can I do to beat him next time? You know, like, if you don't have that in your life also, if you don't know what it feels like to get your ass kicked, you get a little mouthy. I mean, how many mouthy people do we know that have never been up? And I think that's why, like, there's real consequences. If it actually comes down, you start yelling and you get mouthy. If it actually comes down to it. And we've all seen many of these videos on the Internet where someone just don't. They don't know what the fuck they're asking for, what they're getting into, and then all of a sudden they're getting hit.

[John Cena]

And, man, I'm not perfect. And there are days where I'm short of patience, but when it gets to that weird spot of, like, yo, someone's going to get hit in the face, I always try to, like, lean on diplomacy.

[Doug Stanhope]

Always, always.

[John Cena]

Yeah, please, let's not do that, because that fucking sucks.

[Doug Stanhope]

And I bet a lot of people say to you, if I was you, I'd be fucking everybody up. That's dumb. People always say that. Like, it doesn't end with that. Then this guy gets his brother, or he shoots you or run you over.

[John Cena]

With a car, or you think you're gonna fuck somebody up and you get fucking handled, right? Like, you never know, man. You never Know anybody else's story? You know, you never know.

[Doug Stanhope]

To so many people out there that train today, it's so much different than when I was younger. Like, you would assume that, like, I assume that a good, solid 10% of all men you meet have martial arts skills now because of the UFC popularity of it.

[John Cena]

Yeah, certainly, certainly in Western society.

[Doug Stanhope]

Yes.

[John Cena]

You know, the gym, there's a gym every plaza.

[Doug Stanhope]

Also, there's so many kids that like watch UFC and then play, practice with themselves. And you could learn a lot just doing that. You know, guys learn a lot just watching it on TV and then emulating it at home with their friends.

[John Cena]

Can tell those who watch wwe, because when those moments happen, they try to do some crazy movie, it doesn't work, doesn't happen.

[Doug Stanhope]

How many guys have thrown their buddy onto a conference table or something because they thought. I thought it was the way to do it?

[John Cena]

Oh, it's crazy.

[Doug Stanhope]

You know, I mean, the fucking sheer amount of punishment you guys put yourself through is staggering. I mean, it really is staggering.

[John Cena]

But thank you very much. It is all for the, like, it's like a pro football player, pro hockey player, ufc. I think, I think the beautiful advantage that we have is that it's, we can, we can make choices on what we do. So when you're in UFC and they close the door, it's kind of fucking best person wins. You know, you gotta, it's, it's survival. When we're in WWE and we both step in the ring and they ring the bell, we're working together, we're working together to put on the best show for the audience. And in that process, you can calculate the risks you want to take. And I think that's what allows somebody to be able to perform for 23 years. You know, I don't know. I know that that age old stat that everybody says about like the average NFL careers, what, two and a half years or three and a half years, I don't know what the stat is on average UFC career, like, how long, what's your window to be functionally profitable in ufc. But I know, because our risks are calculated and we're working together rather than against each other, the math is way higher for you to have like a 10, 15, 20 year career in WWE, but that also is 10 more years have fallen down. 15 more years have fallen down. So it's weird. Like, you can choreograph the risk, but you have to do it time and time again. And the schedule in WWE just changed, like to do 70 matches a year now. In WWE is like, man, you, you're a workhorse. We used to do 220, 230, which is so crazy. It's.

[Doug Stanhope]

It 220 days of trauma in a year. Because you're getting. No matter what, you're getting some trauma no matter what. Body slams you, something hap. You're colliding, you go off the ropes, you're smashing into each other.

[John Cena]

I get such a warm feeling when first timers go into the ring for the first time. It's like. Oh, it's like a. It's like a bouncy floor and they fall down once and like the wind's knocked out of them. They're like my brain moved. Yeah, yeah. Now you gotta do that again and again. But it's weird. I've got to work with a lot of standups and WWE is kind of changing. I would say it's on the progression of a standup making it to just like a stadium tour. But man, when I performed my sweet spot, we ran very parallel lives. Like you. I've worked every city. Hampton Beach, Casino Ballroom, to Madison Square Garden, like to the Saitama Super arena, to AT&T Stadium, to Bangor, Maine, or to Valparaiso, Indiana. Like you, you go to all of these places and it's like, Friday you're in one place. Saturday, you're in another place. Sunday, you're in another place. Monday, you're in another place. Tuesday, you're in another place. One day to drop your shit. One day to catch your flight out, do it again. Like it's, it's, it's kind of. We, we're kind of like touring stand ups in that regard.

[Doug Stanhope]

Very similar. Yeah, exactly.

[John Cena]

And you're responsible for your own trans. And I'm speaking from my day. I don't know how it is now because I got one left and then I'm done. But you were responsible for your own transportation, booking your own hotels. Like you, you, you were. They were just like, hey, we're starting here, we're ending here. Good luck. Which is awesome because you create. People are really independent when they, when they go through that fire. And you weed out the people who don't want to be there. Yeah.

[Doug Stanhope]

Because they're just the sheer work. The sheer workload.

[John Cena]

Making those clubs and like making. Doing a tour.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

It's also the adrenaline. Like, it's like, what do you do after a night? Like most jobs, people can't wait to be done and then go home and relax and fall asleep. Where if you're doing standup or obviously Wrestling.

[John Cena]

You were just, you're done late at night and you're like, yeah, man, what, the water rush?

[Doug Stanhope]

Yeah.

[John Cena]

What can I do better? Or. This killed. And then it's four in the morning.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Yeah.

[Doug Stanhope]

You're buzzing. Yeah, you're buzzing. And it's also, it's really hard to have any kind of a normal relationship because you're just constantly not home, you're constantly gone. Like, even your friends like you, you really, as a touring comic, the best thing that I ever did is start taking friends with me on the road.

[John Cena]

Yeah.

[Doug Stanhope]

Instead of just working with like random guys that I didn't know in different towns. Those are fun. Sometimes. Sometimes like, you know, two out of ten times you meet a new friend.

[John Cena]

Yeah.

[Doug Stanhope]

Eight out of ten times you're with some annoying alcoholic.

Who fucking sucks. And, and they're annoying and then they want to take you someplace and you know, you get in trouble.

[John Cena]

Yeah. Yeah. I mean that, that's certainly the normal life aspect of it. It's also like at full tilt. It's a, it's a very absorbing thing. It's a very selfish thing. So I think not only you don't work regular office hours and you're a nomad, a gypsy, but especially from a WWE perspective, you, you have to like, you're, you're a startup founder. You have to wake up thinking about it. You have to think about it all day. You have to go to sleep thinking about it. Wake up in, in the two hours of sleep did you get being like, I remember this line or maybe we can do this stunt or whatever. Right. And it's people who are in your sphere, at least through my perspective and my journey, man, if you were in my gravity from like 2002 to like 2019.

I wasn't a part of a team. You did it my way. Like bus leaves at 10. If you're there at 10:01, you're fucking left. Like, we're doing this and we're training here and then we're doing this. But it's, it's so, it's so the end product is good. So like the dream job of like, man, I never. The six year old kid holding the paper belt can be an adult holding the real belt and get shekels for doing that. And I don't ever want to, I don't want to put that in jeopardy. So you fuckers are gonna have to get in line and we're just gonna have to go like it.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

You.

[John Cena]

You know, I was absent a lot in relationships because if it wasn't on my terms. It didn't exist, you know, because here you got. You catch lightning out of a jar. I'm a kid from West Newberry who's, you know, come from a family of five and.

There'S always more broker. But, man, we were a good level of broke. And then now like, hey, if you just work hard at this thing, you can kind of not ever be that again. All right, fuck this. I'm doing this thing all the time. But that comes with, hey, I'm getting married. Or like, my grandfather died or I got a birthday coming up. Or like, hey, man, you missed another Thanksgiving. You're damn right I did. Because I'm doing the thing.

[Doug Stanhope]

Yeah.

[John Cena]

You know, so it's also, for me, at least it was that as well. Of like, like laser focus. All things wwe.

[Doug Stanhope]

Well, it's that in everything that you do where you want to really be.

[John Cena]

Successful, it takes saying yes to the thing means no to everything else.

[Doug Stanhope]

I had Jensen Huang on the podcast the other day who's the CEO of Nvidia, like one of the biggest companies on planet Earth. Huge company. Fucking dude. Still to this day works seven days a week. And he was talking about when he goes on vacation, I go, do you go on vacation? And just put it all down. He goes, no, I work. He goes, even when I'm with my family, I have to work. I'm working. I work seven days a week. I don't take a day off. I love it. And he goes, and I'm terrified of failure. He goes, that's my motivation. My motivation is not I want to succeed. My motivation is fear of failure.

[John Cena]

Yeah.

[Doug Stanhope]

Every day I show up saying, if I don't do this, we could fail and I'm going to work seven days a week. Everybody who thinks they want to be a CEO, you think you want to be a billionaire? Like, you want to do that? You want to do that when you're 60 years old? Do you want to be working seven days a week all day long from the moment you wake up? He wakes up at 4:30 in the morning. He says he answers thousands of emails a day. I'm like, what? How are you? How is that even fucking possible? Gets up at 4:30 in the morning, answers all these emails, works all day long, constantly problem solving, making AI chips. It's crazy, right? Yeah, but that's with everything. You want to be at the top of the heap.

[John Cena]

When you see there's only one way. Yeah. When you see something difficult, look, easy. There's a bunch of 4:30 in the morning, wake ups that made that happen.

[Doug Stanhope]

You know, I think with everything in life. Yeah, anything in life where you really want to excel at it. There's no shortcuts.

[John Cena]

Yeah.

[Doug Stanhope]

Doesn't exist. That weeds a lot of people out.

[John Cena]

It does, it does. And there's a lot of. Of man, armchair quarterback is the easiest and best position on the field. Yeah, I could do that. All I needed to do is do this. Sure, go right ahead.

[Doug Stanhope]

Yeah.

[John Cena]

Take your best shot.

[Doug Stanhope]

Yeah. Good luck. Yeah, it's. It's interesting because it must weed out so many talented people. There's probably a lot of talented people that you've seen over the years that just didn't have that drive to constantly improve and succeed and really be thinking about what they're doing all the time.

[John Cena]

I, I like that statement because I think the talent is doing it all. You could have a.

[Doug Stanhope]

No, you can have one. You could smoke if you want. I don't care. We have fans in here. Yeah, with fans that suck out all the smoke.

[John Cena]

I think the statement of man, so many talented people didn't make it. They may have, they may be an acrobat, they may be a fast talker, but that's not the only attribute that makes one special. You may be a great joke writer, but man, if, if you don't master stage presence, I mean, maybe a joke, a great joke writer with stage presence, but if you can't lug the tour. Yeah, you're not, you're not talented for it.

[Doug Stanhope]

Well, it's, it's really the grind.

[John Cena]

It is in everything, the all encompassing thing. So when someone with great athletic ability decides that it's not for them, because eventually that is we. One thing about wwe.

For all the arguments of like backstage Politico, everybody understands the sound of money and no one refuses it. Like, I fucking hate this guy, but I gotta give him another match. It may not be, but I now have to give him a 10 year contract. But when they go out there, if the noise is there, even if the they fucking hate you, you get another match. I am proof positive of that meritocracy at work. Like everybody fucking hated me.

