Maria Kanellis got to kiss John Cena on WWE television during the height of his run as the company’s biggest star, but she says there were absolutely no butterflies involved. In fact, when Maria was asked whether locking lips with Cena made her nervous, she basically laughed off the entire idea.
Kanellis looked back on the memorable WWE angle during her appearance on Wrestling Life Online and Tall Oak Productions, where the conversation turned to her teaming with Cena against Edge and Lita. Maria admitted she was so focused on actually getting through the match that she didn’t fully grasp how big the opportunity was at the time. Then came the question everybody was waiting for — what was it actually like kissing John Cena? Maria’s response was immediate.
“I was actually just recently asked like, ‘Was I nervous?’ I was like, ‘No, why would I be nervous? It’s John Cena.’”
That might sound like Cena made things easier because he’s John Cena, but Maria explained there was another reason she wasn’t thinking about the kiss that way. To her, Cena felt more like family than some guy she was about to make out with on television.
“He was like my big brother and I, you know, I knew it was going to come across great.”
Maria also shattered whatever romantic image fans might have had of the moment. She said kissing somebody during a WWE television shoot doesn’t exactly feel intimate when an entire production crew is standing around and everybody is trying to get the segment finished.
“You don’t think about actually kissing someone when you’re on camera. It’s not even like a real, you know, like there’s 15 people in the room and you got makeup and like he’s getting ready for his match, you know, and so it’s like we had to cut the promo real quick.”
And apparently one kiss wasn’t enough for production. Maria said they actually had to do the moment again because something wasn’t right with the camera.
“I think we did it twice because of some like camera thing, but like, yeah, it was — it’s an on-camera kiss.”
The Maria and Cena pairing came during WWE’s 2006 programming, and the short-lived romance certainly had people paying attention. Jim Ross later made it clear he was a fan of the pairing, with Ringside News previously covering JR’s praise for WWE putting Maria Kanellis with John Cena during that period.
Maria’s memories of the whole thing are much less steamy than what WWE put on television. While fans saw Maria kissing the biggest star in the company, she remembers Cena as a big brother, cameras everywhere and production telling them they needed another take.
For Maria Kanellis, kissing John Cena wasn’t some nerve-racking dream scenario — it was another day at work, complete with a room full of people watching and a camera problem forcing them to do the whole thing twice.
What do you make of Maria Kanellis saying she wasn’t nervous at all about kissing John Cena? Did you enjoy their short-lived WWE pairing back in the day? Let us know what you thin
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