Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard - John Cena

Episode Date: April 8, 2024

John Cena (Ricky Stanicky, Peacemaker, WWE Wrestler) is a professional wrestler and actor. John joins the Armchair Expert to discuss why he still owns his first car, what motivated him to get into the gym, and why he doesn’t like authority without reason. John and Dax talk about being around alpha male culture, how he got into wrestling by accident, and the evolution of his wrestling character. John explains how important crowd reactions are in a wrestling match, how his experiences have helped him be a successful actor, and his work with the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Dan Rather and I'm joined by Monica Monsoon. Hi there. Today we have, I think this is worth saying, and I think we said it probably in the fact check, but of the six years we've been recording here, there's been work being done on the house. Sure.

And none of the folks that do work on this house have been excited by a single guest ever, or at least that we've known about. They've never cared once, to my knowledge. Even when David Letterman went and talked to them personally. And there was a line for this gentleman in the driveway when we got out that was just epic. Every, yes.

Yeah, if I wanted to take a picture with him, it was really cool. I think he might be the most famous person we've ever had in here in real life. Like when you see him in the power in real life. And a friend of mine that worked with him also said this about him, that like you're walking down the street with him

and it's like you're with King Kong or something. Well he does say it in the interview, which you'll hear. Like he's very protective of his whereabouts. Yeah. He wants to protect his wife from that. And then that made sense, right? That like he sort of ambushed. Yeah, so John Cena, he is an actor.

He's a 16-time world champion wrestler. He's currently on Peacemaker, which is great. He was in The Fast X. He's in another Fast series. He's in Argyle, The Suicide Squad, Vacation Friends, and he has a new movie out now called Ricky Stenicki. Was Zac Efron in Andrew Santino so funny? So please enjoy John Cena.

This NBA season, make every three pointer alley oop and buzzer beater even more exciting with FanDuel. Download the app today to see why we're North America's number one sports book. 19 plus and physically located in Ontario. Gamling problem, call 1-866-531-2600 or visit connectsontario.ca You look so nice no one dresses up for us I'm just gonna... Hello! Hi Monica. Hi Monica. You're welcome.

You look so nice, no one dresses up for us. I made sure. So we were texting before you got here. You said, hey, can you do this one thing? And I said, oh my God, I'd love to. And I'll trade you for a photo of us lifting in black mold paradise. But you said it's gonna be a little challenging

with the wardrobe. And I was thinking, oh, he's probably got a sweater on or something, but no, by God, you are in a beautiful three piece suit. Thank you so much. That looks so nice. We should have got the memo. Although you're wearing a nice button down.

This is my very special button down. Brad Pitt's company. Really quick, where are you staying while you're here? Where do you stay when you're in LA? So if I tell you that, then everybody's gonna find me. We'll cut it, we'll cut it. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that's okay.

I lived in LA before all this, back in 2000. So whenever I stay here, I got a few places I can call home that nobody ever finds me. Oh, okay, great. So you have like a two-prong celebrity. It's maybe even four-prong, I don't know. So it's a fork. It's a fork.

Very kind of you, thank you. Everybody tells me to fork myself, so I'm good. Okay, and you've done it successfully. You have many, many rivulets, avenues. Okay, so I was working with somebody who had worked with you on something, and I can't even remember what it was, but they were saying,

oh, you gotta see him around children. You can't really imagine how fucking popular he is with children. Like, if you're walking down the street and some kids see you, so you keeping your location private, is that more for adults or for kids? I never blame anyone for wanting to say hello,

but at the same time I travel with my wife, we go everywhere together. So I certainly value her safety and wellbeing. And one of the promises I made to her on the altar was I will never put you or I'll do my best to not put you in an undue harm's way. So a lot of it is just about genuine safety. And it's not to say that everyone out there

has bad intentions or we would Ever run into someone bad, but you also never know when someone feels threatened if my wife who is my travel partner and partner in life Now feels unsafe or uncomfortable to all these new places we go. I got another hurdle to climb in my personal life It's just an exercise in the strength of boundaries and the value of boundaries. Okay, I dig it But you are in town for how long until this is over? Oh, really? You will jet out of the last stop on a press tour for Ricky's to Nikki. Okay. Okay, I dig it, but you are in town for how long? Until this is over. Oh really? You will jet out of here. This is the last stop on a press tour for Ricky Snicky.

Okay, well I really like that. Yeah, we like ending strong. Knowing that the end is near is helpful. Seeing that finish line, man. Yeah, you can really sprint towards it. Yeah, yeah, it is a good feeling. So thank you for ending my day. I have high hopes coming in,

and man, you already hit it out of the park with a coffee, so we're good. Okay, great, and as I told you, embarrassingly, I had just gone in to get lunch in my 454 SS, and I was gonna pull it like where it goes, kinda hidden by the AMG. I was like, I think I'll leave it in the driveway. Oh, you wanna show off?

In hopes that John will see it and get excited. This is beautiful out here. Thank you, the address is 45. Oh God, oh my God. I'm teasing. Oh my God. No, it's a petrolhead paradise out here. I'm so glad you noticed. Yeah, cause I have gathered, I think we all my God! No, this is a petrolhead paradise out here.

I'm so glad you noticed. Yeah, because I have gathered, I think we all know about each other, right? Dudes in our business who are also into cars. I think word travels fast. And I don't know if that's because we're crazy and there's only a few of us, or I think it's the way the car culture figures itself out. In my perspective, people appreciate cars and they're willing and open to share it. It's often a topic of common conversation, like sports.

It's one of the few things dudes can get in a parking lot and chat about. I think that spreads fast when someone is a car person. This is how neurotic I am about it. Like I'm reading all about you today and I just happened to stumble upon that when you arrived here, you were in a 91 Lincoln Continental. Yeah.

And I was like, great, there's a story about him living it. I'm not even interested. I love those 91 Continentals. Big enough to sleep in. Yes. And comfortable. There's a story about him living it. I'm not even interested I love those 91 continentals big enough to sleep in And comfortable even for a big boy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, but it was my choice. I wanted to I had a roof over my head Massachusetts my dad was like it's not working out for you. Come on home I'm like, no, I'm gonna rub two sticks together and see if I can make fire out here So it wasn't like I got thrown out I just had no money and I had to make a choice whether to go home or stay here. And I chose to stay here.

And that was my bed for a while. Do you ever have fantasies about hunting that car down? Not that one. So that one was a joint purchase where my dad gave me a little bit and I got a little bit. I got my first car at age 14. It was an 84 Cadillac Coupe De Ville. Oh, beautiful.

Smoked the tranny by 15. So that was already gone. I had a 69 Nova after that, a 66 Chevelle after that, rocked a mid-90s Cavalier for a little bit, S10 pickup. It was always trading and bartering, and every car had been a joint venture of my dad would match my in. We're talking 750 bucks, so it wasn't major.

He did the same with the Continental. Really quick, really interesting choice. For a man with modest means who needs some dependability and can get across the country, You've definitely put style above function. Well, it's a comfortable car. So I was going to spend a lot of time in it. You see a lot of those cars, they're town cars, they're chauffeur cars. So, you know, they're going to go high miles. And that was kind of what I had into it.

And I had all the options that I wanted everything in there's power, everything, there's comfy leather. I want one so bad. The next car I bought was an 89 Jeep Wrangler and I bought it from Seaside Motors Two over in Santa Monica and I bought it with my own money and I still have that car today. I've changed the configuration of the garage many times

that has never left my side and never will. That's my Lincoln Continental, my 67. I had it when I moved here. I sold a really dependable Honda Civic to get it. It was a dumb, dumb choice. A great choice. Well, there was a moment in my life where there was a billboard on Sunset

promoting hit and run, and it was my Lincoln, who's been my eternal girlfriend since I moved to LA. And I was like, God damn, this is good. That was probably my happiest little moment seeing a billboard that the Lincoln was on it. It's funny, you're like, man, have you ever thought to chase it down? I'm lucky enough to know, hey, don't sell the first one

you ever bought. There's cars I've turned over to new owners that you get a little bit of seller's remorse. Yeah, like giving a dog away. Yes, I've wanted to chase down a few, but fortunately I've not had to chase down the first one I ever bought. Okay, this area you lived in, Massachusetts,

it's only like a ton of 4,500 or something? Now it is, when I was growing up there, it was whispering at a thousand people. If you land in Boston, you look at Massachusetts on a map, and you drive as far north and as far east, you follow the water as you can until you are stepping in New Hampshire.

That's where we're at. Okay, so beautiful and bucolic and rolling hills, and green. Oh my goodness. The port city next to it called Newberryport is a famous shipping town from before the birth of America. And they've done a great job of preserving the town, obviously, so it's all brick and all pre-American revolution. There are homes back there from the 1600s.

Your next neighbor's acres away. The high school houses three towns because one town's not enough students. It was an interesting place to grow up. My parents had five of us. We were just left to our imagination. Five boys, too. Yes.

Oh. You're the second oldest? Yes. Okay, in're the second oldest? Yes. Okay. In my town, not too dissimilar, we were at 5,000, I thought 10, but Monica found out it was really 5,000. It's much smaller.

Yes. It's right when it transitions from kind of suburbs out of Detroit into straight up farmland. And so in that town, very blue color town, when there was a family of five boys, they got progressively crazier and crazier, where the baby, the fifth boy, was very dangerous. Was this the pattern in your house? No, I think we were all equally insane. Okay. Yeah, my parents, I don't know why they kept trying.

They were going for a girl? They were, they were. And I think at five they were just like, that's it. Yeah, yeah. When are you gonna listen to the man upstairs? No, we were bad kids, for sure. What were you? Yeah, and it didn't unravel as it went down.

I was pretty bad and led the charge. We just realized that they'd only catch one of us. And how much older is your older brother? My older brother is gonna be 50 this year, I'll be 47, and then it's 46, 44, and 41. Oh, your parents. Yeah, let's be honest, your mom. Yeah.

Oh yeah. Let's call it like that. I was trying to be nice. Absolutely, 100's be honest your mom. Yeah Now your dad this is a fun factoid he was actually an announcer for wrestling at some point that's what he'll tell you There's no record of that. Okay, great. I will say my dad is a showman He started the drama club at Community College in Beverly, Massachusetts that he attended He wrote for the school paper directed plays. That's where he met my mom. He was directing a production of Streetcar Named Desire. He's always been a showman and he's always wanted to show off his skills. My dad hasn't lost that. Good for him. Yes. So what was he doing to clothe and feed these five mongrel children?

He was a real estate appraiser by trade. And I got to tip my cap to the old man, a damn good one. He taught seminars throughout the United States on his trade and he really found a home in value property. And then what did mom do? Stay at home mom. My family had their first child in the early 70s. So it was a typical family construct. My mom is college educated.

She was in the banking business. She did a little bit of international philanthropy. I heard my dad settle down and that was kind of it for her. Right, and going through school, you're following behind. My brother's five years older, so I didn't deal with this terribly, where you were inheriting whatever first impression.

I dealt with it, man. My brother was like a true nerd, and this is at the height of the 80s, like revenge of the nerds. Sure, the real kind of nerd. Not Silicon Valley billionaires. Our town wasn't yet at the revenge of the nerds sort of state. So I inherited, life was tough for my brother in high school.

Not only was he an introvert and interested in computers, he's also gay and being gay in the 80s in a small town in Massachusetts. Man, that's an uphill climb. Was he out? Gosh, no. He just had a lot of character traits that weren't in the cool kid group. And he's also holding this secret that he can't tell or talk to anybody about.

And I really feel for what it must have been like for him growing up. But I also inherited that chapter of his social constructs and man, it got me to learn how to lose a few fights. So. Yeah, okay. So conventionally, you had hoped your older brother would step in to defend you.

Was it a role reversal? Did you feel inclined to want to protect your brother? Were you protective of him? That sort of behavior started like at 10 years old for me. So I don't think I understood what was going on. Kids are harsh and they form cliques real fast and we always just hung out with each other. So there's enough of us to have a basketball team, which means we could do whatever we

wanted. We want to play football or baseball. There's enough of us. So we didn't feel we needed anybody else in our next door neighbors. Like I said, we're acres away. So if we could make we needed anybody else and our next door neighbors, like I said, were acres away. So if we could make it through school and get back to the house, all is fine. Okay, so you guys were each other's best friends.

We were close, I think by default, but then social circles started to form for me around 10, 11, and 12. I took on the role of, hey, if you say something to the younger brothers, I will do my best to throw myself in harm's way. Uh-huh, well this is gonna stop here. Yeah.

Listen, I don't know if it's a rural thing, I don't know if it's a blue collar thing, but yeah, violence was a daily thing all through growing up. Kids just fought nonstop, they got picked on tremendously. That's you and I's perspective. I don't think you can geosite that. I think in the inner cities, there's probably some brawls going on too.

For sure. I'm only curious why it's like my wife, she went to school more in the city or in the hinterland between the two. And she's like, no, there would be a fight like once every six months at my school. And I'm like, oh, no, there was a few a week and then some were scheduled for Friday night at the Milford Cinema. Yep. It's like three o'clock high. Yes, always. Every day was three o'clock high.

What's that? It's a movie about a kid having to stand up to a bully and it's a day in the life of a school day counting down to three o'clock. He knows he's going to have to fight the bully. Yeah, he's going to get the shit kicked out of him. Got it. What a movie. Oh, we had like My Bodyguard because it was so ever present.

You were like, the fantasy would be someone would come and stick up for you. Revenge of the nerds is what you said. So I know you got your first bench at 12. And that's because it's getting my ass kicked, starting at 10. That's what it was motivated at. Yeah. And you thought if I could get big,

people will stop fucking with me. Leave me alone. Yes. That actually happened. Kids would beat me up at 12 and 13, and then junior high and high school were on the same property. The building of junior high would be my left hand,

as I'm making this explanation for your viewers, and the high school would be my right hand. They're both on hills and you have to go to the valley. My bus was on the high school side, and some of the seniors' bus was on the junior high side, so you have to walk by the elder statesman. And every day, man, I got my ass kicked. Or at the very least, it was a strong nudge, so I go tumbling down the hill again.

I never fought back, but I never acquiesced. I know exactly who you were. So many kids had to occupy that exact zone. I got made fun of for the way I dressed, the music I listened to, the people I associated with, my older brother, I turned it up. I never backed off. You never silenced who you were. And then when I was 15, when the yield of three to four years

of constant strength training and eating right in the middle of adolescence takes place, I walk into physical education class with now seniors who are pushing me down the hill and they were kind of looking at me like, are we going to fight in the locker room? And I remember specifically one kid who literally spearhead the anti-John movement in junior high and I closed my locker door and he's next to me. We're looking at each other like, is it going to go down? And for some reason at 15, I summoned up the situational awareness to be like, hey man we're good don't worry about it.

