Last year John Cena kicked off his retirement tour in January, and his final year as an in-ring competitor was full of twists and turns. At the Elimination Chamber premium live event he turned heel when he helped The Rock and Travis Scott beat down Cody Rhodes, then he went on to defeat Cody to win his 17th WWE Championship in the main event of WrestleMania 41.
Even though John’s match with Cody was highly anticipated, the vast majority of fans felt that the match was underwhelming due to the pacing and interference from Travis Scott.
While talking about his failures during a recent interview with Uncrowned, John Cena finally addressed the reaction to the WrestleMania 41 and admitted that he and Cody didn’t deliver the match fans were hoping for.
“I think it’s a great template for when I talk to young talent — and I try to do this all the time, I remind them to swing big and don’t be afraid to fail. A lot of them think I’m talking from a glass house of like, ‘Yeah, sure, it must be easy for you, because you, you never fail.’
And then I’ll look back, especially on that last year because the retirement tour did have a lot of eyes, and I’ll say I took a big swing at WrestleMania and we stunk up the joint. We failed. But what did I do? I got back up, we dusted ourselves off, course-corrected the ship, and we culminated with a fantastic finishing of the story, as Cody would put it, at SummerSlam.
Luckily John Cena and Cody Rhodes were able to redeem themselves when they faced off once again in the night two main event of SummerSlam a few months later. Both men pulled out all the stops to deliver an action packed match that ended with Cody Rhodes picking up the victory.
Currently John Cena is focused on promoting the John Cena Classic which has been confirmed for December 14th. Cena recently revealed more details regarding what fans can expect from the first ever John Cena Classic, and you can get more on that here.