[Doug Stanhope]

Why'd they hate you?

[John Cena]

I was just real different. Like I, I was just really different.

[Doug Stanhope]

In what way?

[John Cena]

So I didn't rock, I didn't ruffle any feathers when I kind of entered the business, kept quiet, did my stuff, but I also didn't connect with the audience. And I don't know, maybe you guys see this in stand up or not. But then I got like a Personality of like the white rap guy, like the white hip hop guy.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

You know about that.

[John Cena]

Yeah, but like, I fucking went. I fucking went all in, you know, urban gear, like. And I'm a hip hop head, so it's like, oh man, this is my sweet spot. This is the avenue. This isn't all of my personality, but this is one level that I can show that I think everyone will get. So if you go to Madison Square Garden, you get it. But if we go to Wheeling, West Virginia, you'll also get it. And you may like it in some places and hate it in some places, but everyone will get it. I will not be selling apathy, but in doing that, I never followed dress code. I was saying disrespectful shit about my peers. Like, I kind of did it my own way. So I was. I was kind of ruffling some feathers backstage or just I was taking big swings because I was gonna fucking get fired anyway. The alternative was lose my job. So I was like, fuck it, I'm going down swinging.

[Doug Stanhope]

Yeah.

[John Cena]

And then the people behind the curtain were like, ah, the kid's disrespectful to the business. He doesn't care about the business. All the while I just want to keep my fuck, you know. So the they's behind the curtain weren't really invested, but they were also humble enough to be like, there's noise out there. Gotta give them another match. And one match at a time times 23 years of compounding interest. We're here.

[Doug Stanhope]

What did Vince think about your hip hop?

[John Cena]

He hated it and then loved it. He hated it and then loved it. And I think, I think I'm thinking for somebody, but I think from his perspective is. Is like when I hear somebody's idea for a personality, man, I want to be this sports agent guy or whatever. Oh, yo. I have the idea of what that is in my head and if their projection of that idea doesn't match my projection of that idea, I'm like, ah, fuck, I hate it. But that doesn't mean it can't work. So I think what maybe would happen was my perspective of the white hip hop guy from the mean street of West Newberry and Vince's perspective of John Cena, the rapper we probably missed. Like, he had an idea and I had an idea and usually he will craft it to his vision. I gotta give him respect for allowing me to kinda run with it, you know.

[Doug Stanhope]

Well, it's probably that fear of being fired that like, keeps you on the edge, dude.

[John Cena]

That was it of like The Nvidia guy of like, I don't wanna fail. I got the sit down of like, hey, we're cut your cause it's not working. Like, you're out there for your matches. You hear the same. It's not working. And there's no argument there. I'm like, fucking all right. I got to touch the sun. I got to make it. I got to play for the Yankees. I got my one at bat. I'm Moonlight Graham. And then they heard me rap in the back of the bus and was like, man, Stephanie heard me rap in the back of the bus and was like, yo, you want to do that on tv? I'm like, lose my job or fucking rap. Yeah, let's go. Let's do this. So it was Stephanie's idea, and it was a fucking accident, dude. It was an accident. It was my final. My final overseas tour for the wwe. And the boys just spend time, like, that's the one time they get. The whole group together is overseas. Because you don't want to be herding cats like in Amsterdam or something. Everybody rides on the bus. You go from town to town. So, like, to pass the time, the boys just do whatever. And they were freestyling the back of the bus. And I normally just fucking kept to myself because I was raised in the environment of like, keep your ears open, keep your mouth shut, don't do anything less spoken to. So I did that. But I also didn't make any connections with people who were putting their lives on the line for me. You know, some of the guys you really beat the shit out of in the rings are like your best friends.

So I didn't have any of those connections. And I heard these guys rapping. And I just remember playing roller coaster tycoon on my laptop, folding that shit up, putting it away, and be like, I'm going to the back of the bus and just waited my turn and then filleted, like, 12 guys.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Yeah.

[John Cena]

And Stephanie was like, how the fuck did you remember all that? I'm like, no, no, it's freestyle. You just make it up. And she's like, well, make up something about me. And we were boarding a plane, and I literally, like, utilized the plane. The people getting on the plane, what she was wearing, what she was eating. She's like, would you do this on tv? And that's where we got a chance.

[Doug Stanhope]

Wow, that's crazy.

[John Cena]

And it wasn't like, off to the moon. Like, I got a shitty chance on a small spot, and that worked. So then I got moved to like the dog shit Saturday night program that nobody watches. But the cool thing is no one's watching. So, like, I could do whatever I wanted. So I started saying more racy shit and dressing more outlandish and having more personality and, like, claiming ownership of the show. I call myself Mr. Saturday Night and it's the shitty show. You don't want to be Mr. Saturday Night, but I did. And then that got another match and got another match, and one by one, it kind of brought me here.

[Doug Stanhope]

Wow.

[John Cena]

Just a fucking happy accident, man.

[Doug Stanhope]

That's crazy.

[John Cena]

All the way to. Even when the bells were like, hey, you want. The whole thing's a fucking accident. You want to start training? Fuck yeah. Sure. All right, great. You want to start rapping? Yeah, Fuck it. Sure. See what happens.

[Doug Stanhope]

That's amazing.

[John Cena]

It's a happy accident.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

And for it to go all the way to last year's massive heel turn. He went heel, dude. And I.

[John Cena]

That was this year, by the way.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Yeah, yeah, that was this.

[John Cena]

Yeah, it's been a great year.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Yeah, yeah, that was. I was a mania. And man one, literally, perhaps other than maybe Hogan, right. The greatest heel turn in wrestling history. When a good, good, good, good, good. Crowd pleasing guy goes bad, bad and dark. You had moments, the things you were saying, the way you were saying them. Epic, Iconic. Iconic heel turn. Cold, dark. Working with the Rock. He was in cahoots. That's the good guy. Cody.

[John Cena]

You can like see the people's faces. That. That's the fun thing. It's like.

The stuff is so simple, but it's. It's the. If you take out the crowd in that situation and just put those three guys, it is really up what we do. But when you add the audience in the back and all their faces and what's going on, that's what makes. Bro.

[Doug Stanhope]

Even your face face. You. You. You got like a mean guy face. All of a sudden it's like you look like a different person. That's interesting.

[John Cena]

I was having a bad day.

[Doug Stanhope]

Well, this is also when you'd already done a bunch of acting.

[John Cena]

Yes. Like, this is this year. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is February this year. Yeah.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

How much of the creative control do you have over the aspects of that heel turn? Like, for example, one thing that I thought was the coolest, mind you, I was in the front row of WrestleMania behind the Spanish announce table. So I'm directly across from the entrance. You know, the giant WrestleMania is a football stadium in Las Vegas and there was no music and it was a black background. Normally he's the most color, with the most iconic loud, wild music. No music, black background, and in white letters, it just said cena. And you just walked out with at. Literally the statement was, I'm not here to entertain you people. Basically, is what it felt like. And I loved it. I mean, this is the main event of mania.

[John Cena]

You're so entertained. I mean, I want to entertain you. I fucked up.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Yeah. I have a. I'm a. I have a degree in pro wrestling, but my master's is in heeldom. Like, it's like the bad. I just love a bad guy. And even ever since that bad guy turn, I feel like. And I feel like most bad guy fans do now. Newly connected with the back to the return of the good guy scene.

[John Cena]

Yeah, there it is.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Oh, I mean, it's. It was literally just.

[John Cena]

I used to come out like a Tasmanian devil. Yeah. And it's just reversed it all.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

And it seems like nothing, but it's iconic. Just cold as ice. Everyone else for four hours coming out with colorful music and pyro and all this stuff. And there's the guy that normally did it the best and the biggest, just really not giving a fuck.

[John Cena]

And WrestleMania, if you're going to do it like you. You give your best entrance for Wrestlemania. And this was. I guess we were going for the shittiest one, but.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

But it just rang the opposite. And simple and true.

[Doug Stanhope]

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[Tony Hinchcliffe]

So, like, for example, those things, those details, that's you mostly pitching to the creative team. Like. Like, for example, like the. Even just the white letters, the black entrance, is that. How does that kind of come together?

[John Cena]

So I think that's.

And I've been lucky enough to kind of take this perspective of not knowing everything and realizing that even. Even with 23 years of fluency, I'm not the smartest guy in the room. I don't know the technology they have and what they can do. Now, granted, a black LED board, I could probably come up with that. But what I. What I like to do is lean on my resources, like, hey, let's go to production and see what production is thinking. And I don't want to tell them what to do because I want to hear their ideas first. And production was like, what if we just went basic? I'm like, how basic can you go? Yeah, what if we just blacked everything out? Yeah, but I know from what you guys have said, you also like to light the. No, no. What if we just black everything out? You guys would do that? Oh, that sucks. Yeah, let's do that.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Yeah.

[John Cena]

So it's not. It's not me with all of these things. I don't. I don't have enough depth of field to touch all the bases. But I will go to every department and say, like, okay, entrance is a big part of what we do. What do we do for lighting? What do we do for production? Go to camera. Like, how do you guys want to shoot it? And then it trickles down when you talk to the talent you're working with, how do we portray this message? And then, of course, it starts at the top with, creatively, I want to make you a bad guy. So we're going to do that. Okay, sure, we're going to do that. How do you want to do that? But it's. I think it's getting. We have a lot of talented people and just allowing them to do their job and let you know, like, oh, I was kind of thinking this. And then tell them, yeah, that's a good idea. Let's do that.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Yeah.

[John Cena]

You know, that's amazing because I don't know what. I don't know what I miss if.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

I'm making all the demands to show you the contrast. His opponent that night Came out to, I think it was 40 people on red, white and blue dirt bikes, all dressed like American people.

[John Cena]

Nitro Circus.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

He comes out elevated from inside of the stage, wearing this super gaudy mask that he has to take off. Fireworks, fireworks. Fire, sparks, smoke, all of these different things. And he just comes out blank faced.

[John Cena]

I just got my bunk sock on the back. Just run on. There you go.

[Doug Stanhope]

It's so funny hearing Tony talk about this because for people who don't know the way Tony runs, Kill Tony is basically a version of a WWE event. I mean, it really is. Like when he does the arena shows, he has everything set up like a WWE event.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Yeah.

[Doug Stanhope]

I mean, even the thing we did with Shane when Shane was playing, When Shane was playing Trump, when Trump and I were supposedly feuding online. Trump had said something about me online. And then Trump's talking shit, like as Shane's talking shit. And then the music plays and I show up behind him. It's pure pro wrestling.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Oh, yeah.

[Doug Stanhope]

It's pure pro wrestling.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

And MSG on their feet. Shocked. You know, you're surprising this crowd that thinks they're just there for a comedy show. And well, there's the panel. I guess that's what we're gonna have tonight. But the surprises, the ups, the downs, and then he brings up Joey Diaz. So it's like boom, boom. Kind of like that big finish at Mania that I was talking about. Superstar. Bringing up a superstar. You know, music, music, smoke, fire.

[John Cena]

Yes.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

All these little things.

[John Cena]

The more you make it important, the more important it becomes.

[Doug Stanhope]

Yeah. As when what he's saying is, like when Trump was there, this was as Trump was running for president. Trump thought that I was endorsing rfk, so he got mad at me. So I said, I am here to endorse someone. And I brought out Joey Diaz, which is great because you're gonna get a.