And that was it. Not only did he never pick on me again, I really never got f'ed with again in high school. So it worked for you. It took a whole lot of perseverance and a whole lot of failure and losing fights but yeah eventually they stopped. Eventually they got another target I guess. How are you educating yourself on what to eat and what to do? The Weider weight bench that I got came with a display of how to use all the attachments

and before I could get any sort of information like a Muscle and Fitness or Flex or an Ironman magazine, it started with that. And then once you get the Muscle and Fitness, there are adverts for, hey, this is Mega Mass 2000 or Heavyweight Gainer 900. All the products. Or in the 90s, this is Metrix and this is Myoplex and Mesotech. Creatons just coming out. Yeah, I started when nothing was available,

but then shortly after that, everything became available, and strength and science, especially applicable to sport. I remember quitting baseball at 15, because my varsity coach said, don't work out, because it's gonna ruin your swing. And I handed him my uniform that day. It was like, I'm gonna go back to working out. Yeah it was very obvious to you what you wanted to do. Yeah. Were you also playing football in high school?

There was no youth football in West Newbury the first time I put on a pair of Paz was 15 years old so we tried to discover how to play the game I mean we played pickup football but tackle football full contact is a different sport but yeah I started at age 15 and that's when I really knew I've been working out for self-defense but this is applicable in sport. But yeah, I started at age 15, and that's when I really knew, I've been working out for self-defense, but this is applicable in sport. All the coaches are like, man, we can do something with you,

because you're strong. I was head and shoulders above the rest of my classmates, because I was the only one that took care of myself. And did girls respond to this transformation? Hard to say, which was the secret element of what did it. The intoxicating cocktail that became 15-year-old John Cena. I don't know. Yeah, it's hard to say. Well, let me ask you this,

did girls in junior high not notice you and then did they notice you in high school? I think that's an accurate statement. That's an accurate statement. Yes. Okay, where does Schwarzenegger fit into this? Because for me, again, I'm two years older than you, I saw Conan the Barbarian at a drive-in when it came out

and I was like, what on earth is this? I hadn't seen a Mr. Universe competition or anything. I just couldn't believe a real human was him. I became so fascinated with muscles in that moment. Who was your kind of gateway? I remember seeing Commando on VHS. There we go. And that's true Arnold being Arnold.

Yes. Seminole film. Yes and all that stuff is whimsical but then you learn oh man he He was a bodybuilder before I think it's when I jumped into like the periodicals to be like oh, this is how you get that right Who was the King Coleman or has already gone to Jake? Honestly when I started man, it must have been like Sean Ray you're talking 1986 maybe flex Wheeler pre Dorian Yates

It was still the 80s wave of bodybuilding. But you weren't specifically aiming yet to be a bodybuilder, right? It was just a very functional choice. Don't get your ass kicked. And is there a way to do it without violence? Sports happened out of that, and that was an opportunity that was like, yeah, let's pursue this, this'll be all right.

And then you go to Springfield College, and there you play football, and you're a center, and you're the captain of the team. Eventually after four years of trying there, yeah, my peers voted me as somebody to go out and call the coin toss. And that was this, it's a very important role as we just saw in the Super Bowl recently. Did this built-in community of dudes,

I feel like that would have been very cathartic if you were feeling a bit alienated in junior high and I imagine the captain's one of the popular players on the team. Social acceptance is a really interesting thing. I would like to think that we all want love in our life. And I think acceptance is a gateway drug to that. Of like, hey man, you're cool.

All right, there's a connection there. So of course I was searching for something like that and found it in sport and wasn't ostracized for who I was or how I behaved Before going to Springfield. I lived at high school for two years I went to Cushing Academy as a boarding student that was just 400 of us as 15 16 and 17 year olds living there with each other. Yeah, were you chewing tobacco? Everybody else was everyone else You weren't doing that. I picked up leaf tobacco for a brief period of time in WWE.

You were a good boy, yeah? I think I had great respect for the opportunities I've been given. Was I a good kid at home? No, because I rebelled against authority and wanted to do things my own way. Was I a good student? No, I was a good student when I was told

there was opportunity and reward for being a good student. I was a DF student when I applied to Cushing Academy and like a non varsity athlete, they promptly rejected me and the Dean of Admissions, Wayne Sanborn, I remember it like it was yesterday, he said, if you get your grades up to A's and B's and you can varsity in two sports, we will reconsider you to go through the application process. In one year, I turned the ship around, varsity lettered in two sports, AB student, I came back, I had to do the whole process. And then they said, we'll accept you.

And we also realized your family is broke. We're going to give you an opportunity. So this is a school coming out of pocket for me. So now somebody has bet on me, just like my first football coach bet on me. I jump in front of a train for that guy because he's like, hey, man, I know everybody else is kicking your ass, but I see potential in you. I'm going to bet on you. So I think I've but I see potential in you, I'm gonna bet on you. So I think I've always had great respect

for those who are willing to bet on me. Well, also the way I've heard you speak about your father in interviews, you seem to have a very sweet respect for him and appreciation for him. Work in progress? Okay, great, because I locked horns with my dad all the time.

Oh, me too, man. Yeah, I can't stand authority. It's really rough for me. I guess I'm okay with the construct of authority as long as it has a decent why. And a lot of the parental why is because I said so. Yeah, yeah. And that shit don't mess with me.

I believe everything in life should have a good explanation. You and I are in lockstep on that. I need to believe in the plan a little bit. Even if I don't believe in it, as long as I understand it, all right, I'm backing down. Right, because obviously you had coaches and you must have been a good athlete to the coaches. You could deal with it when there was a reward

at the end of it. Sure, and again, these are people who have vouched for me. Although I had a conflicting relationship with my dad because he was never an athlete. Do you think it was insane that you were getting so built? Yes. Was he embarrassed by it? I don't know.

I'm just starting to lay the foundation with my dad where we can breach into this stuff. And I do love him and I want to walk the talk. So if I love him, I want to get to know him and I want to walk the talk so if I love him I want to get to know him and I want to do my part to bridge our relationship. These are little nuggets that I can't wait but I still got a little work to do for that. You don't want to speak for him on that.

Yeah, I don't know. You just don't know yet. I don't know yet. I've read Arnold's books, the two that he wrote early in his bodybuilding career. Everyone thought he was a freak. His parents were like, what the fuck is he, this is insane.

Yeah, this is not an honest day's work. It reeks of vanity maybe. There's a lot of things that a parent might, in the earlier days, before people made careers of it. Well, even if you can make a career of it, that's still a person's perspective. This reeks of vanity. Yeah, for you, I think it reeked of safety.

Yes, but then of course, when you start getting big as a young man and you're physically bigger and stronger than all your peers around you, you're still figuring out life. You don't have the wisdom to understand what's going on, so it can put you in funny situations. That's empowering. Can be. Thank God I was always put in a bigger swimming pool. Every time I think I got it figured out, I get dropped in a pool where kids are getting drafted into the NHL and going to Division 1 programs. After that, I get dropped into Springfield College as a 19 year old whereold where the 22, 23, 24-year-olds

are far stronger just because of the amount of time under tension. And then I get dropped into Venice, California, which is like, man, I think I've done good with this natural body. Oh, I quit. And I'm done. So.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it can be a blessing to always be sort of at the bottom and climbing. Or just to never be the biggest fish in the pond. I was always grateful to have the timing in my life to have strong. Or just to never be the biggest fish in the pond. I was always grateful to have the timing in my life to have strong male mentors and not to be the biggest fish. Yeah, because when you're the biggest fish in the pond, you're kind of inclined to stay in the pond.

It's a good living. Yes, it is. It can be a little bit of a trap. To stay in that comfort zone. What I'm trying to lay cable for is you've navigated a lot of super alpha worlds. And so I'm really curious how you've navigated it. And it would start in high school and it would then be very present on a football team.

It's a very alpha world. You're really big. When you were greeted with intense alpha-ness, what was your response to it generally? Oddly enough, in reflecting on past experiences and trying to live in the present, when you recreate history, it's never really true. It's just your version of it.

Yeah, it's your story. I think I've always had a good idea of knowing the room, and I've always been able to ask myself, where's the win? So it's okay that you're not the leader of the Lord of the Flies, where's the win in that? I don't need that, I just wanna be able to do the thing I wanna do. My goal was never to be the number one thing. I was an offensive lineman, so that position by and large,

you never get talked about. Every day you do all the boring practice. You call the coin flip in your case. The very last year. That was my nugget. Hey man, you've been playing with us for four years. Why don't you go out and talk to the referee before the game?

You're never talked about in the paper. No one ever discusses you. I mean, I played at a division three school, so it's not like I was searching for glory. I just wanted to go out and play. Right, but you also had a chip on your shoulder about never being subjugated again, right? Not living in fear of any other men.

The one thing I did is I never fought back, but I also never stepped back. So I don't think I was ever in fear. I still went to the bus every day. I never went to the principal, I never asked for security or any of that stuff. I was never afraid of it, because I had been getting the shit kicked out of me for 10 years. Little did they know, I had four brothers.

I've been losing fights for a decade. It's all right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You'd already experienced the worst of it. It was survivable. Yeah. But yeah, you don't have a chip on your shoulder about bullies.

No, because of golden moments. Like as a 15-year-old in that locker room where the bully is looking at me afraid, going, are we good? And I'm like, yeah, man, we're good. And then seeing him melt away, just realizing how difficult it is to figure out. I'm not perfect. I've been on both ends of that.

Those are really choices outside of my value system that I feel bad about. I can understand both sides and I can understand the motivation of both sides. I want to put my arm around the bully and be like, hey, man, what are you doing? What's really going on in your life? You want to talk to somebody about it? It sucks that that happens and social behavior, especially on young people is tough, but I never was like, fuck them,

we're gonna get those guys. Well, as you navigate life as a boy, you do start putting two and two together. Generally, the bullies have the shittiest fucking housewife. Like in elementary, I was a bully. I hate it, I was, but I was big, I felt powerless at home. And when I got to school and we were on the playground, it's time to wrestle, I'm like,

oh fuck, I am not powerless. This feels very good. And as my life got better, I was less like that. Yeah. You get out of Springfield and you, how soon moved to LA? The day. I need to get out of West Newbury, man.

Right, okay. And you have no fantasies of playing football professionally? Nope, being famous, playing football, none of that. I have a degree in kinesiology. A lot of students at our time would spend their spring breaks in Cancun or Daytona Beach. I went to Los Angeles to try to see if I could land an internship. And I did.

I landed an internship with a company. They were installing fitness equipment. So if you bought a bunch of stuff from at the time, Cybex. Shout out Cybex. They would drop the equipment off of this warehouse and the warehouse would install it. So they were installing large footprint gyms, private gyms, kind of like what Sorenac or Rogue will do today. They'll come and set up. I was like, man, I could use this to maybe get a job in the corporate world with Cybex. So I get a job where I have to wear a golf

shirt every day, but I'm talking about working out and selling fitness equipment. This is going to be the sweet spot. And I was bodybuilding and doing okay naturally. I was in a small pond and got dropped into a bigger pond. As soon as I went to Gold's Venice. Not only is this not for me, but also I need to be here. I need to be around this. Right. So I realized I was way out of my league,

just like an offensive lineman in a Division III school. If you watch the Super Bowl, those guys are 6'7", 330 pounds. I'm 6'2", 50 at the time., those guys are six, seven, 330 pounds. I'm six feet, 250 at the time. Not without aspiration, just realistic. And seeing everybody in Venice, I'm like, okay, that's not why you were doing it anyway. I didn't start lifting weights to be Mr. Olympia. I just loved health and wellness

and I was fascinated by strength and boy, what a place to do that. I also thought that, man, I could apply this expensive piece of paper here and someone's gonna hire me if I'm just around. The dots lined up and I went out to California to try to apply my degree. Right and so pretty quickly that doesn't bear any fruit. No. And so how do we get into wrestling? By accident. So the job sucked.

I was literally just a warehouse servant who folded moving blankets and disassembled old equipment all day and never left the warehouse. I never made it to the install team. I never talked to any corporate reps and boy did I have a lot of hours and not a lot of pay I was like man I got a hold on this job to pay some bills But I'm gonna quit on this date and then I got a security job in Hermosa Beach I would be the big guy at the door making sure no fights broke out Sparrows sharkies right next to Zeppi's pizza the pizza place fed me for free which was great And then I got a job at Gold's. I was working at the nutrition store.

I'd kind of do jobs around there. That's why I slept in my car because I could shower at Gold's. You got the whole locker room. You can get a locker or two. Nobody says anything. I'm like, man, I got to find direction in my life. Took the CHP exam, failed. So I'm like, well, that's out.

And I was about to join the Marines. Oh my gosh. But every day I'd be in Gold's and every day talking to the guys in Gold's. And one of my friends, Mark Bell and his brother Chris, they're like, hey, we're training to be wrestlers over in Orange County. Would you do that? And it was the weekend I was gonna join the Marine Corps.

Oh my Lord. A happy accident, once again, opportunity, being like, you guys, there's a school to do this? And as soon as I saw a ring, I was like, okay, this is gonna be the thing that keeps me here. I now don't care what job I have because I'll deal with the Monday through Friday suck because I can be a character on the weekend.

I never went out there being like, I'm gonna make it big in the WWE. It was like, I'm gonna wrestle at the flea market on Friday night. And then again on Saturday, we're going up to Northern California and this is gonna be fun. And I can pick out my outfits.

And I was working at the gym so the suck really wasn't that bad. So I'm working in an environment where I got friends, I have enough to eat, I got a roof over my head, I got a car and I got fun for the weekends. Great, I'm just gonna ride this out as long as it can go. Of the different categories that make a good wrestler, obviously there's a physicality to it,

there is a coordination element I'd imagine, there is some level of game plan like a quarterback and then there's the improv and the character in the on the mic stuff. Which of all those categories came easiest to you and which were you having to really apply yourself to be good at? So I still don't have a good grasp

on knowing my own capabilities, like always knowing my line and just towing it and trying to push it. Not saying like, oh, I'm going to the top rope to do a back flip. Right. Where I have lordosis. So it's uncomfortable to go ass over tea kettle.

What's lordosis? It's opposite of scoliosis. Over the years it's gotten better, but 20s, I was like big booty out all the time. Yeah, it's like sticking your butt out. Okay. So John, it's so exciting. I just got the full body scan and I discovered

I have pretty severe scoliosis. I didn't know! Hopefully you can correct that. No, I think the ship sailed. I'm 49. I don't know, man. It's never too late. Oh!

