The crowd present at Denver, Colorado for the SmackDown on September 15, 2023, were in for a treat. WWE’s megastar Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson made his way into the ring after a very long time. This was followed by the return of another star, John Cena, almost 15 days ago. With this, the fans were in a treat as the former rivals were once again under the same roof. After he was done with his performance, along with Pat McAfee and Austin Theory, Johnson made his way backstage. There he met John Cena and they both hugged each other.
Fans have been wondering how these formal rivals view each other now after such a long time. Recently, John Cena shed some light on how he views his relationship with The Brahma Bull.
John Cena opens up on his rivalry with The Rock
John Cena was present as the guest on the October 4th episode of WWE’s The Bump. There, Kayla Braxton, the interviewer, asked him how he felt after meeting his former rival after such a long time. To this, The Leader of Cenation gave a heartfelt answer. He said he would adjust the question to, “What was it like to see a friend that I haven’t seen in a long time”. This shows that he considers the 51-year-old star his friend.
Cena then said that he has a changed perspective after all these years. He said, “ I openly kind of come to the realization that me first foraying us into competing against each other probably was a professional mistake on my part”, further adding that he realized the mistake in his viewpoint.
He then said the way he gave shape to their relationship initially was not the right thing to do. According to him, “not the realm of trying to do good business”. He then added that it was nice to see a friend after such a long time. As they met for the first time after his public apology, Cena decided to apologize to him once again. He said, “I just wanna make sure he heard from me, face to face as well”. He then concluded by saying that it was a great experience seeing the Hollywood star after such a long time.
Why did John Cena have a beef with The Rock?
The enmity that was seen in the ring back in 2011 had its roots in 2008. During this time, Johnson was advancing in his Hollywood career while John Cena slowly became a popular star at the promotion. During this time, the 46-year-old star made comments on how Johnson has distanced himself from WWE since his Hollywood career took off. And when Johnson came back in 2011, the words found their way back too. Although their in-ring rivalry was scripted, it had some roots in real life as well.
Now that he has weaved a successful Hollywood career, he has realized how vastly different the two domains are. After having this realization, he made a public apology to The Great One, saying that his comments were mostly out of ignorance. He had made this apology in 2022 and this was the first time he was meeting Johnson after doing so. Seeing the opportunity, Cena decided to apologize to him in person. Although the glimpse of them hugging each other has broken records, the moment also stole the hearts of millions of fans.
