John Cena doesn’t hand out praise like candy, but Mason Rook had him hooked before WWE even got its hands on him. The 17-time world champion was watching Rook wrestle as Will Kroos on British television from a hotel room in Budapest — and Cena says the guy straight-up “floored” him.
Cena revealed the unlikely discovery during an interview with Metro, explaining that he was filming Matchbox in Hungary and couldn’t keep up with much live wrestling because of the time difference. Then he stumbled across a UK wrestling show on his hotel television, saw Kroos doing his thing, and suddenly Cena had appointment viewing. What grabbed Cena wasn’t just the size or the moves. He said Rook already understood the part of wrestling that takes some guys years to figure out.
“I think it was every Wednesday night, and I would consistently see Will Kroos do his thing, and the promotion he was working with. I was floored. And here’s the thing: he’s known for the moves. I was floored by his storytelling.”
Cena got so into watching Rook that even his wife, Shay Shariatzadeh, started wondering why her husband was glued to some random British indie wrestling broadcast. Cena’s answer was basically that this kid was too damn good to turn off.
“I would tell my wife, like, ‘I gotta watch this kid’. She’s like, ‘What are you doing watching this English UK indie broadcast?’ I’m like, ‘This kid is good. He can tell stories, and he moves great!’”
Then things got even better. When WWE eventually ran a show in Glasgow with UK talent brought in as extras, Cena found himself hoping Kroos would be somewhere backstage. For once, John Cena was the guy wondering whether he might get to meet somebody he had been watching on television.
“We did Glasgow, I think it was, and I was hoping, ‘Man, I know we have UK extras here. What if we walk into the room and Will Kroos is there? I will like lose my mind’. And that’s exactly what happened.”
Cena wasn’t exaggerating about the reaction either. When he spotted Kroos among the additional talent going through physicals, he says he literally froze.
“All the additional talent was kind of being shepherded into taking their physicals and stuff, and Will Kroos is one of them. And I stopped dead.”
Imagine being an unsigned wrestler and suddenly John Cena walks over to tell you he’s been studying your matches from a hotel room. That’s exactly what happened, and Cena made sure Rook knew the praise wasn’t about how many crazy moves he could cram into a match.
“Yo, dude, I’m a huge fan of yours. The way you tell stories, the way you carry yourself, what you’re doing is appropriate. Anyone can learn to do the physical stuff with enough practice. You have the nuance that very few performers have.”
Fast-forward to 2026 and the guy Cena was fanboying over is now Mason Rook in WWE NXT. He hasn’t exactly been wasting time either, as Rook became the new No. 1 contender to Grayson Waller’s NXT Championship after beating Tony D’Angelo and Saquon Shugars on the September 15 episode of NXT.
That came after Rook had already been muscling his way deeper into the NXT picture. He was also part of the winning six-man team on September 8, where Rook, Tony D’Angelo and Saquon Shugars earned their spots in the No. 1 contender’s Triple Threat Match.
Cena says none of this surprises him because he had already seen Rook make the little things matter. He recalled watching one of Rook’s UK matches where the big man somehow managed to look like an unstoppable monster while still losing without looking like a chump.
“I watched him in a further match; it was like a championship match, and he somehow made himself this big unstoppable force, but also somehow was able to get defeated with dignity.”
That’s the stuff Cena thinks separates Rook from young wrestlers who are obsessed with doing something insane just because they physically can. In Cena’s eyes, Rook already understands when to do something, why to do it and how to make the audience actually care.
“He’s a very intelligent performer, and a lot of times you see at a younger age aspirational performers who want to do crazy stuff, but their in-ring intelligence, they just don’t have enough time or attention. I was floored by his storytelling.”
And Cena isn’t treating NXT like Rook’s final destination. After watching him before WWE, freaking out when he finally met him and now seeing him climb toward the NXT Championship, Cena thinks Rook could be staring at something much bigger.
“NXT is just the next step in what could be. The sky’s the limit for him.”
Mason Rook went from wrestling the UK scene as Will Kroos to having John Cena tell his wife, “I gotta watch this kid,” before WWE even signed him. Now he’s already chasing the NXT Championship, and Cena sounds like a guy who knew what WWE had before most fans ever heard the name Mason Rook.
How far do you think Mason Rook can go in WWE, and does John Cena’s stamp of approval change how you look at his NXT run? Please share your thoughts and feedback in the comment section below.