It's not so severe. You're not like hunched over. It's not forward or backward. It makes a sharp right. It explains some things. It's never too late. Oh, every time I would do traps at the beginning before I really committed to them,

I'm like, why is this the only thing that kills when I do it? because everything's like this? Yeah, the whole body is crooked. Yeah, what a finding at my late age. Have you done a full body scan? I have not does it interest you it does all of the ability to take your car into the shop I use that analogy You're not gonna invest in an automobile that you enjoy from car guy to car guy and just let it sit It's constant care you bring it in for service even though it doesn't need anything.

Just to get a professional's opinion on you're doing everything right. All that stuff about the human body fascinates me. And it's like we're truly at a golden age of people using new methods to discover how to live healthier. And discover stuff early. Yeah, man.

That's really something of interest. Yeah. So how quickly, cause you came out in 99 and then you get your first WWE, which was then WWF contract, I guess in 2001 or two. So it's a pretty quick ride, maybe not at the time when you're 22. No, I think the contract might've even came in 2000.

Okay, so how do we get from the Orange County parking lot, flea market, Bonanza into that world? The WWE was actively recruiting for the first time, and that was that wave. Again, right place, right time. Can I pause you? You don't seem to have the same affinity for Schwarzenegger that I do.

I can accept that. That's not true. Okay, well you're playing it. I just think in different lights. Okay, Hulk. So I had a period where I fucking loved the WWE. I think it was WrestleMania V came to the Silver Dome in Pontiac, Michigan.

WrestleMania three. Three. And everyone watched that. You are not alone. Is that the one where Hulk had body slam Andre? Yep. Oh my God, what a time to get into that thing. Wrestling was in the zeitgeist.

Us being that age, very impressionable, and what a superhero story that was. I think the pinnacle of it for me is like, I already know Rocky, I love Rocky. Rocky's the toughest guy in the world. And then all of a sudden, Hulk Hogan's in Rocky. And I'm like, oh my God, look how big the Hulk is. It was so exciting.

So was the Hulk a guy for you? As a young man growing up, of course. But then when you get into the profession and you wanna make a name for yourself, you tend to look at different professionals different ways. I started liking other people's work just for what they had to offer.

And what were the things that tended to impress you? Again, the physicality or the showmanship? I really always had a good grasp on working out. I didn't gravitate toward guys who were big. I watched guys who moved well, who spoke well, how they carried themselves, how they define their character. Do I like this guy? Do I hate this guy? Why? It wasn't like, man, I want legs like that, dude, or I want to be able to do that move.

You want the whole persona. Yeah, just trying to make discoveries on what works. Stay tuned for more Firefire Expert If you dare. Well, I was fascinated to find out we had like three versions before we get to John Cena. Yes, we have the prototype machine 100% the shits because I'm now realizing while I'm sitting in front of you, you do bear a bit of a resemblance to John Claude Van Damme

and his prime. Appreciate it, man. He had played a cyborg. Was it before or after that? It was after that. So it was an idea from the kid who asked me to go down there. You'll be the prototype, half man, half machine, because I'd never had a drink before in my life at that point.

All I did was like eat, workout, alcoholism. No, not at all. No family history, none of that. I didn't feel I needed it. Again, I went from being in no social circle to swimming in a lot of pools, and I didn't think I needed another vehicle. I was already a dumbass enough. I found out in my early research, alcohol denatures protein. So I was like, okay, well, if I'm taking in 30 grams a day, I got to make use of the best of it because I just spent my allowance on this bag of weight gainer.

Okay. Is it safe to say you had like another addiction which was optimizing your body? 100%. So that had to take precedent over... You couldn't bring on any other. Yeah, exactly. Anything that would take from that. It influenced all the choices I made.

I don't think it was an addiction because I still had a successful life around it. For sure, no consequences. Yeah, but it occupied a lot of my time and curated a lot of my choices. Okay, so you had never drank? No, I worked security at a bar dead sober Have you since drink? Oh, yeah. Yeah

As an alcoholic, I really am having a hard time not drinking Okay, okay. Okay. So at this point you have it So you're the prototype and they just thought because they saw me operate this kid's a machine and the kid was like Oh, you're half man, half machine. How did that manifest itself in your showmanship? Would you be on a mic at that stage? So it was just monotonous, horrible, move like a robot. The cool thing was I tried.

Yeah. The uncool thing was it didn't work. Right, so it's great though. It's great, John, because it's just like acting. You do these first acting classes, it's so fucking embarrassing, you're so bad, but then you're over it. You did the worst you could do and you lived.

So the next one is Mr. P. I went from the flea markets of San Diego and the Mexican border to middle America in Kentucky. The Ohio Valley circuit. To the Ohio Valley. Okay, there's some history to this. Forgive my ignorance on wrestling, but I hear that a lot, Ohio Valley.

Tennessee Belt, that Ohio Valley and down into Tennessee was a very, very strong territory. It used to be like a cartel. Every place was run by a guy, they all would meet and fix prices and make sure this is the champion and all that. This is the old days. Yeah, I watched a few docs on this

and these wrestlers would travel, they'd go in and out of these different organizations, they'd be different characters. Yeah, so if I run Northern California and I hear you are wanted in Texas, I'll run you into the ground for four weeks and then ship you off to Von Ericsson, Texas, and they'll ship you back to Jerry Lawler in Nashville,

and then you come out to work for Vince McMahon, senior in New York, and then you go down to work for Billy Graham in Florida, and all these guys control the US. And then is it McMahon who unifies this? Yes. So he's the first to make like a national league, and NFL of it all.

Okay, so you're in the Ohio Valley. That's kind of big time, right? That's a huge step up. The next step is getting on television. The day I got my contract was the day I quit my job and I was still out in California at the time, but when I matriculated to like AAA baseball, I guess was the best way to say it, this could happen.

How exciting. It was great. How frequently were you wrestling? Performing, maybe that was a better way to say it. Three times a week. And you're so young it's not even, are you sore all the time or no? No, because there are different audiences that expect different things from you. Middle America wanted to root for the good guys and hate the bad guys.

So some performances don't call for you to do a full on stunt show. Some performances call you for looking like an idiot. And I was a bad guy so I was a perfect foil and I was not afraid to look stupid. And Jim Cornette and Danny Davis, two very wise men, shook the 50% man, 50% machine and said, we're going to still call you the prototype, aka Mr. P, and we're going to put you with this character we have called the role model. And it was the typical trope of an in-shape guy's name was Rico Constantino being the role model for how you should live in society and holding himself in a certain way, but then doing nefarious things in the ring.

So the classic bad guy. Oh, I love it. And I was his protege. So he would mentor me and tell me, like, how to look and how to lift and then how to be in the ring and then cheat to win, win at all costs. So these underlying things of like, we live a good life, don't we?

And then be bad. They were fraudulent. Yes. So it's an easy thing, and I could be more of myself and I could be goofy. They embraced that. Oh wow, you're gonna be a good foil for my good guys? Do all the crazy stuff you'd wanna do.

So it taught me to really swing big and not be under the construct of having to move like a robot. You have a built-in broadness to the role, the archetype, that allows you to swing kinda big. Yes, and I'm also not the main attraction. The role model is. You're the comic relief almost.

Yes. The jester. Yes. If I fail, it doesn't ruin the act. The role model can't fail. They had a lot of wisdom, they knew I needed a lot of work, and they put me in a situation where I wouldn't really fail. Or my failures wouldn't hurt their bottom line.

Hats off to them for that. And now, when you become John Cena in the WWE. I'm a forever WWE guy. How do we go from Mr. P to John Cena? And by the way, I had to educate myself on this, but you were a rapper. It's very Marky Mark. There was an edition of John Cena before that.

An iteration? Yes, indeed. Before you get on television with the WWE, they bring you up into the circuit and you do non-televised matches. So I had been traveling for a few months doing non televised matches But they send you to the TV broadcast anyway almost like a player that would go on the bench for a football team like oh This guy got hurt get on in and one day in Chicago

The Undertaker was sick and they had no one to fill the spot and in the middle of their production meeting They said what about the kid and it just happened to be in a very small window of time where we had gone from outlandish characters like The Undertaker and Mankind and Stone Cold Steve Austin, and there was a movement for more realism. Part of that movement was let's stop using gimmicky names and let's use their real name. That lasted for like five minutes

because then they realized we need to use a real name. So Seth Rollins is Colby Lopez. But this is a great gift to you, don't you think? In retrospect. Oh my goodness. The time it's thrown in my lap because now we're talking is John Cena and that's really who I am. Right, we don't have to go like,

oh fuck, I wanna call him The Rock but it's Dwayne. We know it's Dwayne. But dude, in 2002, I know what the prototype is. I'm a young 20-something year old man. I don't know who the fuck John Cena is. Of course not. So they tell me like, you're John Cena now. You haven't even gotten drunk yet.

And you're a good guy, exactly. Go out and do John Cena as a good guy. So I've spent my life being a bad guy. I've spent my life being a character. Now I'm told to be myself and go out there and be a good guy. I don't know what's going on. Yeah, identity-wise, this is a mess.

This is crazy. This is like getting a role in a movie and they give you nothing. Yeah, they're like be yourself. What they give you is get on out there. It's time to go. And that's it. And I didn't have enough depth of field.

They put little nuggets down. Like my introduction was Kurt Angle made an open challenge and I walked out. He's like, what makes you think you can be out here? And I said, ruthless aggression, which was a theme in the program at that time. And I slapped him in the face and here we go. That was the only moment that I was either ruthless or aggressive. I just tried to be a good guy and do good moves. But I didn't understand that, okay, your character

could be ruthless aggression guy. And I didn't lean into those notes at all. So that failed and I was about to get fired. When I knew I was going to let go, I started swinging a little big. And I started hanging around the boys because the way I was about to get fired. When I knew I was gonna let go, I started swinging a little big, and I started hanging around the boys because the way I was taught in the Ohio Valley was keep your ears open and your mouth shut and don't ruffle any feathers. You're in a very awful world. Yes, and that led to my peer group saying,

he never talks to us and he doesn't care about the business. Oh. Because you're supposed to go to the people with the wisdom and be like, what's the secret? Yeah. I was told you don't ruffle any feathers and you keep your mouth shut. Right, this is a catch-22.

Yeah, damn, I'm in a bit of a situation. But then when they were like, hey, it's September, October, we're gonna send you on this international tour to get you a paycheck, and then after that, you know it's not working out. And I couldn't argue, oh my God, okay. But they started freestyling on the back of the bus, and I just jumped in the circle.

And that was your first time. That was my first time ever showing character or showmanship and I hadn't been given that opportunity on WWE but I understand why, because I'd never earned it. The head of creative, Vince's daughter, Stephanie, happened to be in the front of the bus. And heard you rapping with the guys back there. And she was like, hey, how did you remember all that?

I'm like, no, no, you just make it up. She's like, would you want to do that on television? Sure would, because I know who the Marky Mark guy is. I know who the rap guy is. Was he an image in your mind at that point? Oh my god. Because when you walk out with the chains, I watched a clip of you walking out with a huge fucking bicycle

chain around your thing. And I'm like, oh, it's Marky Mark plus 65 pounds. So I grew up on the North Shore of Massachusetts, and there's a beach there called Hampton Beach in New Hampshire. And there's a strip. You cruise there. I used to see these kids thinking that they were street hard. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But like, we're from West Newbury. That doesn't exist. I know you're trying to express yourself and find out who you are. So I just burned that image in my head of, man, I would love to just punch that kid in the face. So because I wanted to punch him in the face, I'm like, if I can do that,

people will want to punch me in the face. That's what I need to be. So at least I found, all right, I'm not going to be a cool rap guy. That's why I'm announced from West Newbury, Massachusetts. Right. To further embarrass how ridiculous this kid think he is. Yeah. You discovered Elaine. I was given a chance that I understood, go all into the rap thing. I dressed ridiculous. I act ridiculous. I started doing ridiculous movements, I started talking ridiculous. 24 seven, I was in the rap gimmick, they instituted a dress code in WWE. Soon after I changed my gimmick, and I raised my hand, I said,

I'm not doing it in front of everyone in front of my peers. I rebelled against authority because I'm you guys are gonna kill my character. They're never gonna believe it. We're going from city to city to city. and we're traveling with everyone else. We rent cars from everyone else. We go to the hotel with everyone else. We pull up to the arena and there are fans out there. I used to freestyle battle kids in parking lots in front of the arenas.

Oh my God. Had you had any practice prior to this or you just discovered you can do this? It was a hobby at best. So as a teenager, I got beat up for listening to hip hop and I got beat up for dressing hip hop. That was not the music of the time in West Newbury, Massachusetts.

So it's always been something I've been passionate about and I found my few friends who were into it and we would mess around with it as a young teen. Certainly when I got put into prep school, my roommate was from Compton. We immediately bonded and then we got the hip hop click together and during study hall instead of studying, one of my friends had a turntable and a mic

and we record our freestyles. Did you like ghetto boys? The Texas scene was alright. I was definitely more of a New York boom bap. And then when the West Coast thing hit with Dre and Snoop Dogg, it was a wrap. You never looked back. Never looked back. Okay, so now you're rapping and now you're on TV and you're pulling it off and it's crazy.

And you've got the fucking backwards hat. You've got the whole thing. Whatever you can imagine, the ridiculous turn up to 11, that's a phrase you hear a lot in the WWE. This is who I am, just turned up to 11. Right. Mine, the knob broke, the spinal tap, 11, we were gone. You went to 14.

Yeah. Okay, so how long before that character evolves into the second iteration really of John, which was like a principled guy, loyalty? So I think that was 2006 or seven, and that was a personal choice because every night I have legitimate feedback on our consumers. Meaning by how they respond vocally. Not that the rap guy was fun.

Everybody was having fun because it ended up being like a punchline insult comic. I would go out and do five rhymes, make fun of the town, make fun of everybody, make fun of my opponent. When I became a good guy, I would just do five punch lines on my opponent. And everybody would be like, oh, this is fun, this is great. Yeah, okay.

But they were pushing boundaries because I knew that attitude would get response. So I would go push as far as I could. And I started seeing more and more families. You gotta remember from the 90s, the WWE labeled itself the attitude era. And it was TV 14 and it borderlined on some mature stuff. I was a fan of that and I kind of kept that,

but the WWE moved towards PG. Yes, they weren't quite PG yet, but they wanted to move in that direction. And I understand why. Every night you got data at your fingertips. There is a family there, there's a family there, there's a little kid there. You see little kids wearing your stuff

and your stuff is pushing the boundaries. And then I was like, you know what? I wanna stop doing this. And I remember all the producers, it was my choice. And everybody would be like, well, it was a good run. What are you going to do now? But I had built a relationship with the audience enough where they kind of knew my value system too, because I had to start from the bottom and I wasn't like, you're our next superstar.

