John Cena will appear on the YES Network on April 12th to promote his FOX reality series “American Grit.” The YES Network has sent along the following highlights from the interview:
On how he got his start in the business:
It (Ultimate Pro Wrestling’s Ultimate University) was…in Orange County, in Southern California. At the time, sports entertainment was truly at its zenith. It was the Monday Night Wars. There were two companies competing against each other, so it was really, really shock television every week. Like, “Wow, what are these guys gonna do next?”, so the eyes of the world really focused in on these two companies battling it out, and in turn it spawned imitation. There were a lot of companies that were trying to do the same thing, and this (Ultimate Pro Wrestling) was a company in Southern California, trying to put together a name for itself and, it was a company that offered training, and through training is the way that I got started, and you can’t have a finish if you don’t have a start, so I’m forever thankful to Ultimate Pro Wrestling.
On how his underdog mentality has served him well:
Even from the second I walked into the Ohio Valley Training Center (for his debut), which was a very dingy small armory in the heart of Kentuckiana, I thought that I wouldn’t make it. I kinda always thought that I was on borrowed time, because I would walk in and I would see 300-pound Brock Lesnar, who has amateur Olympic credentials, and 330-pound-at-the-time Dave Bautista, and Randy Orton, who just made any movement look as effortless as it could be. I remember seeing Shelton Benjamin walk in and then seeing, without any hands, him leap up to the apron of the ring. I’m like, “Okay, pretty impressive,” and then (seeing) him leap up to the top rope and just walk the top rope and I felt like Keanu Reeves when he goes in to see the Oracle in The Matrix and the kid’s bending the spoon and he’s like… “This is out of my league, man.” I always thought that I would never make it. But it was cool because even though I felt out-gunned, it gave me that sense of, well, I have nothing to lose. I’m just gonna go for it, and I really have kind of lived by that my entire life. It’s let me take chances that a lot of the other Superstars are afraid to take.
On meeting Vince McMahon:
I got to meet Vince McMahon in Chicago in 2002, which is where I made my (mainstage, WWE television) debut, and it was the night of my debut, and my debut shouldn’t have even happened. Kurt Angle was supposed to wrestle a fellow named The Undertaker that night, and The Undertaker actually could not make the show. He was extremely ill and didn’t show up, and they needed a replacement, and somebody threw my name out there because it would just be like a single match and it would do more for Kurt Angle than anybody else and Vince said “Okay,” so they brought me in to see Vince, and I had a long, horrible, badly-dyed mop haircut at the time. And my first meeting with Vince McMahon went something like this: I was shoved into a room and someone over my shoulder said, “What do you think?” And he (McMahon) turns around and goes, “Cut his hair.” That was my first meeting with my boss. I love him. I admire him as a human being. I think he’s … just a wonderful example of hard work paying off. To this day he does not need to show up. He is always hands on. He always shows up. His drive is incomparable.
On the “Attitude Adjustment”:
I actually got a signature move from a guy named Tommy Dreamer. A local guy. A New York guy. And he was using a move, that is a fireman’s carry, and you basically pick somebody on your shoulders and drop them down to the mat, and he gave it to me and I gave it a name and then changed the name and now it’s the Attitude Adjustment.