[John Cena]

Reveal, but you get a different reveal and it's like.

[Doug Stanhope]

And everybody went nuts and. But it's like the audience, they're into it. Like they're into pro wrestling. They want all the heel turns, they want all the chaos, they want all the, the pageantry and the, and the fire and the explosions and all the shit, man.

[John Cena]

You get any live audience, they're into all that. Like watch a college football game, watch a soccer game overseas or football, as they would say, like the fans, it's like a group think of energy. That's fucking nuts. Like, audiences want it. It doesn't matter where you're at, man. When comics just go out and light up A stage. And they have that fucking stage presence, and they just slay a set. The fucking audience is rolling in the aisles. Like, they.

You let them in, and they can help make a joke that might not hit the night before Slay. Like, it's all about the moment. It's all about being there and reading the people. And the fun thing about WWE is you can go out there with an idea, and I can only imagine this is kind of like stand up, where if you got your set and you tell the first joke to crickets, you may try another joke. And if that's crickets, you got to fucking pivot.

[Doug Stanhope]

Yeah.

[John Cena]

So we go out. We go out and do something, and. Oh, man, they're into it. Great. All right, we have them. We just got to maintain their attention until we get to Act 3, essentially. But if you hear fucking crickets, you're like, all right, we're switching it up. Pivot right now. And you. That's the beauty. That's. That's one of the things that I love the most, is the. It's not just me and the other person out there. Like, the audience is. The actual. Like, that moment only means something. If you put a blue screen behind the people, it is super fucked up. Like, what the fuck are they doing? And why does that mean anything?

[Doug Stanhope]

Right?

[John Cena]

But when you let the level of the audience and everybody's on their feet, they're going, no. Like, it's fucking everything. It's everything.

[Doug Stanhope]

That's why Tony's so interested in the coordination of it all and the setting and the sabotage and all the chaos that's involved in all that.

[John Cena]

These are human emotions that are universe. Everyone understands betrayal, jealousy, anger, disappointment, failure, excitement. Like, these are universal things that you don't. If we don't speak the same language, you still have felt these things. And you could watch that. No one spoke in that clip, but you could watch that in anywhere in the world and be like, that kid just got fucked over. Right? Oh, what's gonna happen next? Like, that's the beautiful appeal of it. You know, It's. We don't hit too far above our weight class. Like, we try to send large scale universal messages based on true, real human emotion that we all know.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Yeah. And up to that day, that moment, like, even that thing that we were just telling you about, me bringing him coming out, that being a reveal, him bringing up Diaz was coordinated. Literally, I think, 15 minutes before go time. Like, literally, me with a. With a big piece of paper going, hey, Joe, what if we did this? He Confirms it. So I go to hair and makeup where they're finishing up Shane as Trump, which in itself is just hysterical. I pitch it to him, he loves it. I go to Diaz, I say, rogan's gonna bring you up. And the thing happens quick. Whereas with almost, you know, every form of entertainment that we're used to other than wrestling and like kind of, you know, Kill Tony in this instance, everything's so pre planned that if we over pre planned it, we wouldn't have had the topical RFK endorsement because it was like news that.

[John Cena]

Yeah, sure.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

And so again, that inspiration, you know, totally comes from there because what else is doing that at MSG 10 minutes before the show, reorganizing things. Now we have to go to production and go have Rogan.

Led ready and then Diaz in that order. You know, it literally comes from that.

[John Cena]

And when it goes right, there's not a better feeling in the world.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Exactly. I just get to sit back and watch.

[Doug Stanhope]

Yeah, but it's so funny that that connection with pro wrestling is really why you've made Kill Tony the way it is. Like without your love of pro wrestling, it would be such a different show, like if it was just run like a traditional stand up show.

[John Cena]

Right.

[Doug Stanhope]

It's. There's so much else going on that makes it the biggest show.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Yeah, well, it's long term storytelling. We had a guy on, on Monday that had been doing it 14 years and man, he just, his timing was off. He struggled even after the minute. I go, you've been doing it 14 years? He goes, yeah, man. I go, what do you, how do you make money? He goes, I do this. I go, you do this for a living? He goes, yeah. I go, you must have better material. I'm gonna give you another shot. Do another minute. Here we go, ladies and gentlemen. And I introduce him again and he bombs again. And literally I was talking with it about it with Stephanie after the show because she just happened to be at Kiltoni on Monday. And she goes, a guy like that, you know what ha. You know what happens next? I go, hopefully, hopefully the guy gets pulled out of the bucket in a month or two, has a great set, puts it together, realizes all his timing was off. He wasn't taking a breath, he wasn't connecting with the crowd. He was just memorizing his stuff. And the story begins to be told about this guy. And sometimes it happens in reverse. Sometimes somebody starts off, you know, fire.

[John Cena]

Hot rocket strapped to the back.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Yep. And then. And that's kind of the sadder thing right is starting hot and then never being able to touch that again. Have a moment like your first time.

[Doug Stanhope]

Well, it's like we were talking about people with talent. We all know someone who killed during open mic days that we were like, wow, this guy's gonna be huge. They have like undeniable talent and they just can't manage it. They can't figure it out. They self sabotage. They get addicted to drugs or alcohol or whatever it is.

[John Cena]

There are so many things. It's not just the ability to go out and do the task well. There's so many variables that will you up. Yeah, dude, you're right. So many, so many gifted people have just, just have that roadblock in front of them.

[Doug Stanhope]

Which is why I think conversations with successful people are so important because you get to hear those stories. You get to hear like with Jensen the other day, he was talking about how Nvidia was basically bankrupt. They were, they were on their way out and someone gave him a chance. Like some, some, some one guy that was an investor gave him a chance. And then they wound up becoming successful. And then there was this, these moments and people need to know that you're gonna have those hurdles, you're gonna have those roadblocks. You're gonna have to figure out how to adjust. It's not easy. None of no one who this episode is brought to you by LifeLock. Tis the season for identity theft. This time of year most of us are checking off off our holiday gift list. But guess what? Identity thieves have lists too. And your personal information might be on them. Protect your identity with Lifelock. Lifelock monitors hundreds of millions of data points every second and alerts you to threats you could miss by yourself. Even if you keep an eye on your bank and credit card statements. If your identity is stolen, your own US based restoration specialist will fix it, guaranteed or your money back. Plus, all plans are backed by the million dollar protection package. And you know that person in your life who is impossible to shop for. Maybe it's a grandparent or your mom or a close friend. Well, here's an idea. Give them the gift of peace of mind and get them Lifelock. The last thing you or anyone wants to do this holiday season is face drained accounts, fraudulent loans or other financial losses from identity theft all alone. Make this season about joy, not identity theft. With LifeLock, save up to 40 your first year. Call 1-800-LIFELOCK and use the promo code JRE or go to lifelock.com jre for 40 off terms apply has been successful at anything will tell you the whole ride was easy.

[John Cena]

Yeah. But a lot of the time, sometimes, man, sometimes we'll be in it. I.

So I've been through like three generations of knowledge and learning. 23 years in the business, operating at a high level. I have seen thousands. And like it is the man. If you're a stud in peewee football league, then you go to this junior high school and then you're the number one player in college, and then you're the number one, number one player in high school, number one player in college, eke out a spot in the NFL and then a year later you're gone because the funnel just gets so thin. Like WWE has like 200 personnel in their NXT development program right now. Maybe 10 will make it. Maybe. And of those 10, like really honestly, maybe one will make it. And what the hope is is over a six year period, of those classes of 200 that get matriculated, probably every four months. So we're talking 6,000 people. I'm hoping one makes it. Wow. In five or six years, I need one because my top guy right now, my Roman Reigns and Cody Rhodes and the Charlotte Flairs and Becky Lynch's of the world.

They'll last half a decade to draw. Maybe if we're lucky, maybe we'll get it more. They can maybe parlay it into a decade or two, but that's an anomaly. You gotta play the legit math of like after 5 years I better have somebody in the ONDEX circle. So out of like 5,6000, I just need one. But it's still everybody's biting their fingernails of like we don't have the person yet. It's so many folks just don't make it. Just don't make it. Yeah, that's.

[Doug Stanhope]

That's the parallel to stand up.

[John Cena]

Yeah, it's man.

[Doug Stanhope]

So that, you know, there's so many people that we were talking last night in the green room.

[John Cena]

Thousands. And when I see them like in the ring do stuff, I'm like, I could never do that. But they just won't. They just don't make it.

[Doug Stanhope]

It's just there's so many things that people up. So much self sabotage, dude. So much inability to stay the course.

[John Cena]

In our own worst enemy, you know? I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, yeah. Happy accidents though it.

[Doug Stanhope]

Well, yeah, happy accidents, but not just that. It's you being able to stay on course and you being able to recognize that, you know, okay, this didn't work. What do I do you want me to Rap. Okay, I'll fucking rap. Like, a lot of people would have been like, I'm not rapping.

[John Cena]

That's beneath me. Yeah, I'm here to be a wrestler. Yeah. I'm not a gimmick.

[Doug Stanhope]

I'm not gonna be a buffoon.

[John Cena]

Yeah, I'll be a buffoon. Because it beats working a real job.

[Doug Stanhope]

But not only that, it's part of the entertainment of it all, even the cringe aspect of it.

[John Cena]

Yeah.

[Doug Stanhope]

People like, what is going on here. Yeah, it's great. He loves that shit.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Oh, it's the best.

[Doug Stanhope]

The best.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

You know who my guy is right now? Dominic Mysterious Love Dom. Oh, my God. So he's. Were you.

[John Cena]

No, you're here. I was going. You weren't at Petco, were you?

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

No.

[John Cena]

Ah, gosh, we had fun over there.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

I bet I was. I. I caught a lot of it.

[John Cena]

Yeah, man, that kid's good too. Like, good, Good human being.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

I happen to be in Salt Lake City doing a gig. I was doing standup in one arena, and the WWE happened to be in the other arena in Salt Lake City just a few weeks ago. And I'm like, ah, darn. But I look it up and it's a 5pm taping of WWE. So I hit up my friends at WWE. I go, I'm coming in. I'm bringing my openers, right?

Anyway, Dominic Mysterio is in a triple threat match, and his whole thing is he's wrestling royalties. Rey Mysterio's son. But he claims that he might be Eddie Guerrero's son because he. Because his father's, you know, one of the ultimate good guys of all time.

So basically, he takes on the. The. The traits of Eddie Guerrero, whose whole thing was cheating and lying and stealing, breaking the rules in original ways all the time. And he's doing a triple threat match, which means there's three guys at once, right? But if the. If someone beats anybody, you could lose your belt. And his Intercontinental champions, I think it's intercontinental, right? Is on the line and he gets thrown outside the ring. And I'm having fun, right? I go, dominic, cheat do something, right? And he's kind of on the other side of the thing, and he lifts up his head and looks at me and goes like that. He gives a big wink and then he goes back down again. And I'm cracking up. I go, did you see that? I'm next to Pauly Shore. I go, did you just see him wink? He goes, yeah, man, what's he gonna do, bro?