So I wasn't kicking ass. You weren't forced on that everyone. I got my ass kicked. So my thing became like, take a bunch of punishment, never give up. And that's kind of my value system too. And then I wanted to put hustle, loyalty and respect, which really hard work, loyalty and respect

are right in my value lane. So as a young man, I got to take my background and it was a slow change. Started to wear a little bit higher jean shorts, started to not wear the Reebok pumps. Started to wear T-shirts that fit. Started to turn my hat around and bend it. Changed the catchphrases and the designs of my merchandise.

It wasn't a, now I'm this guy. And how does that jive with the overall, because I think that's what's fascinating about what you're doing, is you're on a television show and there are writers constructing the overall arching plot of this season. Who's going to be the champion? about what you're doing is you're on a television show and there are writers constructing the overall arching plot of this season. Who's going to be the champion? All these different things.

How are you inserting your own agenda into their much broader plan or is their plan evolving pretty flexibly and are they very adaptive? I try to be the most adaptive. I've always operated under the construct of if I'm not putting up the money, I'm a piece on someone else's chessboard. I'm a toy in somebody else's sandbox. How do I be that best piece? I don't want to, as a rook, become a knight. I just want to be a really good rook.

As a fire truck in your sandbox, I don't want to become a shovel, but damn, I'll work hard to become that best fire truck. So your opponents and your trajectory changes all the time. When it does, you just have to react of like, what would the rap guy do? You just have to make the moment true for whatever the story they give you is.

Like what would Superman do? And that's the North Star that I would use after the evolution of this character of like, put me with anybody, I can win, I can lose, I can have any opponent, I can be in any match. What would a virtuous dude who lives by the ethos of loyalty, hard work and respect, who puts on his shirts, never give up, how does he give a post-game interview after the biggest loss of his life? How does he celebrate achievement? Is he humble? Like all of those things, you can get put in any situation and

the fans continue to believe because you're authentically self. And that was very different than what would the shit talking rap guy do. I had a Sharpie in my shoes and signed the lens of the camera cause I saw Terrell Owens do it. Right, right. That wasn't something that I would do when I evolved. Okay. So it seems when I'm watching these clips, there's so much improv in this show.

I have to imagine, do you know plot points when you're in the ring, right? You know it's gotta escalate to someone challenging someone, but is the rest of it pretty much just all off the dome? So it depends. The way I was taught, the way they used to work in the cartel era was you listen to the audience. And somewhere along the line,

because of stunt and fight choreography and probably supply and demand, our audience wanted to see bigger and better. A lot of folks will choreograph everything and it makes for a beautiful exposition. I can remember everything. I'm probably not good at choreographing everything, but if someone's like, hey, this is the four pages

of match that I have, let's do that. Okay, this is the partner I'm with tonight. Time to study to pass the bar. Is it like learning to play in football? Or it's like learning a play in theater. Yeah. Like, hey, here's my script. Yes. But I operate under the construct of improv, where if you and I are both trained, and

we both make it to the major leagues, I know you can do 12 things. We don't even have to talk. I know you have these fundamentals, you'll be there and your timing will be there. And then we talk and be like, well, what else do you do? And you can tell me the special things that you do and a lot of people try to put it in their play of like I just said no no no what are the movements that you do thank you we'll figure it out out there so I go out there with a time limit and an end. Are there visual markers to check in with where you're at time wise?

Everyone is helping everyone so the referees you can talk to, and then every arena has a clock, because it's a hockey arena. So every arena still has a high digital clock and the three's somewhere so you can see by that. And they'll let you know if you're taking up too much TV time. You know what I didn't anticipate about all this?

That now that you're explaining it, excites me to no end. There is no better feeling than when you're in a scene with somebody and it gets wild and you guys both know what you can do and it goes there and you crush like, I bet the pleasure of it being so simpatico, the ballet working, the improv playing off of each other. I bet it has to be like a great, great scene in a movie. Did it feel like a very shared, wonderful, like, oh, two humans have connected their minds

and we acted in unison, that's a very special experience. So imagine that now, and I don't even wanna say in front of a crowd, because the crowd is a mind that you connect with as well. They're the superstars, they run the show. They give you instant gratification of if the bits work or if it doesn't. But there's apathetic silence and then there's interesting silence. There's excitement.

So they're co-writing the bit with you. They are. That's why I don't like to do the playbook. I'm not knocking it. Because it can't adjust for the real time stuff. Dude, if we go out there and we do our first bit of choreography to apathetic silence, we are doomed. But if we have nothing and we have apathy, maybe if I turn the speed up, they'll get in. Maybe if I slow down, maybe I need you to do something big, and you can throw all of these lines in the water. And then when you get interest, what kind of interest do I have? Are they for the bad guy? Are they for the good guy? How do I need

to curate this? I've had people get married during my bits and worked it into the match. Oh my. Fights break out in the stands. Sure. Work the fights into the match. Europeansights break out in the stands, I worked the fights into the match. Europeans love to bring the beach balls, we broke the beach balls into the match. I'm basically saying to the audience, you wanna be heard, I hear you,

and I'm making it all make sense, and it's seamless. God, the parallels between stand up and sketch. It's stand up. Although it's also sketch or improv because there's two of you or three of you, the ref and whoever else is involved. Yeah, and that's why I get so excited when I talk about it because those moments in there when things go right or wrong,

you talk to good sketch folks and good standup folks, they don't mind bombing every once in a while because it's really humbling. And it makes the highs higher. It makes the highs higher and just the feeling of, man, we integrated everyone and told our story. So they'll say you have 15 minutes, this is the end of the story arc

where it looks like you're never gonna save the day and then at some point triumphantly, you somehow do it. Go figure out how that happens and you just get to go out there and make it up. Oh, it's so great. I think I had stuck in my head, Monica, I don't know what presupposed opinions you brought into it. I guess I thought, well, it's really hard on your body.

It is. It's a beat down, you travel nonstop. You do. You're a carny. You're probably dying to get out and become the rock. It would be the same as having a crowd at a standup show, letting that go. It's very enjoyable.

Yeah. So when you get approached then in 2006 or seven to do the... Marine. The Marine, you're doing pretty good. You're doing great. Thank Marine. You're doing pretty good. You're doing great. Thank you. You're doing great.

You are never shy for information or wisdom, my friend. I appreciate that. I don't know what wisdom, but info. No, no, don't say yourself short. You're a tremendous slouch. Okay, so the Marine comes along. You're not hunting for that opportunity at that moment, right? No.

Vince McMahon has just decided to start a studio and the first thing's gonna be this movie. I don't know if it was the first. They filmed a horror movie and The Marine at the same time. Okay, and it was supposed to be Stone Cold. And he bails two weeks out and then they approach you. What's your initial reaction? 100%, but not because I wanna be a movie star.

I've always been fascinated not only with wrestling and the art of wrestling, I've been fascinated with the business. Like when I say I love WWE, man, I love it. Well, let me add, I think it's relevant now to people understand your place in the history of this organization. You're a 16 time champion, which is the record.

You've been doing it since 2002, and you're still president. That's not just yesterday. That's not yesterday. You're one of the longest serving people to ever do it. You're the most championed. You're in the hall of fame. Not yet.

Oh, you're not. Not yet, we're gonna save that. That's what the result of this will be. I hope so. I hope this is the swing. I hope you thank us in your speech. I will. I'll come out as Mr. P.

Right on. But you're one of the best that's ever done it. There's no reason for you to desire anything else. If anything, you just wanna make that even bigger and better. That was the bill of goods I was sold. Hey, we're trying this thing. If we make you guys movie stars, more people will come to see you wrestle. So forget these arenas, we're trying this thing. If we make you guys movie stars, more people will come to see you wrestle.

So forget these arenas, we're gonna run stadiums. Whoa, 100,000 people a night, and all I gotta do is go to Australia for four or five months and come back to the US in between to film TVs? No problem, let's do it. Right, it's gonna be the circular self-perpetuating loop. Those are the wrong reasons to get into

being vulnerable in front of camera. Because I didn't go over there with the construct of like giving my whole self to a scene and I always wanted to be in the ring. So I'm suffering in Australia for these long 12, 15 hour days. You go from like, hey, you're on at 7.30 and you're done by 8.05.

Also what I already heard from how it works, the mechanics of it, you go from having great autonomy over what you do to none. You stand here, you look over there, no, look to the other side of the camera, say these lines, you didn't say that word right. There's no feedback. Again, authority as well.

Library quiet, I'm in my mid-20s, I'm riding this lightning bolt, that's something I've always wanted to do, and then it just gets taken away. I was literally commuting from Australia back to the States to film SmackDowns, and then I'd go back to Australia to film the movie while I'm doing the movie. Unreal.

Was there any part of the first experience that did pique your interest? None. So then it comes out and it does well for what it was. Yes, but you could see that it only did well because of whomever. Because you're jacked like a motherfucker. No. The WWE had a great fan base. It was a low budget action movie. It was a time where media was different.

You still had to kind of go to the theater. It was like right at the time it was supposed to happen. It was a throwback B movie. I think you're grading on a curve there, but I appreciate what you're saying. I know what you're saying. Yeah, yeah. I just did a bunch of those under the construct of

if one of these hits will be okay. But I never wanted to go do that stuff. I always just wanted to be back in the ring. Okay, so then what's switched? Another big turning point iswreck. So I'm curious how we get to like yes I'm gonna do this thing because ultimately it'll bolster the thing. I actually love when do you start going? Wait, I want to do this one of the last bad movies. I did I was like man I never want to do this again And then I remember a WrestleMania in Houston, Texas

Where a producer wanted to meet myself and my agent now manager And they got us into a room and they pitched us a movie called maniac cop 5 and you're talking B This was down into the below f-range. We heard their pitch out left the room and I looked at him We tell this story all the time. I'm like damn we're never doing movies again He's like, nope, we're never doing movies again, and he confidently he didn't pat me on the back. No, just wait it out No, we're never doing movies again. That's confidently, he didn't pat me on the back, no, I'll just wait it out. No, we're never doing movies again. That's okay, we're gonna find other avenues. So this is 2009, 10, I've been on the road 300 days a year.

Can I ask you an inappropriate financial question? Sure. What level are people getting paid in this realm? In my realm or now? Your realm back in that day, were you taking a pay cut to go do movies? For me, yes. An easier way for me to do is to do comps,

which is like, you guys are athletes that are seen in sold out arenas, and the TV ratings have always been the biggest on cable. Like when Punk beat WWE, MTV threw a party. That's the high watermark on cable was WWE. Bigger than the baseball games are shown on TBS. You guys aren't making what baseball players are making. Or are some of you?

No, but the revenue isn't the same. All of what Major League Baseball is making, you have to remember that WWE is MLB. So take all the teams, all of what they make, that's what you got. And there's also competition in Major League Baseball. Oakland wants to be better than the Dodgers, and Boston wants to be better than New York,

so they're more willing to take risks and more willing to spend money. WWE is kind of the only place. They have a monopoly. No, because a monopoly is a situation where competition isn't allowed to exist. They put out a great product, but we've had ECW, Ted Turner's WCW, currently AEW.

I mean, if you play for the Angels and they don't want to pay you your market value, you go to the Tigers. There's an option. You could go to EC, whatever you just said. That's not really a comp. It was a pence, and market value is what go to the Tigers. There's an option. You could go to EC, whatever you just said. That's not really a comp. It depends. And market value is what someone will pay for.

But in a world where there's not 70 teams to bid on you. So that's the thing, but there also isn't the revenue of 70 teams. When you have 70 teams that are geosite, New York fans are diehard, so are Boston fans, multi-generational. It's a different model. So they're not generating even close.

We're doing good, but it ain't Major League Baseball. Okay. And you can't look at a single data point like ratings and say like, that's it. We're doing good, but we ain't the NFL, we ain't Major League Baseball, we ain't the NBA. But guys aren't making a million dollars a year and above. So what I loved about when I came up was it was incentive based. You would get a certain guarantee, which was very healthy, but there wasn't a year I'd made my guarantee.

You'd profit shared in the attendance, profit shared in the merchandise sales, anything related to your IP. So pretty much it's like work hard for us and you will be rewarded. There's a number on paper where you're supposed to make come hell or high water. You blow a knee out, you're gonna get your guarantee.

But it was incentive to work as many shows as you could. They paid me well for the movies, but I knew like I can sell tickets, I can sell these amount of t-shirts, I'm losing money doing this. Right. That was another frustrating thing of like, man, I just want to be back there. And also WWE audiences real quick, if you're off TV two weeks, they're onto the next new shiny toes. A lot of options. They're like, man, they're forgetting about me and somebody else is going to take the storyline. You really have a lot of anxiety that you're gonna just be left behind. Oh, it's heart breaking.

Yeah, I kinda always just wanted to be back there until my character never really had a chance to make a hyper change after the virtuous John Cena. I was different versions of the virtuous John Cena, but that worked really well. And they never decided to be like, now you're gonna be the mustache twirling evil guy. Evil Hulk Hogan.

Yes, and I didn't mind doing the same act. ACDC, they play Thunderstruck all the time. But there were chances to do something different. You saw where this was going and there wasn't much guesswork to predict where this was heading. At a certain point you go, I'm not gonna be making that crazy character change.

Yeah, so I think that was what was exciting of I'm never gonna be able to crazy character change. Yeah, so I think that was what was exciting, of I'm never gonna be able to tell R-rated jokes here. I'm never gonna be able to even kick someone in the nuts. And now Judd Apatow wants me to be naked? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, let's do that. So it wasn't like, oh, this is gonna parlay into more people watching.

It was like, no, man, you've had a good run. So by the time 14 happens, I won the world championship in 2004, a decade on tour, not missing a whole lot of shows. The checks don't bounce. Had you told me in 2014, we're gonna ride this out until you physically can't, I was yes all in because it's never boring.

And the reason WWE is never boring is it's a different environment every night. And I was dubbed the most polarizing character on WWE because as the virtuous guy, you'd think like people love the good guy. No, people hated the good guy. Yeah, well they feel talked down to. And I won a bunch and they're like, anybody else, anybody but this guy. So every crowd was different and it kept me present

and it kept me on my toes. You wanted to win them over every night, I imagine. I just wanted to hear them. The way I acted in front of a crowd that would sing my theme song instead of, dun, dun, dun, dun, they would say, John Cena sucks, John Cena sucks. I've been a few times, they are ruthless.

Those were fun environments and that stuff never gets old. But someone was like, hey, is it gonna be like two and a half weeks, come to New York, we're gonna do some crazy shit. Are you in? Yes. And I presume you're already a fan of comedy and Judd. Once the WWU was like, yeah, we think you should do this.

