John Cena believes he probably had another year or two left in the ring. The problem was, he didn’t want to wait until his body made the retirement decision for him.
Speaking on The Drew Barrymore Show, Cena explained that stepping away from WWE wasn’t because he stopped loving wrestling. In fact, he admitted he’d still love to be in the ring today. The real reason he retired was because he promised himself years ago that he wouldn’t hang on just to satisfy his own ego once his performances started slipping.
“I want to be in the ring forever. I want to be there now. I was sitting here before you got here being like, ‘Man, this would be such an intimate building to have a show. I could put an 18-foot ring there. We would rock this place.’ Like, I love it. I’ll always love it. I also made a promise to myself to not do bad work, to not selfishly hang on for my own ego and just to feed my own thing and take away from everybody else.”
Cena said he constantly paid attention to the signs his body was giving him. He noticed he was getting older, slower and weaker, while preparing for matches and recovering afterwards was taking much longer than it used to. Even though he believes he probably could have squeezed out another year or even two, he realized every extra match only increased the chances of suffering a serious injury.
“I promised myself I wouldn’t do that. And I keep track of data points along the way to let me know I’m getting slower. I’m getting older. I’m getting weaker. That’s just time.
So, what I did is I pushed the envelope as long as I could. Preparing for shows took longer. Recovering from shows took longer. And then I realized, like, okay, I don’t need to retire now. I probably could push a year, maybe two, but every time I do, the math is in my favor of really getting injured.”
Cena also revealed that getting married changed the way he looked at wrestling. Earlier in his career, if he got hurt, he only had himself to worry about. Once he got married, though, he felt a responsibility to make smarter decisions because his life was no longer just about him.
“When I’m on the roller coaster by myself and I got nobody else to worry about, if I blow out a knee, it doesn’t affect anybody… When I’m part of a team and we make a promise to each other… ‘I’m going to make responsible decisions so we have as many nights together as we can. We have as many mornings together as we can.’ So my priorities change, my values change, my beliefs change.”
Cena knows some fans believe he walked away too soon because he was still capable of having good matches. But he sees it differently. For him, the most respectful thing he could do for the wrestling business was leave before his performances noticeably declined and let the next generation take those opportunities.
“I retired from wrestling and people will say, ‘He’s not passionate about the business. Look, he can still wrestle. Why isn’t he still here?’… It’s in my blood. Like, I’m passionate about the business. And for me, the most passionate act was to step away, give somebody else a chance because the business has given me a quarter century of opportunity.”
Instead of waiting until fans started noticing he wasn’t the same performer anymore, Cena decided to walk away while he still felt he could deliver. In his mind, leaving a little early was a much better option than staying a little too long.
Do you think John Cena retired at the right time, or would you have liked to see him wrestle for another year or two? Let us know in the comments below.
This transcript was produced exclusively for Ringside News from the original recording. Republishing the transcription in full is prohibited. When using excerpts, provide prominent credit and a link to this article.