But these two guys in the ring are wrestling and one of them has the other one in a submission hold, a camel clutch. I can't remember who it was, but anyway. And I literally even me watching since I was a kid. And even though he just winked at me, it was just enough time. I forgot that Dominic was over there because this action in the ring is really happening. Something's about to happen. And you hear the bell ring and I look over and there's Dominic with the hammer in his hand ringing the bell. And the guy lets go of the submission and the referee goes, what the hell? And something I hadn't seen in 35 years of watching this thing. He was. He's innovative enough to find a brand new way to cheat in this twice. Yeah, a brand new way to cheat. And the crowd, everybody's cracking up. It's a whole new right when you think you've seen it all. This guy who you would love, he's literally like built like me. He flexes like Nate Diaz without flexing and he's just braggadocious. Oh yeah. He thinks, he thinks he won. But the ref's like, no. And hold on, I gotta cut to Dominic. He just loves it.

[John Cena]

Yep, there's our guy.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Dirty Dom.

[John Cena]

Yeah.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

And the crowd just loves them. That's all of us right there. That's Matty Edgar, Joe DeRosa, Pauly Shore, me. It was DeRosa's first real wrestling event. He had the time of his life. Childlike wonder.

[John Cena]

I love getting people in their life for the first time.

[Doug Stanhope]

There's something funny about a pro wrestler that's not built to.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Oh, oh, yeah. And he's the chain and all these other guys.

[John Cena]

That guy pented, man, he just whipped my ass. Dirty Dom. He just whipped my ass for real. I just lost the Intercontinental championship to that son of a bitch.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Look at him, covered in gold.

[John Cena]

Yeah.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Probably what, 5, 900?

[John Cena]

No, he's a tall drink of water. He's taller than me, but he's 170 pounds soaking wet.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Yeah, exactly.

[Doug Stanhope]

Such a uniquely American form of art. Yeah, it really is.

[John Cena]

It's weird because in pockets of the world like, like it's. Japan has their own style of doing it. Latin America has their own style of doing it. The UK has their own style of doing it. But this, yeah, like the Japanese is very strong style with respect to martial art. The English style is very like catches catch can a real like technical expose the Latin American style. The Mexican style is high flying. The, the American offering of like steak sizzle, apple pie, ice cream, fourth of July, everything like Huge.

[Doug Stanhope]

And that's all Vince, right? A lot of it.

[John Cena]

So is it all ever one person?

[Doug Stanhope]

Right? It's not.

[John Cena]

A lot of it is. A lot of it is. But like promotions like World Class Championship Wrestling were some of the first to use music. Vince was the first to be like rock and roll. Get over here and get on cable and let's, let's blow this thing out. I want to do it. It's not just something we have in a local VFW with cigar smoke and guys taking side action on carnival tricks. No, this is a thing and we are gonna make this a thing. Yeah.

[Doug Stanhope]

You know, it's also a thing where it's. A lot of it is not televised because you're just traveling around the country doing these shows.

[John Cena]

Yes. So that, that the business model has kind of changed where media content is king now. Now. So from what I understand from TKO and I know their executives will correct me, but from my perspective, we have scaled back on the live event only offerings, which helps, you know, lick the wounds. It's weird, it like you don't bump enough or you don't bump as much, but you kind of need to get in there and bump to get your callus and to get your wind and timing. So it's, it's kind of, you get your signals crossed. But anyhow, the content that is provided is always available for media or, or 99, where it used to be the opposite. We used to do like four live shows, one TV taping. So you'd have four live shows under your match. You know, you do, you do like Lafayette, Little Rock, Pensacola, and then TV in Orlando, you know, and that would be the end of the run and then you do it again of like, like Bangor, Portsmouth, Providence, TV in Boston, you know, like, and then you'd go for another week and go somewhere else. But it's, it's different now. It's like every piece is televised for the media, which is great because we get a lot out to our fans across the world. But like I learned, I learned how to fail in those non televised events. I could take big swings because it's like, man, if I'm on the, the middle of a card in, in Valparaiso and I kind of fuck up in a gymnasium with 3,500 people, they might, they might tell me to fuck off. But there's also the last match that's gonna send them home happy. So let's try this new weird thing. And that's where like me being invisible starts. You know, it's just like, ah, fucking try it. Who cares? It's an environment where you don't want to fail. And now it's, there's way more advantage on getting our content out there. But production is super slick. It's like really precise. Everyone's really good. And I don't know how many people go out there and just like, like Dom, like, that was an example of swinging big. I'm gonna fake ring the bell, right? Will people even get that? Who cares? Let's try it. Like he's, he's the only one of those guys who will, or very few of those guys will stand on an idea like that where the other guys are like, no, I want to have a good choreographed performance because I want my stuff to look good because it's on television and going around the world. You know, I loved the non televised events, but there's just, there's not, there's not, there's not a good business model.

[Doug Stanhope]

So how does a young person coming up now learn how to fail?

[John Cena]

That is, I think, a conundrum that we're facing because you're failing in front of the world, right? You know, it's, it's weird. You can have, you can, it's like you work out your set, but you can't do it on small clubs before you go to a room arena. It's like you would, you would work out your set at home and then you just play the Intuit Dome or you play Barclays Center. Like, you don't have a small room to be like, all right, it landed. Oh, man, I gotta rework that one. You don't ever have that. You just have this, you put it together in your head, you think it's okay, and then you're out there. So I, I don't know. I'm not saying it can't work. I think it can because analytics show that it does work. And we, we have a lot of people watching now. Now. But from my perspective, I really enjoyed the carefree nature of just going out and being ready for anything and, and it being okay if I, I up and I failed, if I told some bad jokes, I could come back and be like, that didn't work, that didn't work. And then you have a partner to be like, oh, and this didn't work, but this slayed. Why don't you do this again? Like.

Literally, that's where this came from. Just around at live events, events and oh my God, there's noise. I'll do it tomorrow night. We're in a different Town. Let's see if they get.

[Doug Stanhope]

How did you come up with that?

[John Cena]

It was a dare. My brother. Happy accident. My brother dared me to do it. Like, when we. When I was in the middle of the. The rapping wormhole, I made. I. I'm a platinum rapper. I made my own album. So, like, in. In making. Yes.

[Doug Stanhope]

This is amazing.

[John Cena]

Drinking in. Drinking it in. In making the album, we would bring home all the tracks and, like, my little brother was our test audience. And he would do this dance where he would, like, shake his head and keep his hand in front of him. Like, that is. Man, look at you. He's like, you won't do that on tv. And again, I was on the programs that no one was watching, so it's like, no one's watching anyway. Yeah, fuck you. I will do it on tv. And I did it on some meaningless Saturday show, and there was a little bit of no. So I took it with me on the road for the next week and did it on the live events that weren't televised as a little bit of noise. Okay. Like, this is my thing now. This is my thing. And I just. You can't see me. And, like, that's. Now it's a thing. Yeah. Yeah. So it's. I did it on a dare.

[Doug Stanhope]

Wow.

[John Cena]

But, like, I also had. I was in a place to be able to tell my brother, Okay, I can waste two seconds on an inside joke between you and I. That's the dare. It's not going to ruin the match, but if you're watching, if you're the only one person watching Velocity that night, you'll be like, inside joke. Got it. All right. It's like shouting out your gaming group. Like, seven people get the joke, but this is one of those things where it kind of fit and it stuck.

[Doug Stanhope]

Wow. It's just so many of those things in your life, so many of those, like, fortuitous moments.

[John Cena]

Well, you know, admittedly, I have an optimism bias. I will admit that. But life will deal. Opportunity.

It's a matter of understanding that it's happening. Don't get in your own way.

Come here, sit with you guys. This is a new experience for me. Yeah, let's do it. Okay. Great.

Man. First wrestler to ever retire. Yes. That's a good idea. We're just gonna do it. Yeah, but you'll never be able to come back. Yes, but let's just do this thing. Like, life is throwing me an opportunity to create a year's worth of programming narrative that I think will be interesting. The alternative is to do what everybody else has done and maybe hang on too long. And people are like, man, you should have left a few years ago. Now let's do this rap. Let's do this. Do you want to train? It involves you working at this shitty job where you're probably gonna. I tried to be a cop and failed. I was gonna go down and join the Marines. That's lifelong employment. I'm really good with structure. I dig uniform. Like, give me what to do and, like, a code of conduct to live by. I have a feeling I would have fit in there great. I love being in shape. They feed you over there. Like, I think I would have done okay, but life put an opportunity in front of me, and I was stupid enough to say yes. Going out naked in the Oscars. I was just on Jimmy Kimmel last night. He's like, man, you want to do this bit? I'm like, dude, I am.

Super tired. I'm on a different coast. He's like, let me send you the bit. And I read it. I'm like, yo, fuck. All right, I'm gonna do it.

[Doug Stanhope]

What'd you do?

[John Cena]

I shuffled out there with an index card over my dick.

[Doug Stanhope]

Oh, that. That thing. Yeah, that's.

[John Cena]

Yeah, but, like, man, in a room full of not even peers or contemporaries, like, the pantheon of the professional goal that you try to reach. I don't know any of these fucking people. I don't belong in that room.

[Doug Stanhope]

Right?

[John Cena]

He's like, yeah, man, just kind of walk out there naked. It'll be a fun bit. And he's right. It would be a funny bit. But I could have got in my own way of, like, now I gotta fly. I'm exhausted. I'm gonna make a fool on myself. I don't know any of these people. It's my first impression. I can. I can sit on the couch. Like, that's the easy part. The tough part is, like, life has dealt you this opportunity. Fucking say yes. Fifteen minutes before the show. When you get a good idea. The easy thing to do is be like, do the show. Show. The hard thing to do is be like, yo, let's. Let's swing. Let's go for it.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Yeah.

[John Cena]

So it's. It's not like I. I think those moments happen to a lot of us. And it doesn't have to be a lottery ticket. I granted. Holy hell, I've been given a lot of lottery tickets, but it could be something as simple as, like, yo, you're in a crummy mood. Find a way to be kind. Like, Life just gave you an opportunity. The person getting your coffee was like, yo, have a nice day. You could stay crummy or you could be like, thank you very much. Appreciate that. Appreciate your time. Like, that's an opportunity. You know, life is just a matter of, like, us reacting to what life.

[Doug Stanhope]

Throws at pivotal decisions.