I was like, oh, this is gonna be great. Hats off to Judd and Amy and everybody. Well, they let you improv in the initial audition, which I think is such a kindness. They're awesome to work with. Certainly for me, I'm like, oh, they got this big ass wrestler in this movie. And then I was like, oh, this motherfucker's funny.

So self-deprecating, so willing to go for it. Perfect scenario. I haven't had a chance to do anything like this. Money, so self-deprecating, so willing to go for it. Perfect scenario. I haven't had a chance to do anything like this. I wanna do it all, because this might be the one chance I get, because it's never gonna happen again, because I looked at my buddy in the eye and said,

we're never doing movies, right? And he's like, we're never doing movies. Okay, this is it, we fooled him once. Let's see what happens. Stay tuned for more of Arm chair expert if you dare. So was there any anxiety for you about having a pretty young fan base in an era where it had transferred to PG kind of juggling the tension of being very R-rated in movies and then very PG on TV.

I'm grateful for the way it is now that people are like, oh, that is you, but it is you doing your thing and you're allowed to kind of live life outside of that. But this was also after 10 years of me being on television. The wrestling fans want you to be who you are. They want you to show up and do a pose down and hit somebody with a chair. I'd even argue they fucking hate actors.

They offer you to come promote a movie at these events and every time I watch the actors go up, they get so shit on and I've been asked to do it a bunch of times, I'm like, I'm not gonna fly somewhere to get shit on like that. Our audiences, they love their people. I think it's great. I just don't wanna be on the business end of it. Doesn't sound very fun. They'll let you know how they feel. Yeah, they don't like. I think it's great. I just don't want to be on the business end of it.

Doesn't sound very fun. They'll let you know how they feel. Yeah, they don't like Hollywood. It's pretty simple. Let's look at that, right? Cause I don't want them to say that no wrestling fan watches movies. I love how protective you are of all these things.

It's very, you have a lot of integrity. People pay money to go into arena to see wrestling. And in that show where I paid whatever for this ticket and I want to cheer and boo and I have my sign and I wanna show that you're gonna give me a five minute commercial on a movie I should see. Yeah, and then Dax Shepard rocks out. As Mr. P and his interpretation of that

is just a man who urinates constantly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I don't think that they don't like movies, they don't like Hollywood. I just think they don't want their thing interrupted that they paid for. Yeah, yeah, that's fair. Because a lot of our audience goes to the movies

and a lot of our audience is very supportive of my efforts so I wouldn't be where I'm at without them. Okay, so then you do Blockers in 2018. I just pray you love Ike as much as we do. Ike, if you're listening, I know you are. It's been too long since we've had to sit down with each other. I love that man.

He is fantastic. Sharp, witty, but also a great human being. So 2018 you do Blockers and you do Bumblebee. That's your first franchise you drop into, right? This is a transformer world. Are you adjusting at all now the sites? At this point, does The Rock's Journey look attractive? At this point, I have great understanding

and empathy of The Rock's Journey. I called him out earlier when I was a full-time guy to try to get him for one of our most successful Paper views of all time. Yeah set up a year in advance, but boy did I do it the wrong way Oh you did the cornerstone of my argument was like you say you love the business and you're never around What's your problem you liar and here I am Setting yourself up to be a hypocrite. I love the business I haven't been to raw or smackdown in a long time. Right, right.

Because life happens. This guy took us, bet on himself, swung big, had the world by the bootstraps and couldn't have done anything in WWEF. But he's like, no, no, I'm going to try this. And he actively wanted to tackle that. I more kind of, the phone kept ringing. Hey, do you want to tell another story as a weird character? Sure do.

I thought this would be the last time you'd call. Well, you must be at a point now where it's like, yeah, my post wrestling life will be acting. So still doing WWE? Oh, I know. But I'm saying at the point where you've already alluded to in previous interviews and in this one, your body's not going to permit you at some point. I am 700 days away from losing my fastball. Right.

It's really close. The business has been good to me. I just want to do right and be good to the business. I don't want to hang around for longer than I should just because my ego says I need to be involved. It's time. And the movies are more and more appealing? Well, it's a place to be creative. I get to surround myself with wonderful people.

It's led me here to sit with you. And the phone keeps ringing. So I can sit here across from you and say, I'm going to do movies, and then the phone stops ringing? I gotta pivot. Yeah, yeah, you're gonna open a wrestling academy. I don't put forth the money to do the movies, so as long as the phone keeps ringing, I'm in.

Right, so you end up in like three franchises in rapid order, Fast and Furious, F9's your first one, then you did Fast X or Fast 10. Fast 10, your seat belts. Again, I'm gonna bring back my question about the alpha energy. Because to drop into a franchise that they've been doing for 20 years,

it has its leader. There's an interesting dynamic, which is the guests are bigger than the alpha elite guy. That's a perspective. Well, anatomically, when The Rock shows up, Vin all of a sudden looks like an average man. Vin's a big boy. He's a an average man. Vin's a big boy. He's a very big boy.

He is a big boy. And he's big in all the ways. Yes. At least rumored that was a rough pairing. There's certainly rumors about that. I can't deny that. You have two very alpha driven people. You get two, there can only be one.

That's right. It's called alpha for a reason. Yep. So did you enter the scene being mindful of that or you already have a playbook for that? Man, you gotta remember, I got dropped into a locker room where generational vets, what'd your dad do? Wrestled. What'd your granddad do?

Wrestled. I've been in that environment. Know the room and just kinda adapt to what's going on. I'm being invited into someone's home, into someone's family, and regardless of how they look physically in comparison to another human being, this is one IP that has had nine installments, and it's an action movie.

That's rarefied error. Oh, it's never happened. At the very least, there has to be respect for that. And I think when you look at it through that perspective. You don't have any problem giving it up. And I also know I'm a guest. I'm not trying to get the sandbox. That's not my thing.

I'm grateful for what you've given me. I just want to be the best fire truck I can a guest. I'm not trying to get the sandbox. That's not my thing. I'm grateful for what you've given me. I just want to be the best fire truck I can. Right. Okay, now Suicide Squad, you joined the movie and now you're playing Peacemaker. Yep. And you told a great story about how you settle on what Peacemaker is.

You had a bunch of different versions of it. Yeah, so I met with James. He's meticulous about who he works with because he wants everything to function well and work should be fun. One of the many things I love about him. We met, we hit it off, he offered me the part, I immediately said yes, and then I was like, hey, do you want me to read the comics? He's like, no, we're doing it my way.

That's already a fractured backstory anyways, it's been written by many different people with many different takes. So then I was like, okay, who is this guy? And the best I could do is this America Lee Ermey, full metal jacket type disciplinarian who has this set of skills and feels as if he's been wrongfully accused, like Lee Ermey is really kind of an asshole in full metal jacket. So I came up with that of like, this is Peacemaker.

The very first scene we all do is on the beach where Peacemaker is going back and forth with Idris's character. And James, because they built a beach, is on the other end of the beach sending in notes. And finally there's a long pause, and I'm like, oh, what's going on? James comes out. He's like, okay, Peacemaker's like a douchey Captain America. And right there it was like, do you want to be the rap guy?

Yep, I know what the rap guy is. Just be a douchey Captain America. That's the best direction I've ever heard. No problem, that's great. I have an image of what that is, and I a douchey Captain America. That's the best direction I've ever heard. Douchey, bro-y, no problem. That's great. I have an image of what that is and I'll try to do that. And then we were like listening to the same radio station. Do you get embarrassed in that moment?

No, the embarrassment is if they kept all that stuff in and tanked the movie. That was bad, yeah. I mean, that's a very healthy perspective, but when you've thought something through, committed to something and then you're told like that's not working. I think it takes a lot of inner stalwartness to just go, okay, let me shake that off. Cause that's embarrassing to me. Embarrassing, sure. I tried my best and I was vulnerable and it didn't work.

Yes, it's a very vulnerable endeavor. Yes, it doesn't work. But any idea or construct should be able to withstand criticism or change. He gave me a good explanation of why. He didn't just go because I said so. And he explained it wasn't just douchey bro, he Captain America because this is how we're going to play the story. This is how I want the character arc to go. This is where he has a moment of redemption. This is where we take it away.

That's a good explanation, James. Let's rock. So I can't say, but my work I put in all this time. I think you've also earned a lot of confidence along the way. I think you've earned some resilience. From failure. You get embarrassed, and again, I had... And you live. Tens of thousands of people tell me I suck night in and night out for a decade. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Me messing up in front of you guys and taking a big swing in front of 40 people. You're right. It does have a moment of like, ah, that bombed. It wasn't crushing in any way. If anything, he took the time to come out and help me, which he could have been like, okay, we got it. I'm just going to edit peacemaker out. Right. We're going to have a long lunch tomorrow. I'd much rather him communicate with me the problem and see if we can work on a resolve rather than edit the kid out of the picture.

Okay. And then just the last thing we got to touch on before we make it to Ricky Stinecki is what a joy to see in Barbie, the best movie of the decade. So much. So good. Merman. I mean, Merman. What a fucking movie. This movie is so incredible.

I've seen it three times with my daughters. I laugh hysterically every, and it's one of my favorite comedies I've ever seen. Yes. Did you get it immediately? Like I was thinking, Monica and I talked about this a lot. She's earned it for you to trust Greta, but still there's many scenes where I'm watching Ryan Gosling like he is on a plastic set singing his heart out

This is a humongous swing. Yeah, and it fucking worked perfectly But the moment where you're joining into this bizarro heightened world. Is it an adjustment? I wasn't originally cast I ran into Margo by accident at a restaurant and she came over to give me a hug. She said, oh, it's great to see you. What restaurant? I want to run into her. Man, we were at the Core by Claire Smith in London. Oh, we were shooting Fast.

Oh, that's supposed to be great. Man, it was. I'm actually sorry. There's a lot of wrestling in cars and now there's a restaurant. She's done quite well for herself over there. Great experience. Fast was shooting across the street.

Barbie and Fast were shooting on the same lot at the same time. I heard about Barbie, I'm like, how do I get in? I'll dye my hair, I'll do whatever. It's a wrap, they start shooting, I'm like, all right, whatever, running to Margot by accident. She comes over, gives me a hug. She's like, you should have done Barbie.

I'm like, I tried, you guys wouldn't have me. She literally looks to the people she's having dinner with or to the people making the choices. She's like, put the kid in the picture. The next day I get a call, hey, we have half a day's work for you as a merman. Yes. Do you want?

And everyone in my life who was responsible for the decisions was like, I don't know, I think you're above this. I thank you for the perspective, we're doing it. Yeah, good job. It was awesome. I kind of knew the construct of the movie, and then when you walked and looked at the sets and the vibe on set

Pink everything all the golf carts transporting people were paying Everyone was in on the gag from day one and everyone was enthusiastic You could tell at least you would get everyone's heart and soul that puts you in a good position. Oh, it's so good It's so good. If I were you I'd just be so delighted. Oh, what a great opportunity Yeah, when I was younger, I would have been like, half day. I would have gotten hung up on what your team was saying. Put me at 52 on the depth chart. Don't even put me on the depth chart.

I'll take it. Uncredited. Yes. Okay, Ricky Stinecki. So this is a Peter Farrelly movie, which we haven't seen a Peter Farrelly movie in a while. Haven't seen a Peter Farrelly comedy in a while. Okay, that's a good distinction.

You want an Oscar for Green Book, he's doing pretty good. That's a great point, but in a straight up comedy, raunchy comedy. It's been a while. How do you come to be involved in that? So I think Pete's been trying to make this movie for 15 years, and again, I wouldn't first on the depth chart, 15 years.

He's had a lot of people in mind to make the movie. Well, can I just immediately give you a compliment? Your role in this isn't to be a huge guy. No. In fact, hope you would take this casting as a huge compliment, which is if anything, it might get in the way. We actually had to address it in the dialogue in the movie

in two throwaway sentences. I know it by heart. So if you're a drunk, why are you so ripped? Roids. Yeah, a ton of them. I was addicted to those too. Yeah, yeah. So it's great that we just address it and then it's gone.

So you're not wondering. Why is this guy so fucking big and he's a lounge singer and he's this. I'm applauding you because you have this role almost in spite of your massive physicality. Thank you. And then there's great fucking people in this movie. Zach's in it, Andrew Santino who's so funny.

Who is just so funny. Jermaine Fowler, also so funny. Jeff Ross, William H. Macy. I hate to ever say this, but you steal this movie like crazy. You are the star of this movie. You're so pleasant every time you arrive, it's like, oh great. Yes.

The yummy thing is now on the scene. Man, I got to get better at taking compliments. Thank you. Yes. But also the way the yummy thing gets yummy is everyone else playing their role to the best of their ability. Quickly. You are a drunk piece of shit in Atlantic City

who's got a cover band. You do many impersonations. One man show. Everything's about masturbation. Yep, jizz jams. Yes, and so they discovered early in their life that they could blame things on this- Imaginary friend.

Yes, Ricky Stinecki. And now the bills come due, their wives are starting to get, and their partners are starting to get aware that something stinks, and they need Ricky Stinecki. And they just met this fucking weirdo in Atlantic City, and it occurs to them, like, let's bring this guy in. But then the cutest thing in what gives this movie legs

is that you take it so seriously. We're not expecting that. You show up with the shakes, because you've quit drinking for this. You've learned impossible amounts of details about the backstory, enough so that you can confront the suspicions. It's kind of Chauncey Gardner.

All of a sudden everyone kind of starts falling in love with this guy. This is where it's great, but it's a problem. It's a big problem for the boys. For you, it's fantastic. You land a job making a quarter mill a year out of it. Yeah. And a movie ensues, and I certainly don't want to give it all away.

There's a lot of stories going on. The stories of the friends attaching themselves to this lie to remain friends and continue their love for each other even though life happens. A lot of friend circles split up when you get older because life happens. They've kept themselves together and go on these amazing adventures because they haven't out Ricky's to Nikki. And then major life things happen that you really need some more proof of why you missed this. And they get backed into a corner to having to produce this imaginary friend. And in the thing of keeping their lie alive, which is really toxic for the guys,

I get the opportunity of a lifetime. So it's weird. There's a lot of stuff going on at the same time. The movie is a fun ride because even the guys with a lie, you want to root for them to be redeemable. And of course you want to root for this down and out guy who's so passionate about jizz jams when he gets his opportunity and he starts crushing it. Like, oh man, this guy's a pretty good guy. But John, you see the obvious parallels here.

Enlighten me. You're a wrestler, you're a 16 time. And you enter this world and lo and behold, you're hysterical and wonderful. And this character has no business coming in and tackling this mission. And then lo and behold, he's charming and likable and delightful. That is super nice to say. I mean, this is a very funny and real life parallel. This one is very close to me in many chapters and I wouldn't just say transferring from your TV screen

to a big screen. Wasn't supposed to play sports, wasn't supposed to go to prep school, wasn't supposed to get accepted to college, wasn't supposed to be anything out in California, wasn't supposed to make it in wrestling, wasn't supposed to last a week. Are we ever doing movies again?

