John Cena was the face of WWE from 2006 to 2016, carrying the company on his back during that time. One of the memorable stories about Cena highlights his dedication and resilience, illustrated by a remarkable incident before an iconic match.
On April 23rd, 2007, Cena faced Shawn Michaels in one of his best matches on an episode of WWE Raw in the United Kingdom. This 56-minute match, which took place shortly after WrestleMania 23 where Cena had defeated Michaels to retain his WWE Championship, saw Michaels win cleanly. The match received widespread praise from fans and fellow wrestlers.
During an appearance on The Angle podcast, former WWE personality Jonathan Coachman discussed Cena’s potential winding down of his career. He also shared his thoughts on wrestling records, particularly Ric Flair’s 16-time world championship reigns, noting that while Cena could have pursued more titles, the number itself wasn’t personally significant to him.
Coachman recounted an overseas trip where Ric Flair encouraged Cena to engage in the typical behavior of a world champion, which included nightly drinking sessions. Despite these distractions, Cena remained committed to his craft. Coachman shared a story where Cena racked up a $70,000 bar tab over nine days. Despite this, Cena was informed of a demanding 60-minute match against Shawn Michaels the next day. Despite his condition, Cena delivered an exceptional performance, earning Coachman’s admiration and respect.
“I don’t want this to come off as disrespectful, because at some point I’m going to run into Ric Flair again and he takes this stuff very personally. At the end of the day, I could be a seventeen-time world champion if they so chose to give it to me. So to me, that record means nothing. The kind of person he is, the way he went about it, the way he trained every single day in the gym. We had a trip overseas, it was ten shows in ten days. Ric Flair talked him into drinking alcohol, because that world champs have got to do. He literally drank every single night, closed the bar down, paid the bar tab. I asked him on day nine how much he spent, he said $35,000. I said, ‘Dollars?’ He said, ‘Pounds.’ It’s two to one, so it was $70,000 he spent on alcohol just because he’s the world champion.
Now, don’t feel sorry for him, he was making 50 to 100 grand every night in the main event. But the last night, Dean Malkeno walks up to him, beer in hand, whispers something in his ear. He puts the beer down, heads straight for the elevator, says nothing to nobody and disappears. Dean Malkeno had just told him, ‘Tomorrow night, you’re going sixty minutes with Shawn Michaels on Monday Night Raw.’ Out of respect for the effort of what he was doing, I stood at the gorilla position for him to walk back down. He walked towards me, you could smell the alcohol coming out his pours, but he gave sixty minutes absolute banger. So, I really don’t care if he gets to 17. If it means something to him, then I do care. If that’s a record or number he wants, awesome.”