[John Cena]

And it doesn't need to be a world changing decision. I think now, I don't want to say nowadays, I think we always think that, like, the decision needs to change the world. No, it's, you just need to commit and do something. Something. As a 12 year old, I want to start working out and I liked it and I just fucking keep working out. And now I can't live without it. It's part of my life. It's a fabric of my life. But in working out, I've learned structure and discipline, accountability, essentially, budget. If you take in too much and you don't spend enough, you're going to have some excess. Like these lessons that opportunity can teach you if you allow it. Me fucking up the thing I spoke about at the beginning, like, the easiest thing to do is your fault. But if I take it as an opportunity of like, all right, you missed. What did we learn? Where's the gain? Yeah, you can move forward and I can move forward and wholeheartedly apologize to those I've hurt along the way and they don't need to forgive me. That's on their terms. I can't control that. But, man, the sleep is a little more sound at night knowing, like, like in learning this lesson or having this opportunity. Fuck, dude, I kind of trampled on your shit and I'm so sorry. Like, I had such a shitty relationship with my dad and just recently we've mended fences and he's 80, so I'm glad I've done this because, I mean, we don't last forever. He's going, we're all going in the dirt soon, you know, But I just wanted him to be something else. I always wanted that motherfucker to change. I wanted him to be something else. And finally I got out of my own way. The hard thing is meeting that guy where he's at. The hard thing is allowing him to be who he is. Take the weight off my backpack and say, like, yo, I might have needed you to be this in my life, but because you weren't, man, because of your absence in being the dad that I had in my mind, I got all these fucking cool male mentors who kept me, gave me a key to the gym at 15 and said, you better fucking be here in the morning. Morning. And like, dude, I still can feel a key in my hand from Dave Knock, the dean of students at Cushing Academy, who bet on me. He was like, man, if you get your grades from C's to A's and you play two varsity sports, this place cost in 94. This place cost 35 grand a year. We will give you aid, and you will have a place to learn. And that allowed me to become an adult. It allowed me to the opportunity of being in a diverse group of students who. Man, there's, like, royalty that goes to that school. And then there's fucking poor kids. My roommate was a basketball player from Compton. And then we got kids with generational wealth through their naming buildings after. But when it's just like 450 kids in a social experiment, money goes away, and you just. You. You just kick it. So I learned to be friends with everybody. But I wouldn't have learned that in West Newberry, where it's 99.9% white, 1200 people in the small town, no stoplight. You either leave or you never leave. Like, just little. Little things like that. You know what I'm saying? Like, little, like, man, I should do this. And deciding to meet my dad where he's at and be like, dude, whatever I thought you were, you're not. You're just you. And I love you for you. And, man, when we sit, there's some shit that he'll say that's all fucked up. You know, he said some shit yesterday that, like, I don't think Jon's last opponent should be there. And people listen to him. Cause he's a wrestling fan. He's like, in the kind of, like, the weird subculture zeitgeist. And I want to call my dad and be like, what the fuck are you doing? But then, like, no, he's doing what he does. This is him. This is the dad I. This is the John Cena I love. This is. This is the guy I can sit down with. And. And. And part of that is being able to process all that. But the opportunity I get from that, I've learned about my father's story. I've learned about what he. What he wants to do with his life, why he does what he does, maybe what he wanted to do, dreams he didn't have. So I can gain wisdom from there, but it's just. That's the hard part. It's like getting out of your own fucking way to do the thing you really want to do. The easy Thing to do is to hold a grudge against my dad. What I really wanted to do was tell my dad I love him and sit down with him and be like, yo, let's fucking break bread. Yeah, talk about whatever you want. And now we do that, and it's great. But that's like. That's a small example of the easy thing to do is sit on the couch and say, fuck it. Somebody else is right. The tough thing to do is, like, life is handing me a moment right now. And, dude, I don't bat a thousand. I mean, it's more like Major League baseball. I'm hoping 300 gets me in the hall of Fame. Like, if I can capitalize on 30% of the moments that life gives me and squander the other 70%, I believe I will go into the ground being like, man, I earned life.

[Doug Stanhope]

If you can capitalize on 30% of the moments you are in, the 1% of human beings that have ever lived, I earned life. Yeah.

[John Cena]

So I'm just trying to get that make it to Cooperstown.

[Doug Stanhope]

Yeah, that's. That's the reality. And also the reality is if someone doesn't give you what you need, it. It gives you a desire to get what you need. So sometimes it's a gift to not have, like, doting parents.

[John Cena]

Like, yeah. I'm like, oh, my goodness. Like I said, I would never have gotten those. The beautiful guidance. I got it in life. I always had father figures because I was searching for it, and they found me. And I was also savvy enough to be like, this guy needs to stick in my life for a little bit. It sucks, and he fucking pushes me, but I gotta keep this guy around. Like, just weird stuff like that. I hear a lot of wrestlers a lot of times. What do you want to do here? I want to be champion. Okay. The math of that's really slim. I never wanted to be a fucking champion. I just wanted to rest, wrestle, and if you're good, it'll take you places where one day you can hold one of those. But if you start with a goal of, I want to hold one of those. Man, am I pigeonholing my goal? What the fuck do you really want to do? I just wanted to wrestle. And if I got fired by wwe, I would have tried to go to Japan. I would have tried to go to Mexico. I would have tried to go to the uk, Fuck it. Because I just wanted to do it. But that also meant I would put my best foot forward. And I wasn't shackled to. I Need to be champion or I'm not validated, I'm not successful. You know what I'm saying?

[Doug Stanhope]

Yeah.

[John Cena]

Just give me a chance to go out there and get the noise and whatever else falls into place, fuck it. Cool. Because what I want to do is just go out there and be in the arena.

[Doug Stanhope]

It's funny because they talk about the noise the way we talk about the laughs. Yeah, it's the same thing.

[John Cena]

It's the same thing. Totally. It's the same thing.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Yeah.

[John Cena]

You know, and I don't need to be the most decorated person. But it's weird because in not even trying, I have a resume that people now measure up against. Like, oh, that's. You gotta win X amount to pass the hurdle. So it's weird, like, I didn't, I didn't even try to do any of that. All I tried to do is like, you'll just get me out there. And when you look at what I've done and you've followed a bit like, it was weird. I was in the main event of WrestleMania this year and to talk to people, they were like, oh man, that's crazy. The last main event of WrestleMania I was in was 2012. So you'd think that, like, oh, John Cena, this guy, everything handed to him, he's always at the top. That was my first main event WrestleMania appearance as an attraction in like 13 years. And in that span I worked new wrestlers, I worked for lower level titles. I sat ringside and crushed three beers and then got squashed by the Undertaker. As a fan, yeah, like, I did all sorts of shit, you know, but because it was never about, like, I'm not a success unless I'm in the main event of WrestleMania. No, that's just a position with a ton of stress. Just fucking get me out on the course. Just get me in the arena, have me in section one shaking hands with people from Australia and I'll make it the best fucking time they ever had. It doesn't matter. Like, just get me out there. What I don't want to do is sit on the bench.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Right.

[John Cena]

You know.

[Doug Stanhope]

So how did you go from that into acting? Like, what was your first?

[John Cena]

So originally it was a business choice. Vince opened WWE Studios and with the idea of if we make these guys movie stars, more people come to the arena. Now As a young 20 something on the road, people chant your name every night. I'm like, more people in the arena. That sounds fucking great. And his first movie was supposed to be with Steve Austin and it fell through. They Were about to shoot in two weeks. So movie pre production is way longer than that. But he was like, you're going to Australia to film this movie, the Marine. And it, it was tough. It was tough. I went from arrive in a town at noon, work out, get a good meal in, crush the show, have some beers on the ride to the next town, fall asleep, do it all again. And it's like this whirlwind of electricity to. Okay, you're in hair and makeup at 6 o'. Clock. We're doing an explosion today. So the lights are going to be weird and we probably will get to you around 5:30pm you just said it's 6 in the morning. Yeah. So what the you want me to do from here until 5:30? I you just hang out. And I couldn't like as a young 20 something, I wanted to be in the electricity. I couldn't handle the, the nature of the business.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Yeah.

[John Cena]

And therefore my passion wasn't in it. I wasn't fully invested in it. I am, I am here with you guys right now. We are talking about this. My mind isn't elsewhere on other shit. I want this to be what I want to give you all I got. So I'm here with you. I was never there in those movies. I was always back in, fuck. Maybe if I had the feud with this guy or if I could have done this. I was never there. And you could see it in the performance. So I kind of got run out of the movie business. I did so many shitty movies in like 2009, 10. My, my best friend, agent Dan Boehm at the time, I was like, man, we're never doing movies again. Right? And you know, as an agent, he's supposed to be the guy to pick you up. He looks at me dead, he goes, nope, we will find another way Though he was honest. We are never, we are run out of town, but we'll find another way. So we did, we did hosted some live shows.

Hosted some game shows, did little appearances here and there. And then Judd Apatow and Amy Schumer gave me a chance on.

Gosh Train Wreck. And it was a very small part, but again like just, just get out in the arena and do your best and, and look, I was in a fucking room with comics like funny people. I don't belong there. But they, they created an environment where I wasn't judged. They only showed the good jokes. They didn't, they didn't show the fucking 20 takes or I tried to tell jokes that sucked. The only ones that made the final cut were the ones that made people laugh. So they provided an opportunity for failure. And at that point, I've been playing the same character. This is 2014, 15. I've been playing the same character on TV for 15 fucking years. And now I'm like, yo, I get to do something different. I can do this for 12 hours. You want me to sit? I'll go fucking read a book. I don't care. I'm in. So I accepted the patient process of movies. And then after that, I got a little bit of noise in Train Wreck. And then Judd sent word to Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, who were filming up the Road in Long Island. Be like, if you got a spot where you should hire the kid. And they made me a drug dealer and their thing. And then, like, things started to roll downhill, but it was very, very small parts at a time, and here I am. That was 2015. Here I am a decade later, and I'm still trying to advance to fluency. By no means am I. Like, I'm the. The 17 time champ of the acting community. Those are the I was looking at when I was naked, you know?

[Doug Stanhope]

Right, Right.

[John Cena]

I'm aspiring to try to be that. But it's basically the pivot happened when I was like, yo, if you just invest in this.

The hustle and patience you put into wrestling, at least, you know, you gave it your all. You know, be coachable, be professional, be reliable, be interested and see where the chips fly and fucking say yes.

[Doug Stanhope]

Well, it's also, you have the.

The objectivity, like, the introspective objectivity to look at your past performances and say, I wasn't really in there.

[John Cena]

I wasn't. And I got run out of town.

[Doug Stanhope]

Yeah.

[John Cena]

I lost the job. So, like, here's that. Mulligan. What? Fuck. I'll never work in this town again. I will. All right, let's go. Let's try. What else could go wrong? They've already fired me, you know, so, again, an environment, and no one does it alone. The people I was around, Tina and Amy, are the same way. Like, only show the funny shit, but try whatever you want. Like, fail. It's okay. And just because you're around people who do comedy for a living, all we need is three seconds, and we'll be patient enough to give you what you need to give us that three seconds, you know?

[Doug Stanhope]

Yeah. It's just such a fun story, you know, and there's. So there's only a few guys that have managed to make that leap from wwe. Obviously, the Rock is the big one.

[John Cena]

Sure.

[Doug Stanhope]

You know, I mean, he's the biggest one. Make that leap and now become a giant movie star.

[John Cena]

Well, I think it's a. I think it's a leap a lot of people can make. It's not from. From lack of talent. We talk about, like, obstacles and, like, we're in our own way. WWE is all consuming. And you got to remember, like, I. I was their biggest act. So at 220 shows a year, for me to be like, I need six months off to film this action movie that really fucks with the bottom line.

[Doug Stanhope]

Like, oh, yeah.

[John Cena]

So the answer is no.

[Doug Stanhope]

Right?

[John Cena]

You know, and. And. And now with less live events, it's still you. You want to be on television. It's like, okay, I need to somehow leverage my relevance with this to what it's going to do to film that in WWE if you're not. I'm. I'm going to retire on the 13th.

They will be moved on by the Royal Rumble, and that's. That is real facts. I will be forgotten. That is not a plea to sympathy of, like, always remember me by the Royal Rumble and the rogue WrestleMania. Nobody gives a fuck because they're focusing on what the show is. That's like, three weeks after I retire. Three weeks after I retire, nobody's gonna give a fuck. And that's not. I'm not saying, like, what I did was meaningless. I've lived the moments. They're great. People move on. So when. If I'm a talent who's on TV and finally got one of those spots and edged my way in, do I. Is this the right time to leverage taking myself off a TV to do four months on something that isn't going to come out for another 18 months? And then I got to go back to TV, hoping people still care, that my. My ring work is still polished, that I still have my finger on the pulse. Like, it's. It is. We can get in our own way sometimes. You know what I'm saying?