Nope, that's out and here we are. I hate telling the audience how to feel. I want them to watch the movie, be entertained, and take their own thing away. But what I really loved about it is Rock Hard Rod, AKA Ricky Sinekis perseverance. The dude is passionate, he goes all in, and he just never gives up.

He has the three tenets of John Cena. Yeah. Yeah, really. Yeah, and doesn't understand that he's a joke. Because he doesn't understand it, and he passionately believes in it. To him, it's not a joke. He gets a fan base of people that share his passion and believe in him as well.

Pretty good parallel. Thanks, man. I appreciate it. Thank you. I know you're proposing that you're just waiting for the phone to ring, but you're in a position, obviously, to craft some kind of balance, whether you're doing a superhero thing and then maybe you wanna do a comedy

and then maybe you wanna do this. I am in no position to do that. Well, how about this? Do you come off of fast some other things and think, oh, I wanna go fuck around and be silly? Do you have that thought? Do you say to your agents, like I would love to do a comedy next?

Have you ever called your agent? I just wait for them to call you or her to call you. I know I spend most of my time with those guys. They're great folks, but I just operate under the construct of don't manifest anything Just look at the cards you're dealt and how do you play them the best you can? So if I say I want to do a comedy, I don't want those guys shutting the door to everything else

I operate under the construct of we take all calls. You're gonna be a merman. Yes I am where those guys and I understand their perspective. This is beneath you at this point. I don't believe that I don't believe anything's beneath me. We're gonna do it. Any role in the best movie in the year is not beneath anyone. So I never wanna be the smartest guy in the room. I wanna work with people who make me better. And I've had a lot of chance to be surrounded by folks who make me better.

Okay, this has been a blast. I'm a cynic and a skeptic, and I read this, and I totally welled up today. I wanna get a gas out of Monica. So when did you start working with Make-A-Wish? 2003. So he has the world record of making the most wishes come true. So when did you start working with Make-A-Wish? 2003? So he has the world record of making the most wishes come true. What would you think that number is?

Oh God, 50? I would have been like, world records maybe 50. That would be a lot. Over 650. No! Doesn't that make you want to fucking cry? Is that every day you're making a wish come true? Yeah, what is the schedule of making these wishes come true?

So it's never about the workload. The thing I find most surprising about that, and the thing I find most humbling about that, is you don't say, I'll just do them all. You have to be chosen. Right, right, right. It has to be someone's actual wish. Because the charity is, you're up against a tough climb. What do you want to do?

They have to say, I'd like to hang out with John Cena, which is the most humbling thing I've ever heard. And then for them to say it over and over and over again, I'll do as many of them as I want, but you've got to also be chosen. So have you done every one you've been chosen for? I've never turned one down. Oh.

And what's the craziest lengths you had to go to? The thing is, a lot of the crazy work is done by the charity, and that's why I'm so supportive of the charity. They have admin people that raise funds and get the families to where they need to be. And I'm the finish line. I get to see what their paper pushing and hard work and effort does. I get to see smiles. I get to see hope.

I get to see families take a day off. I can ask a child like, hey, is there anything you want to see in the show tonight? And you can be like, you did this one move back 10 years ago in this match. No problem. I've got you. And I know where they're sitting. WWE is the best for this experience. You can make it a long drawn out thing before the show. You meet the family. We have so much gear, especially me, and you just load them up with stuff and get them all hyped up. And then you're going to go out there and you've never been, oh my goodness, it's gonna be spectacular. And then they go out to this 10,000, 20,000 seat arena that's packed with energy and mayhem

and everything is shiny and new, but they come to see you so when you're out there and it's usually later in the show, you completely curate the experience for them. No one else is the wiser. Right. Because they don't know the conversation we've had. WWE is the perfect home to do it. And that's why they've been working with WWE for like 40 years. Right.

650! That's incredible, wow. Now I wanna ask you some geeky, um, weight lifting question. How many calories do you eat a day? Last year I was way over budget. I clocked in at around 3,500 a day. I try to keep it at 3,000.

But when on a honeymoon for the first time, we found ourselves in some crazy restaurant experiences. So I keep track of calories, water, sleep, caffeine, and body weight. Okay, percentage wise, do you have an exact breakdown of what percentage of protein you're trying to eat? No, because I'm protein focused anyway, so if I only limit myself to 3,000 calories,

I know I'm getting enough. Right. How much water do you drink? At least three liters a day. Wow. Did you watch the Ronnie Coleman doc? Man, I didn't, I know I'm getting enough. Right. How much water do you drink? At least three liters a day. Wow. Did you watch the Ronnie Coleman doc? Man, I didn't. I've heard I should and I will.

I wish you had so much. Because what I wanna talk about, there was such a specific thing that happened in that documentary, which is, you know the state he's in. He's had like 13 back surgeries. I don't doubt that, he goes hard. He went as hard as anyone ever went. Yeah.

And he goes to the gym in the morning at 4 a.m. and he has to walk on Walker to get there. And it's clearly excruciating while he's doing it. And I don't think I've ever seen a more glaring example of identity. And this notion that for him, getting small is not an option. It's so baked in now to the identity.

Do you ever think about that? Like the identity of being big and what point in your life that will start to... I really try to do a lot of work on self. And later in life, I think maybe starting probably six years ago, I had to take a cold look at myself in the mirror and realize that there's a lot of stuff to work on. And if I'm willing to put all this work on my fitness and my physical health, why can't I work on myself spiritually? Why can't I work on myself mentally? One of those first pieces of work was you are not defined by this one lane of the highway. Yes, you've done well in your proficient and you have fluency there. That does not define you.

And the second was, you're enough, dude. You might not be everyone's cup of tea, but you are a cup of tea. And don't ever feel as if your existence is anything less than enough. You're worthy of love. So those two combined things allowed me to tell you that like, hey, I have to retire from WWE. But dude, that's what you're known for. It also can say, hey, one day the phone's going to stop ringing. When I don't do these interviews and no one cares anymore, it doesn't mean my life is over.

That means my chapter in the book is over. I still have curiosity for life. Like you, I love to read. I'm trying to learn to play music, studying language a little bit. My fitness goals have changed. It used to be be as strong as you can. Now the goal is work out when you're 90.

Did you read Outlive? I haven't read it yet. Okay. But if you recommend it, I'm gonna check it out. Oh, it's the greatest. Peter At goal is work out when you're 90. Did you read Outlive? I haven't read it yet. Okay. But if you recommend it, I'm gonna check that. Oh, it's the greatest. Peter Atiyah, we've had him on. And it's define the last 10 years of your life.

What would you like to be doing in that 10 years and reverse engineer from there? And I think that also helps to say that chapters are gonna close. A lot of the things you listed though, they're occupational. That seems a little easier to separate than, again, you put on an armor at 15 and it has worked.

And me, I'm 49 and I'm not in danger anymore. But I can't shake being eight. The notion of being small and vulnerable still scares me. Even as someone who's been sober for a long time and done therapy, the physical identity for me is very tricky. For me, not so much, because my goal is to just be healthy. And I've also had to endure the humility of, you are not what you once were. Those are tough roads because I reflect a lot and I romanticize a lot.

But when I went to do Hidden Strike with Jackie Chan, I moved to China and I went to China at 250 pounds and I trained for four months with his stunt team. And they don't care how strong you are. They care if you can kick your leg over your head. They stretched me like taffy. And I did two practices a day, so I was doing much more activity. I was in a foreign place.

I could speak a little bit. I wasn't even in Shanghai or Beijing. I was in like Inner Mongolia. That's 25 pounds out there. Okay, great. That's the exact moment I wanna know what was going on mentally when you went backwards I literally could see the kgs coming off the bar. I could see the plates coming off the bar Yeah, and do you have a bit of body dysmorphia? I certainly do certainly but this was a great experience

Because it wasn't a move backwards. It was just a shift into another discipline. I became more flexible I began to walk taller. I began to have less back pain. I began to have more range of motion. I was healthier. I had a new skillset that I didn't have before. I had a new respect for a new discipline that I didn't have before. And I could still squat.

That's the thing you would wanna hold on to. Bending on your back, but you can go down and you can go below parallel and you can come back up. That's not too bad. Yeah, that feels wonderful. Regardless of how big the armor is, the goal is just to walk tall, don't be all crusty like a guy

who's fallen down his entire life. Be healthy, keep track of everything, try to live a life where you can just enjoy life as much as you can. What are you weighing now? 236 today. Did you go back up to 250 after the China? You never went back up?

The highest I've ever hit is 244, and that was after- The honeymoon? Core. Yes, yes. But immediately, hey, we're gonna go hard, and we're gonna go hard for an extended period. We're gonna take three months and just eat and not be very active.

244 became, all right, here we go. It's time to even out the tables. So it goes right back to 238, 235, 236. I hover right between 230 and 235. Okay. You're not gonna like this question. No, no, it's far away. But I have to ask.

Yeah, go for it. Why do we enter the zone of self-exploration six years ago? I just had a situation where I had to take a look at myself. Like I thought I was doing good. There were markers you were looking at. And I guess there was another one six years earlier.

All of it is connected to love and joy in my life. Where someone from the outside would like, he's got the world by the balls, and I think I'm doing it right. But are you lonely inside of that? Totally, like blow your brains out lonely. So both of those instances. When did you get divorced?

I got divorced in 2011. The second six years before? You can theorize what it was. We can do math. But it was a situation where you think you're giving your all to something and you're doing it right. And something goes wrong. So something fails.

And you got two choices. You can do this and blame everybody else. Or you can look in the mirror and say, okay, what have I learned? How do I be better? Where did I screw up? Both of those situations in my life, they're chapters of like leveling up to awareness of,

hey, it's not really anybody else's fault, but you. And there are things you can control. And what do you really want out of life? And why are you doing this stuff anyway? Well, also, do you not have the same fantasy I had, which is like, if I became rich and famous and loved by all, I would never be lonely. It's not only just the loneliness feels X amount bad, but it's also the delusion of

a fantasy. I was hit like a ton of bricks with, if you'd asked me along my journey, what do you want in your life? It was very goal oriented. I want to be strong. I want to get this job. It was never, I want love in my life. And then that bold look job. It was never I want love in my life. And then that bold look in the mirror of I want love

in my life starting with me. The guy looking back at me, regardless of if my hair is thinning on top or if I get a little fat or if I'm not as strong as I was or if I'm not as crisp as I was, I love that dude. And I love him for his flaws and I love him for his mistakes. All of it in totality because I love him and I want to make him better.

And he's worthy of love. Bingo, like, yo, this is a fuzzy feeling. I would like this with my other connections in life. It's made me connect great with my father, my mom, my brothers, my inner circle. The sum of the five people I spend my most time around, I wear it on my values, are stapled into my ring of gratitude and love and communication

and vulnerability and honesty. Has it opened up your previous declaration to kids at all? No. That's great. I was just curious if that was a part of it. I appreciate the perspective. That's a tough hill to climb. People sometimes don't realize their parents are shaming.

Monica's on me all the time. I'm in a position where it's like, I love this experience so much, so I'm prone to share it. And it does feel often to people who choose not to have the experience, like I'm shaming. I just am often sharing the joy it has given me. And then I get curious. It's so damn curious about life

and there's still so much I wanna do. I realize that comes with a huge shift of your life. And like I said, I still, a lot of hills I wanna climb. I appreciate that a lot more than someone who's like, no, I run this Fortune 500 85 hours a week, but I also think I'm gonna be a good dad. That's scarier to me. I understand exactly the commitment it takes.

I don't understand what it is, but I know that like, hey, you have 24 hours, now you only have three hours, if that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, apparently. Yeah. From 8 p.m. to 10 p.m., you're sure. And you're not the only parent who said that.

That's the constant theme is, it's the greatest thing in your life. And naturally, it comes with the biggest investment. Huge change, yes. It's consistent with everything. Everything else. Yes. It's gonna be the best thing you've ever done,

but you're gonna wholeheartedly invest in it. It's gonna be the hardest. Every one of the hardest ends up being the best. Appreciate the perspective, thank you. Yeah, John, this has been lovely. We've been texting with each other. Steve Agee will give a shout out. I've known Agee for like 28 years now. John Economos you son of a bitch that's who he

plays in peacemaker. He's the sweetest guy I saw him last Saturday at Seth Green's birthday party there's nothing funner than spotting that tall motherfucker somewhere and then saddling up next to him and letting him sarcasm all over you good dude well it's been an absolute joy I wish you dressed differently so we could get some squats in. They always always say, leave him wanting more. Yeah, that's true. You'll owe me that. All right, be well.

Everybody see Ricky Stoenicki on Amazon Prime Video. Check it out. It's great. John is fucking spectacular in it. You steal the show. I know it's an uncomfortable comment for you to take, but I'm gonna make it again. It's a plug for the show and a great endorsement,

so I'll take it. All right, be well. Stay tuned for the facts check so you can hear all the facts that were wrong. ["Facts Checked"] You know when the skates up, you see that the skate is permanently up? Yeah.

So someone rammed it. Uh-huh. And then our fearless HOA leader reached out to me and said like, hey, does your camera, you know, does he see this? This is the pictures we got. A big rigmarole yesterday to get the footage

and I'm gonna send it to you. Oh boy, okay. Is it David Ferrier doing it? Oh, that would be great. Oh, okay, let's see. So you see the car blowing down the middle of the lane then locks up the brakes. Now watch this.

Oh god. For the listener, there's like, I don't know, four cars moving gently down the road. It's nine o'clock at night. And then all of a sudden another car comes blowing up the middle lane, locks up the brakes. My guess is they hit someone and that was a hit and run. Well, because why else are they throwing it in reverse and then punching it backwards and then going into this neighborhood?

And then they went back the same way they came. I know, I don't know if they were a little shook from the whole, but that's kind of the thing you see in a movie, right? That was weird, yeah. And what's so funny too is, I get it, because I succumb to this all the time. Something suspicious happens and your first thought is

someone's trying to steal from me or someone's trying to get one over on me. So the HOA just knows someone purposely rammed the gate and broke it. So I think they're very much assuming someone's trying to break in to ransack houses or something. Like you get pretty certain of what the cause or motivation would be.

And then you actually see the footage like, no, it's a maniac losing control of their car, then panicking going in reverse, and then flooring it out of there. This is not what you expect. But we don't, you can't see any driver's license. Wives in spade, I knew that would be the case. Wow, that's crazy.