[Doug Stanhope]

Yeah.

[John Cena]

So I was just at the point in 15, 16, 17 where I was like, man, my body's kind of banged up. I'm a little older. I would like to take some time off. And how I talked about, like, every five years, you needed somebody in the on deck circle. So I'm running at the front for like, 15. They needed someone in the on deck circle. And then they finally got some folks. So, like, yo, we got. We got folks. Yeah, go do the thing. It's fine. Go do it. So my. My passion for it was ignited at the perfect time when. When the office side of it was like, that won't affect our bottom line too much. Go give this thing a try. So it, again, just happy accident, man. And I'm grateful for it.

[Doug Stanhope]

So now you're in the situation, you're gonna retire.

[John Cena]

Yep.

[Doug Stanhope]

And then are you just gonna go all in on acting now?

[John Cena]

So that's, again, beyond my control. If I could. If I.

[Doug Stanhope]

Is that the goal, though? Is that what you would like?

[John Cena]

The goal is to live useful. That's it. The goal is to live useful and not lack, like, a depth of purpose in my life, you know, I can't control if the phone rings and they say we want the kid in the picture. That's way beyond me. What I can do is when someone bets on me, me do my fucking damnedest for every dollar I want to give him 10 back. I want to show them that. I want to show you your time was well spent today. I want to give you my heart and soul. And when I leave here, you may be like, not my cup of tea, but the fucking kid's all right. You know, like, that's all I'm trying to do. So if I can do that, maybe I get another. Maybe I get another match, maybe I get another phone call. But I also realize my mortality in the retirement. Like, it's over. But also there'll come a day where y' all out there are like, ah, the kid's not. Not cool anymore. I'm done. I'm onto the next shiny thing. I'm grateful for what I got. And I know I don't control how many times the phone rings. I just wanna. I never wanna phone it in, right? And. And when my time is up, it's over with, man. I, like, I'll. I'll do the rest of whatever life is.

[Doug Stanhope]

So do you think about that? Like, what the rest of life is? Do you have other interests?

[John Cena]

Sure do. Sure do. Love messing around with music. I. I never read as a kid, so I'm reading more than I ever have. Love cars. Love to. I'd love to just drive that. Like, just being in a car and driving. Not track stuff, just, like, going on long drives. Love that. I see a bunch of sticks. I love an occasional stick with some conversation I love. Boy, did I miss out on loving connections in my life. So I'm like, I have them now and they're fucking so cool. So if a day is just spent with friends or a week or, like, man, with WWE, I've been around the world like 12 times, I haven't seen shit. I've seen the inside of arenas, a hotel bar and a fucking airport. I want to know what Tokyo is all about. I've been there like 20 times, I haven't seen shit. You know.

And I don't know if I'll ever get tired of that.

I always have a curious nature. Onto to what's next. I don't know what that'll be, but I never want to wake up and be like, man, life's taking forever, you know what I'm saying? I think there's always something to do with the day. So I don't know, would I love to continue to tell stories and get paid for it? Fuck, that's a great gig. But it's also beyond my control. So instead of being like, I'm going all in on acting and I want to do this and one day I want to win an Oscar. And we're not saying that approach is bad. I'm just saying my approach is like men, when they do call, be grateful. And don't be grateful in the easy times, be grateful when they ask you to work a 16 hour day or be grateful on that press tour when you have to read off the, when you get to read off the prompter and you're doing 86 reads and the reads are so you can dress up in the costume and all that other shit. Like, that's, that's kind of more where I'm at.

[Doug Stanhope]

That's a great approach to life.

[John Cena]

Life.

[Doug Stanhope]

How did you develop this philosophy?

[John Cena]

Is this, dude, I'm not supposed to be here. Like, I'm from West Newberry, Massachusetts, I'm not supposed to be here. And, and that's another thing. There's not a day that doesn't go by where I look at someone I love and connect with and be like, man, what a life. I, I understand how lucky I am. And I understand I have been awarded more opportunity than one human being should get. And it's, it's. From what I've tried to boil down to it, the best way to honor that opportunity is to do your best to try to live a good life. And a good life is, it's, that's almost like pain. Everybody's perspective of a good life is different. I've come up with core values and I try to live by those. Fuck, I'm human. I ain't perfect. But like, again, if, when I go into the dirt, I feel as if I didn't waste it. And I don't mean grind like Homeboy from Nvidia, that's a grind. And I think a lot of him, there's fear there, but also a lot of that effort. He loves it. And that's what an ideal life to him is about. And if he goes in the ground working 70 hours a week, he'll go in with a smile on his face. You know, I just want to go in when it's my time. I want to know that I honored the luck I was given by not fucking squandering it, by not wasting it. And that doesn't mean grind to a monetary number. It just means live a fulfilled life where the sleep is sound, the love is real, and every day you're driven with curiosity and purpose. And I don't know what the fuck that is. And it could change. Man, I thought I was born to be a WWE Superstar. Then the elbows start hurting a little bit and you're like, ah, man, I'm born to be a storyteller teller. And then you realize that like I'm not in control of any of that. That's just luck. That's somebody being like, I liked him in this, put him in that. Yes, no problem.

[Doug Stanhope]

I think a key factor you're talking about here is gratitude.

[John Cena]

I was born to, to honor the luck that I've been given.

[Doug Stanhope]

Yeah.

[John Cena]

And just try to do my best to live a full life. Like that's it.

[Doug Stanhope]

Yeah. And that having gratitude about the life that you live and being happy. God, it's so hard, but so important.

[John Cena]

And it's tough when you use that word because it's such a. I know.

[Doug Stanhope]

It'S a new agey.

[John Cena]

Think outside the box. Like nah, man.

[Doug Stanhope]

Like it's a real word though.

[John Cena]

Real. Thanks.

[Doug Stanhope]

Yes.

[John Cena]

Is hard. Yeah. Because you have to be thankful for the suck, for the pain. You have to be thankful for the lesson, for the journey. Like, and these are again, these are all like slangy hashtaggy terms. Terms. I don't know what the else to call it, so I'm just calling it what it is.

[Doug Stanhope]

They've been, they've been co opted by people to just sort of bullshit and use those words. But the reality of those words is strong. It's very powerful.

[John Cena]

It's like grind. Grind is another hashtag word, you know, but like there is, there is some realism to it. But that, that from what I've figured it out thus far, that's my path. And when the facts change, so does my opinion. So we could come back here in a few years and I'd be on some Other shit. But right now that's kind of where I'm at.

[Doug Stanhope]

Well, it's such a. The, the gratitude word has been really co opted by goofy people, unfortunately. But it doesn't mean you shouldn't use it.

[John Cena]

Yeah.

[Doug Stanhope]

Real word.

[John Cena]

And, and if, if the word makes you feel weird, come up with your own word. Right.

[Doug Stanhope]

Thanks.

[John Cena]

Yeah, whatever. Having thanks because I'm with you there.

[Doug Stanhope]

Yeah.

[John Cena]

Some words make me feel gross.

[Doug Stanhope]

Yeah.

[John Cena]

Just about how overused they've been. But like I said, I, I can't stray away from that one.

[Doug Stanhope]

Yeah, Yeah. I mean, we talk about gratitude all the time. We're, we're always like talking about how we're living the dream.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Yeah.

[Doug Stanhope]

Like just being.

[John Cena]

That's. What are we doing? Just shooting the shit.

[Doug Stanhope]

I know people are paying attention. I know you guys doing a lot. A lot of people.

[John Cena]

If you're still with us. I can't believe it. This is great. Yeah.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

I was thinking, I was talking to my buddy the other day, Peter Shore, the owner of the Comedy Store, and I was telling him about how just a few weeks ago, because now that I have a place that I like and a car that I like and a job and everything, everything's finally, it appears how I have always considered what the dream is that I was saying to my buddy the other day who I came up with, who I really started with. And I'm talking about like 14, 16 hour days at the Comedy Store. I'd answer the phone at 11am because back then they didn't even have a website. Hello, you wanna, you want tickets tonight? Blah blah, blah blah. Work all night, put on the t shirt at 8pm, tear tickets and check IDs until 2:30 in the morning. So I would hit, I would hit overtime by like Wednesday or Thursday. But they couldn't pay overtime because the Comedy store in 2007 was half to quarter empty anyway. So they would cut my hours. And I was paying $400 a month to sleep on my buddy's couch in his living room. And he had a bedroom and my other buddy Matty had a bedroom. But Sandy was like, you know, he was like. The apartment was registered in his name. And I mean, terrible couch, terrible setup. I'd have to go through one of their bedrooms to go to the bathroom. So if you have to pee in the middle of the night, you're kind of tiptoeing through, you know what you're gonna see. Don't wanna make noise, you don't know what you're gonna see, whatever. And I was talking to Matt that a month or so ago. And I go, I think I still owe Sandy a little bit of rent money because I just simply didn't have it back then. Isn't that crazy? He goes, you do? I. He mentioned it last time we were talking about how successful you are.

[John Cena]

There's an accountant right there.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

So I Venmoed him out of nowhere. I haven't even. We haven't even talked since pre pandemic. He's got a family. I'm out here, this, that. I venmoed him a thousand bucks out of nowhere. And I go, 2007 rent money as the. As the memo part of it. And he hits me up saying, thanks, and we're communicating. And then I remembered that at one point I couldn't even afford the $400 a month.

For the couch. And there was another comedian that was a door guy at the store that did have the 400amonth because he was getting help from his parents. So I got downgraded to a beanbag for like a month or two. I was sleeping. Oh, just horrendous.

[John Cena]

Exactly.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

A sore bag for two months. Just in pain all the time. But doing what I loved so much of what you're saying about enjoying the process, enjoy what you're doing, because I really did back then, and I think about that now more. I've been thinking about that beanbag and that couch and that living room more than ever the last few months. You know, it's like that's talking about gratitude. It's like those are the things that. That's who you are, are. Is enjoying that process, you know, and making the best out of it.

[John Cena]

And in. In. In my case of a similar story, and from what I'm hearing from you is like, you. You wanted to be there. You. You were not going to give up the beanbag.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Oh, yeah, there's.

[John Cena]

There's a lot of folks out there who are put behind the eight ball and really have to dig themselves out of a trench. When I moved out to Venice and I was working at Gold, I was sleeping in the parking lot in my 91 Continental.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Yeah.

[John Cena]

And everybody's like, oh, man, you were homeless. I'm like, no, no, it was choice. It was my choice.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Yeah.

[John Cena]

I didn't want to leave. My old man had a room for me. Nobody ever leaves West Newbury. My dad was like, yo, come back. You got a roof over your head. You get some up job over here, you don't have to pay rent. So I had choice. I stayed in the car because I wanted to.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Yeah.

[John Cena]

Life was great. I got to see, like, the bodybuilders of the 2000s. I got to train at the gym and shower at the gym, and the rock came through. There's like a old picture of me in the rock somewhere where I'm in my gold gym club store shirt and he's fucking doing this one. Like, I got to see all these people, and it was fucking cool. And I wouldn't have left if they took the car away. And I had to sleep in the parking lot like I was by choice, you know, you slept on the beanbag because you wanted to be there.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

And the fun fact is.