Also it wouldn't matter. That's the other sad reality is like this illusion you would call the police and then they would drop everything and start canvassing the city for this person that they now have a photo of. They can't just like run a license plate and know what the address connected to it? They could for sure and then it joins a list of probably a million license plates

that have been recorded for various things. Certainly in any given day, some people shot at another person, someone hit a pedestrian. You go down the list, there's probably a thousand things they need to go and look at. And like backing into this gate.

My hunch is no cops ever driving to the home of this person. Unless, you're right, it was connected to something much more nefarious. I assumed it was a construction. Mine or yours. Like they weren't looking when they backed up. Yeah, like there was a big thing and it broke it.

Or they got in a fight. I think, do you remember that story? The first house I ever, well, I've only owned two houses, and so the other one that I owned. When I moved in there, I was having a bunch of work done, and I lived there, and most people would have moved out during it, because I had just bought it, so it was like, tear out floors, everything.

And I'm in the bedroom, and I hear, there's guys in the living room, the farthest away towards Los Feliz Boulevard, the old house. And guys are laying hardwood floor, I think that's what they were there doing. And I hear, what? Fuck me, fuck you, motherfucker!

Oh yeah, motherfucker! And I hear two dudes collide. I'm in my boxers. Sure. Like get out of bed and run into the living room and two dudes are grappling in my house. And I have to break them up and force one of the guys to leave. And I called the contractor, I'm like,

bro, two of your subs just got into a fist fight in my living room, like we gotta, bars gotta be a little higher. Yeah, pull it together a little bit. But then also the reality of like, people aren't really so professional. You get into some, you know, someone's been burbling up for four years

between these guys, they don't care where, they could be in front of police. Wow. Once they flip into that amygdala, sayonara, suck ass. Ding Ding ding ding. Suck ass. Ding ding ding, suck ass. Yeah. Those Fidel's guys?

No, this was prior to Fidel being in my life. Oh man. Fidel's guys would never do that. No. No. They're like the most professional and nice people. You know, they're the greatest. I miss all those guys. They are so nice. That ended on not so great terms.

I apologized. It didn't end on bad terms. It just, they completed the house and I said, we're gonna use someone else for the rest of it. Not like you're bad or there was no fight, but yeah, I did fire them because they were going so slow. And then this person went twice as slow and caused six times as much.

But I did recently about three months ago, I reached out to he and Danny and I said, listen, I made a huge mistake and cost six times as much. But I did recently, about three months ago, I reached out to he and Danny and I said, listen, I made a huge mistake and I'm really sorry. I didn't let you guys finish. I got nervous, the house was never gonna be done. It's my fault. You guys are better and faster and my apologies. That's nice.

I'd been meaning to make that for a year it took me to muster up the courage to do. That's so good. I'm so glad you did it. Most people don't. You just live with your embarrassment. Yeah. You know what I mean, right?

You just kind of try not to think about it. That's one in the pile. Yes, I throw it in the pile of things I would take back. Exactly. The take back pile. Did you finish Connections? Yeah, did you? No. Not yet.

I had such a crazy morning. Right. Yeah. So far, the three of us have got yet. I had such a crazy morning. Right. Yeah. So far, the three of us have got it. Oh, without any mistakes? With no mistakes, and Callie didn't get it. Ooh. Max blown it yet?

Yeah. Oh, he blew it once? While you were gone, you left the chat for a little bit. Yeah. And while you were gone, shit really hit the fan. This is so funny, because I hung out with Cali yesterday and we were talking about all these dynamics and how crazy it's gotten. What we have diagnosed is that this,

that connection sort of brings everyone shit to the forefront. To the surface? Yeah, exactly. You were miming surface, if you notice. You were bringing your hand up like this, okay. I was, but then I chose forefront, but surface was better.

I'd like you to go push forward with your hand if you're gonna do forefront. Okay, I'm sorry. Yeah, so while you were gone, Max had a couple blunders and it was upsetting for him. One time she told, we were gonna hang out and she was upsetting for him. One time she told, we were gonna hang out and she was like, yeah, yeah, like go ahead

and come over around noon. Just so you know, the vibe's a little weird. Max didn't get his wordle. No. He cares a lot. Sure, sure. I respect it. Yeah, me too.

I respect it too. Anyway, Connections is great and I did do, sure. I respect it. Yeah, me too. I respect it too. Anyway, Connections is great, and I did do today's, and I got it. Well, I guess I can't start my morning at the morning because it really starts before that. It starts last night. My cold hit a crescendo last night, so it was one of those nights where it's like

I couldn't breathe through my nose, so I was like suffocating. I was coughing a ton, So I kept Kristin up for, I don't know how long until she left. Wish she had left immediately. But she went to the middle bedroom. And then, so I'm up nonstop. And then unbeknownst to me,

then Whiskers, our favorite three-legged friend, at four a.m. decided to just start barking out of control. And then I guess Kristin got up and took him downstairs and he might've had like a Hershey squirt in the yard and put him back. Then 5 a.m. round two, more Hershey squirt, I think. So all this to say, Kristen didn't sleep.

So in the morning she was out. And so it was just the girls and I. And there were numerous problems Some of them so endearing one of them having like really hating their hair today I relate so much it is so Insanely powerful when you're younger and you're gonna go to school. Yeah, and you think your hair looks terrible It's devastating. It's bad your hair looks terrible. It's devastating.

And she so sad, like thinks they look terrible. And I'm like, oh my God, honey, I relate so much. I used to look in the mirror, I would swear at my hair, I would throw my brush. Isn't there also like a really funny story, like a lore story about your sister and a hairbrush and like breasts or something?. Oh, fuck yeah. Carly, when she was, she had to have been

in fourth or fifth grade. So this is, wow, yeah, right around the same time. We were all in Arizona, ding, ding, ding, I just told this about the Biltmore. We were there doing a car show, not staying at the Biltmore. And we all had to be at the racetrack. Like, and Carly was along for this because my mom had no one to watch her

while we were in Arizona. So we're all in a van, all dressed in our shows and shoots gear waiting, and Carly will not exit the bedroom. And my mom is like honking and yelling, and then she like, and then my mom gets out of the car, she walks up the staircase, she peeks her head in the room,

and then she says something to Carly, and then she comes out, and then Carly comes out of the door and shuts and she turns around and starts kicking it like a firefighter, trying to knock it down, screaming and fucking chucks her hairbrush at the door. It bounces off the door over the railing into the parking lot.

And it was a, I mean, it was the most violent meltdown I'd ever seen. She didn't even break this door or her knee. What a- All over her hair. What a temper. It's impressive to see that hatter temper when it blows. It's volcanic.

And I don't think we had seen her deep V for years until then. You know she was born with a V on her forehead. You know this about her? Oh. And when she was a baby, whenever she got mad, this V in her forehead with light up. Like veins? Like fucking bright, they weren't veins.

It's so weird, it was like. It was like a Voldemort skull? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, like Harry Potter's. It was like a mix between a hive and what you would think is a vein, but they weren't veins, but it would glow. Oh my God.

My mom was, God, I'm telling a story like Chris where I'm just going back in time, but my mom was once pushing her through a grocery store in Michigan and this Native American dude came up to her and was looking at Carly and said, oh, and he knew what that thing was. What? Yes, and he told her that that was a very powerful thing.

Oh my God, that's cool. Yeah, in his community, yeah. Wow. So we were like, oh wow, she got some weird Native American superpower or whatever. Oh my gosh. But anyways, it went away. And it was kind of dormant. And then when she was kicking that door

and throwing her brush, that thing was ablaze. I like, yeah. Probably 10 or 11. So anyways. Anyway, it runs in the fam, all to say. Yeah, so I'm trying to like, I'm comforting her. I kind of get her back on the line. I'm squeezing her and I'm telling her, I said, you know,

I used to just hate how I looked and I would have these meltdowns. And I said, but you know what's funny is I see pictures of myself when I was a kid. And you know what? I look the same all the time. Like I just always look the same. Like I thought I looked so different day to day,

but I really just look the same. And she kind of, that comes kind of comforting. But again, she's on, she's delicate now. She's on tilt. So they go downstairs to eat breakfast and I'm now, I'm like, I gotta get a dump out before I get him driving to school. So I'm on the commode and then I hear all hell break loose.

I mean, it's a banger downstairs. Like fucking, I hear dishes breaking and screaming. So then I hear dishes breaking and screaming and swearing then I hear like bloody murder Screaming and all of a sudden Delta runs into the room and she is covered Yes, it's all in her hair it's Dripping down her face like Carrie or whatever movie they dropped the pig's blood on her Oh my god, her clothes are completely covered in milk. An entire cereal bowl was smacked up into her face

and on her person and she was drenched. And it is now, we were to have left in two minutes to go to school. So I'm like, oh, triage, what's next? And I'm like, okay, baby, I'm so sorry that happened. We've got to get, I started by getting a wet towel and damp and midway through, I'm like, there's, I'm so sorry that happened. We've gotta get, I started by getting a wet towel and damp and midway through I'm like, there's so much milk in the hair, we can't send her to school,

it's gonna turn into cheese by the end of this, by lunch. So I get her into the shower, get her calmed down, get her into the shower, she kind of, she peeks her head out the window of the shower. I need to take responsibility for like, whatever led up to the bowl in the face. She like owns that and I say, okay, I'm very proud of you for owning your side of it

and I'll deal with the rest. So then I go downstairs and of course, the perpetrator of the crime is despondent because she knows she's in trouble, but I just, there's no time for trouble. I just put on a happy face. Let's go love, let's get you to school. Get in the car, I think she starts realizing

like I'm not gonna rake her over the coals over this. She had already scrubbed the floor from the milk and then on the car ride there, I said to her, I said, you know, you've really provided a service to me today. And she goes, what's that mean? And I said, well, look, a lot of times when people in AA relapse, let's say they have a couple years

and they relapse and they come to their group to admit it, they enter thinking, everyone's gonna be disappointed in me and no one's gonna like me anymore or want me to be a part of this group. But what happens is when they tell us what happened, the rest of us have immediate gratitude that didn't happen to us that day, and we have this great reminder that like,

yeah, man, it can happen even when you've got a couple years or you're doing all this stuff, and it's just, it's such a gift that they give us. And she's like, okay, yeah, and I said, so for me to see someone as beautiful as you and as flawless as you, look in the mirror and see a monster. It's such a service to me that yeah, we all deal with that.

Even when you're as beautiful as you are, you feel that way. And so we had that lovely moment. So then I dropped her off and then I gotta go back to the house and then get Delta back on track and get her back into her clothes. Poor buddy, that makes me sad. That would have, like the hair thing,

this is just different personalities, right? Well, let's just be clear, the hair thing was Lincoln's issue. I know, that's what I'm saying. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what I'm saying. I guess I already exposed that. Yeah, you did. Yeah, fuck, okay.

But the hair thing, I just always thought my hair was bad. Like even if it was, it was just always bad, right? Really? Oh yeah. Because you have such good hair. And I thought you've been grateful for your hair. I grew into being grateful for it. Okay, it was like too thick when you were younger?

Yes, it was very thick. I used to get it thinned out. Okay. With those scissors. Yeah, where it cuts every 10th hair they say. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I hated it, I hated it. It was like thick black hair.

No, but you know, you just learn to just like hate it, right? And then. You come to accept that you hate it. But if that had happened to me in the morning, like someone was angry and then I ended up with milk all over me, I would not have gone to school. I would 100% have been like this. This day's over.

Yeah. Yeah, we're taking a mull again. Maybe the whole week off. Like. Call me in May. Yeah, so it's just funny. And then so on a personal front, as it was all happening, I was starting to go like, fuck,

I know I'm gonna have to take two trips and I'm gonna have to sign her in, blah, blah. But I was stopping myself and I was like, we're doing this thing. I had a good attitude about it. Good, that's great. Yeah, boy, I wish I could hold onto this attitude, which is like, stuff rises up and you just walk through it.

It's the like thinking about the fact that you have to do it that is, that's kind of Buddhist, that's the miserable part. But in my mind, it's this thing I, it wasn't what I planned. Totally, it threw off. My expectations. So all that to say I didn't get to play connections.

Oh wow, yeah. But you will later. Yeah, I'll find a minute. You'll find a time. But also last minute, I got asked if I would do Kimmel today. Because a guest fell out, so. So you're gonna do that.

Again, wasn't in my plan. I had a whole schedule for today. So that got thrown in, then the morning. But then I had said to go, yeah, things are just gonna be fine. You're gonna walk through all this stuff. That's nice that you said yes. I was thinking about this because I canceled on someone

and it was last minute. It feels so uncomfortable to let someone down. Yeah, I won't do it. Sometimes you have to, like if something pops up that's prioritized for your life, like you have to, which was the case. But yeah, I don't know, it's a weird feeling. I think the busier you are, I think the older you get,

you only have so much space for things and then you end up letting people down. Yeah, one of two things happens. Yes, you either let people down or I have come to be a little more ruthless about just saying I can't do something. Like I was supposed to have a call today with somebody and then this started getting bonkers

with all the other stuff. So then I just said to them quite frankly, like I'm so sorry about this. I'm gonna need a couple weeks because I have to talk to other people about some other thing. Like we just gotta kick this down the road. And that normally is really hard for me to do,

but that's my adjustment as I get older, I think, is just going like I don't have time, or it's gonna be a while. And that's sort of what I'm, like that person's probably disappointed, but it's the right thing for you. Right. And so that's it.

It's a weird thing to sort of reconcile that what's good for you might end up letting someone else down, but you have to still do that. Yeah. That reminded me, though, what did you think of Dune? Oh, I really liked it. Yeah. I really liked it a lot.

An impressive movie in its scale, no? Very. Like, whoa. Very epic. I mean, I'm not a big sci-fi gal. Yeah, not me either. But it was great. How bad did you want them to kiss?

I did, I did really, no I did. I did really want them to kiss. I also wanted more of. Her story? No, of just like lead up I guess. Oh, there's so many glances. I thought they gave me so many beautiful, so many longing glances before they kissed.

Like by the time they kissed, I screamed in the movie theater. I did. I like hollered and screamed. Wow, that's fun. And even a couple, one before where they were really close to kissing and they were staring at each other, I said kiss her.

It came out. Oh wow. Yeah. Oh wow. Yeah. Oh my God. I did really want them to kiss. It was mainly that one scene had so much sex tinge, but I wish there were more scenes that had sex tinge before that. Okay, you want even more build up.

Yeah, I wanted a little more build up. You wanted to be at the point I was at where I was screaming, I was like. Oh my God. Yeah, I was having those kind of experiences. Well, they're both so beautiful. Fuck, you know, I gotta just applaud Chalamet. Yeah, Timmy.

I think this is a testament to his powers. I think I'm inclined to not like his archetype because he's a guy in school. Like if girls liked him, they didn't like me. Like you either liked the smaller cute boy, or you liked a big boy that was a little scary or something. Ding ding ding John Cena. Oh, sure.