[Doug Stanhope]

Look at that.

[John Cena]

That's. That's. That's. That's just me in the background right there. No, no, keep that. Hold on. I'm taking the phones off. I'm going at. Yeah, that's me right there. There. He had just taken a photo with me. And that's me.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Wow.

[John Cena]

That's DJ.

[Doug Stanhope]

Wow.

[John Cena]

Yeah.

[Doug Stanhope]

That's crazy.

[John Cena]

1999, wow. Rock was white hot. Selling out every place. Probably Staples Center, Anaheim, coming in and press some weights.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Wow. Wow.

[John Cena]

Yeah.

[Doug Stanhope]

That's crazy.

[John Cena]

Yeah. What a. What a. That. So, like, that's where the perspective of his exists.

[Doug Stanhope]

Yeah.

[John Cena]

Because I shouldn't have even been in the club store selling candy bars. I should be, you know, in. In West Newberry doing what everyone else does. Like, that's the. That's the tale, you know, And I'm not, so I'm grateful for it.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Yeah.

[John Cena]

Yeah.

[Doug Stanhope]

There's a lot of people out there on beanbags right now listening to this.

[John Cena]

You need to hear, stay on the beanbag.

[Doug Stanhope]

24 more hours.

[John Cena]

Who knows? 24 more hours, something can happen. Yeah.

[Doug Stanhope]

And the. The success will be so much sweeter. All so much sweeter. If you do it that way. I mean, if you were a trust fund kid and you had plenty of money and your parents gave you 100 grand a year to go out and pursue your dreams, and they paid for your apartment.

[John Cena]

And Coca Cola for the big, for the small, the short and the tall. Peacemakers, risk takers for the optimist. Pessimists for long distance love, for introverts and extroverts, the thinkers and the doers for old friends and new Coca Cola for everyone.

[Doug Stanhope]

Pick up some Coca Cola at a.

[John Cena]

Store near you.

And Doug.

[Doug Stanhope]

Here we have the Limu Emu in its natural habitat, helping people customize their car insurance and save hundreds of. With Liberty Mutual. Fascinating. It's accompanied by his natural ally, Doug.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Limu is that guy with the binoculars watching us.

[John Cena]

Cut the camera.

[Doug Stanhope]

They see us.

[Ad Read / Sponsor]

Only pay for what you [e-mail] Liberty, Liberty, Liberty.

[John Cena]

Liberty Savings Fairy Underwritten by Liberty Mutual Insurance Company Affiliates excludes Massachusetts. Man, you know, I don't want to fuck on anybody's flex. You're right, but at the same time, if you understand that, right, if you understand I was put on the board ahead of everybody else, I was born on third base. Again, that shit's beyond your control, right?

[Doug Stanhope]

But I think you need some failure to understand that.

[John Cena]

So if you're grateful for what you have, you will swing and miss and.

[Doug Stanhope]

Be accountable because you can't really control what you have.

[John Cena]

You can't control where you start.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Right.

[Doug Stanhope]

You can't control where you start. You control where you go.

[John Cena]

So if.

[Doug Stanhope]

Or how you respond along the way.

[John Cena]

Yeah. And the kind of person you are to somebody who was born on third base, I think also will dictate your perception from the eyes of others. If you feel you are greater than. Fuck, we're all human beings, dog. Like, nobody greater than nobody. Right. You know, everybody's out there struggling, and all of us, especially in this area of the Pale Blue Dog, we all believe in capitalism. So. So the fact that you were born on third base means everybody's doing their job and the whole system's working. Like, you can't think you're. When you start getting the, like, I. I never use this word. I feel bad even saying it. Deserve. When you start getting the deserve mentality of I deserve this, what the do you deserve, man?

[Doug Stanhope]

Yeah, that's crazy.

[John Cena]

You know, have you earned this? Have you earned it? And if you feel as if you haven't, what step steps are you going to take take to earn it? If you're born on third and you feel bad about it, take some steps to feel good about it. I don't know what that is, but if you're born on third and you feel you deserve it, to me that's fucking sprinting through a minefield, dog.

[Doug Stanhope]

Yeah, that's not a good path.

[John Cena]

And I don't, I don't ever. I don't ever want to fuck with somebody who turns like a hundred thousand into ten million or a million into a billion. That's good investing. That's. I mean, that's the system. You learned how to work the system. System. It's just in the process, if you think, you think you're better than. Yeah, murky waters, man. In, in, in my perspective.

[Doug Stanhope]

Well, it's just a terrible perspective.

[John Cena]

Anyway, like, you're just like. Because it's all right. It's all kind of fugazi. Like, it's all just paper IOUs or whatever, just digital ones and zeros, like, are. If it melts down, are you really better than anybody?

[Doug Stanhope]

You know, a lot of times it's also a defense mechanism. You know, you pretend that you deserve it. You pretend you're better than other people.

[John Cena]

Because maybe you don't feel enough. Or, again, everybody's walking Old Mile, but, like, I don't feel validated or. Or I want attention or. I don't know. I don't know, man. I don't know. Yeah.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Yeah. It was crazy hanging out with Steph McMahon and how human she was and hilarious and human. I was telling her. Because I was telling her, like, man, you know, I always wanted to be a pro wrestler when I was a kid. And then I realized I wasn't going to be tall enough and I wasn't going to be big enough. And then lately I've been meeting these guys, and they're not that huge. And when I tell them that, they go, look at me. You know Sami Zayn.

[John Cena]

Yeah.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Hilarious guy.

[John Cena]

Yeah.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Literally told me that. He's like, you could have done it. I'm like, yeah, I guess I could actually done it.

[Doug Stanhope]

You could probably still do it.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

And I was telling Step that. She goes, do you think you can do a little something? I go, I can hit a super kick on anybody at any time from any place.

[Doug Stanhope]

Super kick.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

It's Shawn Michaels finishing move. It's like you would literally. You would faint from laughter because you actually know how to kick through a wall. But it's a. It's a. It's a kick. And.

[John Cena]

And the goal is not to hit the guy, right?

[Doug Stanhope]

Exactly.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Come real close.

[John Cena]

Yep.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

And she's so cool. She goes, oh, that'd be funny if next time, you know, I'm with Triple H, you just super kick me out of nowhere. I'll sell it. I'll fall down, the whole thing. I'm like, I know, Stephanie. This is crazy.

[John Cena]

There we go. There it is. That's a perfect example, man. This is. You're on it.

[Doug Stanhope]

Okay, so a guy flies through the air and you kind of catch him.

[John Cena]

That's just one example. Example. Like, that's a. That's a really good example right here. But it could be from standing anywhere. It's just a. Pretty much that high. That high.

[Doug Stanhope]

You can do that?

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

I can do that. I can.

[Doug Stanhope]

Are you flexible like that?

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

I'm flexible. At least I think I am. I don't know. We'll see. I wasn't throw. I was throwing a rocket. The tree the other day for the first time in forever. And I about coming up about 15ft shorter than ever before there.

[John Cena]

That's what she looks like. Yep.

[Doug Stanhope]

Whoa, Whoa. That looks real.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Yep.

[John Cena]

Yeah, it's on there.

[Doug Stanhope]

It's really hit.

[John Cena]

It's on there.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Two of the best right there.

[John Cena]

It's on there.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Yep.

[Doug Stanhope]

You really got that kind of flexibility.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Yep. I don't slap your leg at the same time, and it makes everybody actually think that you did it. If I did it to somebody, you'd be like, dude, you just fucking kicked them because.

[Doug Stanhope]

Slap the leg. Like, stomp around when you punch.

[John Cena]

Yeah, yeah. Slide ahead.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Y.

[John Cena]

There's magic in the business, man.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Yeah, there is.

[Doug Stanhope]

I want to see you out there.

[John Cena]

Hey.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

I wrestled with my pillow for like eight hours a day as a kid. I would do the entrances. I would record off of the cassette player. Remember how you used to have to.

[John Cena]

Dude, I had a whole. We had a whole league in our basement.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Yeah, yeah.

[John Cena]

With. I. I didn't need the pillows, cuz I had four brothers. We had belts, a league, Personas, like. And in one Persona, I would get my ass kicked all the time. And then there was one Persona that could not lose. Like, we kept standings and stuff. Yeah, yeah, it's. It's.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Oh, yeah.

[John Cena]

I don't know, man. I don't know.

[Doug Stanhope]

That's amazing.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

My brothers and sisters were all much older, but we had a music class teacher in my grade school that didn't give a fuck about his job. He would just sit in the corner and play piano the whole time and let the kids do whatever we wanted. And again, we had entrance music. We were all different people all the time. We'd run it back again the entire 45 minutes, jumping off of desks, cabinets, chairs. It's crazy how many injuries didn't happen. It's amazing how resilient kids can be when we were that.

[John Cena]

Because energy of youth, just bulletproof. God. Yeah.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

It doesn't make sense how arms and legs and heads and necks weren't broken.

[Doug Stanhope]

You also don't weigh that much back then.

[John Cena]

Yeah, that's weird, man. You're so full of energy, man. I can tell I'm getting old because I can be like, is that chair okay? I'm gonna be sitting for a while. Am I gonna be all right?

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Right?

[John Cena]

Is everything going to be good? I'm like, oh, man, this bed's going to kill me.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Yeah.

[John Cena]

It's laying down like this. The bean bag. Oh, my God. Oh, I'd spend four hours in that thing. You have to cart me off.

[Doug Stanhope]

I think I just sleep on the ground rather than the bean bag.

[John Cena]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Back then, it seemed like the better option.

[John Cena]

It was the better option.

[Doug Stanhope]

Yeah, probably. That's hilarious, though. Yeah. Have you talked to them about possibly doing something?

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

I mean, no, not exactly. At one point, there was a little.

[Doug Stanhope]

A little chatter, but come on, dude. I think you can come up with.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

An royal rumble right around the corner. I have big shoes to fill over here.

[John Cena]

Sturdy entrance. We need. We need bodies.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Yeah. I show speed. Did a good job at that, man.

[John Cena]

He got drilled out of his boots.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

He took the streamer. Famous streamer Internet guy. He took what's called a bump from hell. He got speared at the. Was that the rumble?

[John Cena]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

He was spontaneous.

[Doug Stanhope]

He does some wild.

[John Cena]

He does.

[Doug Stanhope]

He got in the cage with Dan the Hangman Hooker.

[John Cena]

Yeah. And he's. He's like. He's game for anything. He has, like. Like kinesthetic awareness. Like, he's. He's obviously an athlete.

[Doug Stanhope]

Yeah.

[John Cena]

And he's brave. Like, look at this shit. Watch this mother. Just leave screen. See ya. Oh, man.

[Doug Stanhope]

Oh, my God.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Can't fake that.

[Doug Stanhope]

Oh, my God.

[John Cena]

But, like, you also have to. The reason that looks so good, a lot of that is because of Braun, but also a lot of that is because of Ishowspeed. He committed to the fall and really tried to fall with snap and with quickness. Like, he's. He's good, man. He really is good. And like, you said, like, I've seen a lot of the other stuff he does. He does. Well, get in there and mess around, you know? Oh, yeah.

[Doug Stanhope]

Well, he really sparred with Dan Hooker, and Dan beat the shit out of him, but he hung in there.

[John Cena]

Yeah.

[Doug Stanhope]

Yeah.

[John Cena]

It's just crazy enough to try, you.

[Doug Stanhope]

Know, it's also interesting. These YouTube guys, they're just becoming famous, and there was no avenue for them before. You know, they would have had to have been cast in a TV show.

[John Cena]

Or become something with limited spots.

[Doug Stanhope]

Yeah. And now they're doing it completely on their own and becoming huge. I mean, he's got like 50 million Instagram followers or something. Crazy.

[John Cena]

Yeah. And. And a bunch of content and a bunch of revenue to match that. And, like.

[Doug Stanhope]

And always working, always. Always doing something. Put some stuff out there.

[John Cena]

Those guys hustle. It's all. All the content creators out there. People don't understand the hours that they're they. They may end up getting some financial reward, but when you break it down to hourly wage age, they're working 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Like, they don't stop because it's. A lot of the content they make will have short shelf life. It's not. They're not. They're not essentially putting Gone with the Wind out in the universe. Like, it's. So you gotta. You're only as good as your next one. Not the. Your last one or the one you did. It's like, you're only as good as what you're doing in five minutes from now.

[Doug Stanhope]

And if you drop off the map, someone will replace you.

[John Cena]

Oh, my God. Yeah.

[Doug Stanhope]

There's so many streamers. There's so many people that are doing content.

[John Cena]

They. They work hard.

[Doug Stanhope]

Hard.

[John Cena]

They do. They work hard. And even. Even the. The ones where it seems like a man to a perspective of like, I don't understand this still, the effort that goes into that. And it's not just what you saw. It's like, okay, you got to have a repeat performance, and then you got to keep coming and keep coming and keep coming. Like, I do a movie, and like I said, it's out in 18 months. In 18 months, they've already put out 10,000 videos. Right. Like, it's. It's bananas.

[Doug Stanhope]

It is interesting that nobody saw that comment. Nobody ever thought that that was gonna be a thing.

[John Cena]

I just think it's. Cause we get so used to stuff. We get so used to consuming in a certain way when something is new for us. It's like, ah, man, I don't know if that's gonna take off, but there are young people who are experiencing everything at the same time. And like, no, this is cooler.

[Doug Stanhope]

Right?

[John Cena]

It's way easier to do this.

[Doug Stanhope]

Also, he's really young, and when you start young, there's not a lot of expectations on you.

[John Cena]

No.

[Doug Stanhope]

You can kind of just do whatever you want.

[John Cena]

Want.

[Doug Stanhope]

And if it works, great.

[John Cena]

Young, courageous.

[Doug Stanhope]

Yeah.

[John Cena]

Like, just go for it.

[Doug Stanhope]

Yeah.

[John Cena]

Yeah.

[Doug Stanhope]

That's. It's. It's also a great example for other people that are thinking, like, I'm kind of entertaining. I just don't have an avenue. Let me just start making videos.

[John Cena]

You got a phone?

[Doug Stanhope]

Yeah.

[John Cena]

You got a chance.

[Doug Stanhope]

Isn't that crazy? That's all you have to do is have a phone. It's nuts. You see the videos where he was sprinting with Ashton Forbes? You know that super jet act guy that does that morning routine that everybody made fun of because he has this, like, morning routine where he dunks his face in water and then he. Someone hands him his gold watch and he puts it on. It's, like, really kind of silly.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Yeah.

[Doug Stanhope]

You know, and he had a whole series of races with him because he couldn't believe that this YouTuber guy could beat him because he's, like, this super jacked ripped guy who. A lot of his online content is him running, and he just looks like. Like a force of nature. And I show speed beat him, like, three times in these races, but he didn't want to believe that he lost, so he wanted to do it again. Let's do it again. Let's do it again. And I show speeds talking to him. He did it again. So see if you can find. It's very funny. It's very funny because when you look at the. The guy, like, oh, this guy looks like he could run like a horse. And I show speed is actually faster than him.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

I think he.

[Doug Stanhope]

He's printed an actual Olympic sprinter. I mean, he started around a little bit, but he held his own. That's crazy. Yeah, that's crazy. He was, like, right there with an Olympic sprinter. That's nuts. He won the gold. The guy that he raced, really.

That'S. He's, like, right next to him. That's crazy. Like, and he's not even training like that guy is. Imagine if he was like that guy if he wanted to, like, fully invest himself into sprinting. He's only, what, 20. 20 years old? That's wild.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Wow. Really?

[Doug Stanhope]

Imagine if that kid fully invested in that and then became an Olympic gold medalist as well.

[John Cena]

So that's. That's where. That's where my mind goes as well.

[Doug Stanhope]

It seems like you can, but also.

[John Cena]

Why?

[Doug Stanhope]

Why not? Because it'll make his dreams even bigger.

[John Cena]

Will it?

[Doug Stanhope]

I don't know.

[John Cena]

I mean, or will sprinting against a gold medalist, getting in the cage with a fighter, getting in the ring with a champion, and going to that guy's house and besting him at his own thing. Like, he should keep doing that. He shouldn't go into one. The lane he's in. I think he's doing pretty well.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Right.

[Doug Stanhope]

It's almost better losing to the fastest man alive by that much.

[John Cena]

Or, like, so I can tell by watching that I love potential. And you see that and you're like, oh, my God, potential, Right? This guy could. He could win it all. It's.

[Doug Stanhope]

Find a video, him sprinting against that Ashton guy, because, yeah, it's, like, wild.

[John Cena]

For what this guy's got the World by the nuts, right?

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

He should.

[John Cena]

He should do what he's doing. Exactly.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

I only know him from that appearance at the Royal Rumble. Like he got booked on the Rumble because he has a big following. I'm watching the Rumble. I go, who's this? I show speed guy and I go, wow, that kid took a hell of a bump.

[Doug Stanhope]

No, I know him from Ashton Forbes. Guy Guy. Now look at the way this guy's built.

[John Cena]

Oh my.

[Doug Stanhope]

He's talking while he's running.

[John Cena]

Oh, man.

[Doug Stanhope]

And he fell. He's yelling.

[John Cena]

40 million people. Is that right? The number of views in the corner, 40 million.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Unbelievable.

[Doug Stanhope]

Wow.

[John Cena]

Oh, man, look at that.

[Doug Stanhope]

Wow.

Yeah, they raced a bunch of times.

And the. The other didn't. That other guy, he played football, right? Not in the NFL, but I think like college footballers. Look at this size of him too. The other guy's super jacked. Like that's his whole thing is online content is him running, being super jacked. And he has to deal with ishow speed talking to him and he's saying like, play some of this. The first one I slip. Second one you barely beat me. Let's run it again.

[John Cena]

Again. Do I got to beat you three times?

[Doug Stanhope]

Come on, let's do it.

[John Cena]

See? See when I see that. Right?

[Doug Stanhope]

Excuses. It's not.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

What is it?

[Doug Stanhope]

25, 26.

That's hilarious. Talking so much.

[John Cena]

So I see this and be like, this kid should be a wrestler, right? Because he is athletic and he can talk and back it up. My God, this kid would. He would be a 20 time champion. Whatever. No, he should do this.

[Doug Stanhope]

Are they running barefoot on the concrete? They have shoes on. Oh, really?

[John Cena]

Yeah, that be bad. Bad decision.

[Doug Stanhope]

That was pretty close.

[John Cena]

Yeah, but he started before. Yeah. Still lost.

[Doug Stanhope]

Started before me.

[John Cena]

Is still lost.

Like he should. He should be doing that.

[Doug Stanhope]

Yeah.

[John Cena]

But like you see the sprinting potential, I see the WWE potential. He should do neither. He should just do that.

[Doug Stanhope]

Right? And he's already done wwe. I guarantee you they'd probably want him to do it again.

[John Cena]

Oh my. I think he did a thing. He just went to like the performance center thing and like. Yeah, he's really good.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Really good.

[John Cena]

He's got great instincts. He's got great timing.

[Doug Stanhope]

That's amazing.

[John Cena]

Yeah.

[Doug Stanhope]

And he's only 20.

Yes. I mean there's now like this is like full multi camera. Really good shooting. Then he's speed versus pros, I think because he's kind of doing that idea just.

[John Cena]

Yeah. Like where he goes. He goes to people's.

[Doug Stanhope]

Look at that. 46.2 million subscribers on YouTube.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

That's wild.

[John Cena]

Yeah. So I think. I think, like, he should just do that, you know, whatever.

[Doug Stanhope]

Whatever he's doing, I mean, he's obviously doing it. Does he have, like, a team behind him that's editing now? Sure, probably. Oh, look at that. He's learning how to do flips. Oh, that's crazy. So he's really in it.

[John Cena]

Yeah. And I think it's just like, show up for a few days and then go on to the next. Discipline.

[Doug Stanhope]

Wow.

[John Cena]

So he does everything.

[Doug Stanhope]

Smart. Very smart. He spent all summer going to a city. Every day. Everything was live streamed for like 24 hours straight. They'd go to a city, show up. What's the coolest thing to do in the city?

[John Cena]

And do it and go to the city.

[Doug Stanhope]

Like, what kind of shit was he doing? Go to the fair, ride all the rides, guides, try all the games. There's a bunch of kids following around. Next day, they were here in Austin going to Terry Black's. I think he went and did stand up with Mark Norman, like, in New York City.

[John Cena]

Like, that's it. That's cool, man.

[Doug Stanhope]

He went on stage for a second. That's wild that he's so young too. Only 20.

[John Cena]

Yeah. That talented and just. Just brave and courageous and going for it. Like, that's regardless of what you and I think he's doing exactly what he should be doing. You know, he should just keep doing.

[Doug Stanhope]

That and obviously not getting in his own way.

[John Cena]

Not right at all.

[Doug Stanhope]

All things you're saying, like capitalizing on.

[John Cena]

Every opportunity yet to be told.

[Doug Stanhope]

Yeah.

[John Cena]

Story. It's still got. Still got a lot of life left.

[Doug Stanhope]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. A lot of life left.

[John Cena]

Yeah. Yeah. But we'll see. He's doing. He's doing great so far.

[Doug Stanhope]

Yeah, amazing.

I think we wrap this up, this awesome podcast. I really enjoyed it. Thank you very much.

[John Cena]

It is. It is real. A real big opportunity for you to have me on here because as the WWE folks that you have had, I think I'm still. I only got one date left, but I still think I'm the active one. I hope this experience has been good for you guys.

[Doug Stanhope]

Oh, it's been amazing.

[John Cena]

I hope you have more of the guys and gals from us in on your show.

[Doug Stanhope]

Absolutely.

[John Cena]

Every one of them's got a great story.

[Doug Stanhope]

Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think your philosophy is contagious, and I think it's really good for people to hear, and I think there's a lot of young people out there that are really going to benefit from a lot of the things you said, because I think it's rock solid.

[John Cena]

That means a lot coming from you. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

[Doug Stanhope]

Pleasure. Tony, you're the man. Awesome.

[Tony Hinchcliffe]

Thank you, guys.

[Doug Stanhope]

Appreciate you.

[John Cena]

Just call it.

[Doug Stanhope]

Bye, everybody.