I'm gonna create a third category for him. But I guess that type of boy, so in my school growing up, and we were best friends, Joey Riccardi, he was like small and Italian, he was so fucking cute. In fact, he was dating Randy Hamana before I was in high school growing up, and we were best friends, Joey Riccardi. He was like small and Italian, he was so fucking cute. In fact, he was dating Randy Hamona before I was. So I guess they- That was my type. Yeah, a lot of girls like that.

So I was inclined to be jealous of those kind of boys because like, I just, what am I gonna do? So like small, cute boys who are getting all the attention, I think I'm inclined to not like. Even though that was your best friend? Well, I love him as a friend, but just threatened in mate selection. I see, I see, okay.

Primitive. Just a very different type than you, so yes, that makes sense. Yeah, like I can't compete. If you like him, then I'm out of the brunny. But that's not, also that's not true at all. I know, none of, as you guys always should say, all this is in my head.

Yeah, none of it's true. And this is what I have traditionally thought, oh great, she likes little cute pretty boys, not big ogres. So big bad boy ogres. All that to say, I am in love with him. He is so fucking charismatic. I can't remember other than like young Downey. Yeah, no, he's a movie star I think.

Oh, he's magic. Everyone loves Timmy. Do you know about this phrase, I learned about it on, I had heard it once and then they were talking about it on Nobody's Listening, right, soy boy? No, that sounds like a pejorative. It sounds like they're calling someone gay without saying gay.

It's not gay, but it is not masculine Feminine it's what it's what your gen would have called gay, right? Right, but our gen doesn't do that because we call gay people gay I mean, it's a bigger fun topic, which is like the names change. It's all mean. It's all about Masculinity exactly. There's always a word in society that is labeling men who aren't very masculine. To emasculate men. Yeah. Yep.

And I guess right now it's soy boy, but I think some people are embracing soy boy. Like that's, it's also a category of like a type. Okay. Like a Timmy. And- But Timmy's not a soy boy. That type. Heroin chic. A little bit heroin chic, but I do think,

I think it's bad. I just think it's bad. I don't think we should be participating in soy boy. So I'm just saying that. Oh, okay. It's all part of a system that does two things. It emasculates men. It also is equating

feminine qualities with bad for men. And it's just like bad across the board. Well, let me ask you this. Do you believe there's a utopian future where heterosexual people aren't attracted to masculinity and femininity? Do you think that's a potential reality? To like, stereo- So for like a heterosexual female to not be attracted to masculinity and femininity? Do you think that's a potential reality? To like, stereo-

So for like a heterosexual female to not be attracted to masculinity, and for a heterosexual male to not be attracted to femininity? If we're gonna say Timothy Chalamet isn't like a cliche masculine man, then yeah, we're already living it. He's like the most, like everyone just thinks he's so hot

and attractive and he is. So, and do you mean physically or do you mean personality? Because there are traits that are generally stereotypically associated with men that nowadays a lot of women have. Yeah, I guess what I'm just asking is that, is it not implicit in heterosexuality that you're attracted to the opposite sex?

Yeah, but the opposite sex is- Is fluid now. There's a lot there. Like the reason people were, I mean, I don't know, I don't know any of these women, but I assume the reason people were attracted to you was not because you were so masculine, it was because you were nice.

It was actually because of your feminine traits, stereotypically. People were like, oh, this is fun, and he's funny, and he's nice to me. I can partially agree with you. I think people came for the masculinity and stayed for the sensitive femininity. I don't know, I just, I'm.

It's so individual. It's really hard, it's just so individual. It is. I am generally speaking not on face value attracted to a hyper masculine man. Right, I guess yeah, then you get into like what are you defining as masculine. Exactly. Right. I guess, yeah, then you get into like, what are you defining as masculine? Exactly.

Yeah. My definition, which is in the credo of Ted Segers, is the masculinity that I think's worth defending, supporting, and encouraging, which is provide and protect. I think those are virtues that a man should aspire to have. But provide. And protect. In what way provide?

Like in it, all across the board? Provide and protect, take care of the ones that you love. Yeah, it's also a huge feminine trait. That's why this is so fascinating. I'm just talking about men. No, I know, but I- And what I would advise young men to not let go of. Yeah.

I don't think it has to be positioned in opposition to femininity. Okay, that's what it is. I'm just saying what I think are qualities we should hold onto. And I think in general, women are attracted to a man who will provide and protect. But I think people across the board generally,

like regardless of gender, are attracted to providing and protecting. And when it's men, they're attracted to women who provide for their family and are like mama bears. There's that element of it. I think everyone wants to be protected. And in certain men, it might look different. Yeah, so for me, I'm not worried that my partner

can provide and protect. I very much want my partner to nurture in love. Which is, to me, another version of it. Absolutely, you're like providing and protecting the emotional health of the people around you. I'm looking for, I'm not looking for me, I'm looking for a counterbalance to me that makes up for all the things I'm not strong in.

So when I'm forming a partnership, I don't need two people that are like me. And I don't think it's unevolved of me or people who desire that to want that. I don't think it's unlawful. I don't know that it's something that needs to be transcended. I think there's a ton of stuff we do

that needs to be transcended, like our status obsession, and our, you know, a bazillion things we do as social primates, but I don't see that symbiosis is something that we should aim to transcend. I don't either, but I don't think. Oh, I'm not saying you are. I'm not challenging you, I'm not saying you are. I'm not challenging you.

I'm not positioning anything I'm saying against you. I'm just telling you how I feel about it. Well, this is all sort of makes sense, because. Oh, because yes, talk about masculinity. And the conventional. Exactly, seeking out a conventional armor. Yeah. Yeah, John.

John Cena, very nice person. One thing I wanted to address, some people have been wondering about the, if you hear popping sounds, it is your nicotine mints. Oh, oh, that's another, oh, there's a couple mysteries I end up solving individually on comments, but for armchair anonymous, and I think we've already said this,

but the song at the end that was improv'd, the last line is, on the fly I rhyme dish. On the fly I rhyme. What do people think it is? They don't have any clue. Like the guesses that they make are the best acorns ever. Wow. And of course, like I can barely understand it

and I said it. It's a very confusing, and rhymeish is not a word we use. But I know that plagues a lot of people. What is being said at the end of it? Now they know. And there was, God, now that we're on this path. Oh, oh, oh, a lot of people pointed out and I stand corrected.

I said Volkswagen. I was like, why is there two Vs? And they said actually in German that V, which is variable, is actually an F in that case. So it's Volkswagen. When you're in Germany, it's Volkswagen. So the V is an F, or for us it would be an F. And the W is a V?

Oh my God, that is complex. But it kind of weirdly makes more sense to us in a literal sense, because it's the people's wagon. Oh. It was like the car for the proletariat. Oh, that's so true. That was the intention of VW. I like that.

So if you think of it as like Volkswagen. Right. It's very literal what the thing is. Ah, I like it. You know, for the folks, the common folks. I'll probably get corrected on that. That's my interpretation of it. So he was the captain of his football team.

Uh-huh. And he was joking that he got to do the coin toss and that was really it. And then you said, it can be important. You said it was important in the Super Bowl this year. Why? I didn't know why. Why did I say that?

Now we're so far from the Super Bowl, I can't remember. I just think, did they go to overtime in the Super Bowl? Yeah, they did. If you win the coin toss, you get to pick whether you're receiving or kicking. The direction you're going. It's just. Well, you can do that or you can pick.

Right, so there is a statistical advantage to choosing it one way, knowing there's gonna be four quarters, but the fact that they went into a fifth quarter. There's a new coin toss in overtime. Oh, there is? Yeah. Okay.

But what happened in that? Well, there was a new coin toss and the rules of overtime is if you score. The other person gets possession. Yeah, but if you take a field goal, the other team still gets possession and they know they either need to make a field goal or go for the touchdown.

So they do have an advantage having the ball second, knowing what they need to do. There we go. So if it was, what, the 49ers, if they would have known that Kansas City was gonna get a touchdown in that second drive, they wouldn't have even kicked that field goal. They would have just gone for it on fourth.

Right. Okay. You pull. Coach, you just gone for it on fourth. Right. Okay. You just pull something. I haven't got a hitch. You got a hitch. Okay, he ran into Margot Robbie at Corp. Oh, here they are. Oh, speak of the devil.

He ran into Margot Robbie at Corp by Claire Smith. That's a restaurant in London. And I think I said Michelin starred, and it has three Michelin stars. It does. Where was it that I just, oh, I sent you a thing. There is a, this is very exciting for Ted Segers, there is a five Michelin star restaurant

in New York. I don't think. I sent you the name of it, didn't I? I guess I can search. I think three's the most anyone has, though. Yeah, I think so. Oh. I think it's a five star Michelin rated.

Oh, that makes sense. It was not five Michelin stars. I don't know how to pronounce it. Is it Youngsic? It's J-U-N-G-S-I-K. Korean restaurant. And guess what they serve on the menu. Ted Seger's.

Ted fucking Seger's at a Michelin star. That's amazing. I gotta tell you, there's so many fun things. You get used to certain wonderful things. Yeah. Right, like you see yourself on a billboard when you're an actor. I was just about to say, yeah, like when you saw the Lincoln on the billboard.

Yeah, and there's like, those are very exciting moments. And then there is a point if you do it long enough that you see yourself on a billboard and you don't really even think about it, which is crazy and a shame. Another thing we should transcend. Is that really like, you don't even think about it when you see, I mean, I don't know.

I've never, we had a billboard once, but I don't think I could drive by and not, but maybe. Wow. At some point, if you're in 30 movies, those movies get billboards and you somehow, or just somehow became white noise. That is so odd. I'm not proud of it, and it's not like a brag. It's just like, it's so odd. I'm not proud of it.

And it's not like a brag. It's just like, it's so weird. You could look at it as a brag or as not a brag. That like every, maybe it's worse if every time you see it you're like, oh my God, I'm a movie star. Well it's kind of like when Christina Applegate said they were pulling into Fox and the Doors song, 20th Century Fox was on and she was like,

yeah, that's me and her friend was like, okay, it's happening. So it's a very precarious tightrope you're walking. But you do get used to stuff and that is the nature of it. At some point I have gotten nervous, like well, I don't want that to be the case. I wanna get excited about stuff and I don't wanna be that way.

But what's weird is Ted Seeger's is like a whole new chapter because it's like a business that I started with Aaron and Erin. And yeah, when I see it on the menu of a Michelin star restaurant, I get this incredible swell of happiness and excitement. Oh, this thing we thought of at a Traverse City fucking restaurant, visiting our friend Jack is on a menu at this place

is like really fun and exciting. That's so fun. Is there a high watermark? Is there like the Lincoln on Sunset Boulevard billboard for Ted Segers? For Ted Segers? Yeah. I guess I have a few fantasies.

The thing I want that's so lofty is I hope, like if it became an actual big brand, like one of the big beers, I want a seaplane. No one has a seaplane. So I want an old fashioned seaplane that only lands on the water. And so everywhere we go to promote Ted Seeger's, we can only go places where we can land on the water. And so everywhere we go to promote Ted Segers, we can only go places where we can land on the water.

And this is. So is it gonna have Ted Segers on the plane or something? Haven't you seen it? I had one mocked up. No. Okay, can I show it to you? Oh God. Yeah.

Oh God. It's a little plane, it's not like a giant plane. That's the problem. No, it's enormous. A little plane is back. I found one for sale. These planes aren't expensive. Okay, I'm gonna send you right.

Oh, shit balls. Well, I don't like, it doesn't sound safe if they're small and inexpensive. No, no, this thing can land in the water. Now, Greg Davis, who's a genius, he is the person who makes all of our creative stuff. He's so fucking good. He mocked this up.

All right, look at your phone. If anyone really wants to see this, it's in my Instagram. Because I post. Oh, that's cool. For the listener, it is branded. It's red. The whole thing says Ted Seeger's all over it.

It's gorgeous. And it's a huge four propeller, old fashioned seaplane. And my more immediate goal is my 1980 Zephyr station wagons almost done being built. And that is already the same white as the cans. And so I'm gonna put the Seger's logo on the hood and on the back, Ted Seger's racing. And I wanna get that thing out and do some racing in it

so that Ted Seger's has a race team. These are all super dumb small things. But when I grew up seeing Budweiser, what was cool about Budweiser, they were the original Red Bull. They did the Budweiser hydroplane boat races on Detroit River. Like Budweiser meant high octane racing.

So I wanna reclaim that for Ted Seekers. But we don't have the money to do any of this stuff, so really it's gonna be me racing my station wagon in a class that I can't compete in, but just I want there to be Ted Seekers racing. That's, wow, that's a big goal. These aren't the answers I thought you were gonna say. What were you thinking I might say? I was more like at your favorite restaurant.

All time having it on tap. Right, yeah, on tap, on tap at your favorite restaurant. It's on tap at places, which is fun in Detroit, yeah. Shout out to Aaron too, because we don't know what we're doing. I think I've made that abundantly clear. We literally don't know what we're doing, but Aaron had the idea to send it.

He's like, you know what, it's so good and I believe in it. I'm gonna start sending it to all these really esoteric beer critics. Okay. And one of the main dudes sent him a message and he goes, I have 180 beers at my store. This is the only one I'm drinking, period.

That's so exciting. So that makes me like insanely excited and happy. That's awesome. Yeah, yeah. It's so cool. It's cool that people that like beer actually are like, oh no, no, this, wow, this is the best N.A. Good, yes, it does taste really good.

Not that I... Have a huge history of... Not that I'm a beer connoisseur. When we were in India with Phil, we were at an agricultural event and he was trying these protein heavy rice options. It was really cool. We tried them also.

We liked it. Low glycemic index and double the protein. Yes, and you could tell a difference and I couldn't. Right. And taste. And we ate before him. We were there before him. Before he arrived.

Yeah, and it became a big, we were excited to see, basically he was gonna have to be a tiebreaker. Yeah, cause you were like, he's definitely gonna know the difference. And I said, I don't know. He did not know the difference. He did not. He didn't taste the difference, but he said, I mean,

they taste the same to me, but I'm not a rice aficionado. Definitely went your way. I could taste the sugar in the other one. The other one has way more sugar, the first one. That's so funny. We had a traditional one, then a Midway Point, I'm gonna go with the 56% more protein and that's the rice I eat now. So cool. Yeah, if you could make rice a super food. Oh my God. Stand back. John, we're not doing a good job. No we are.

There's only one more. Ronnie Coleman had 13 surgeries, has had 13 surgeries. Ronnie Coleman's an Easter egg because we have a guest coming up where we talk about Ronnie Coleman a lot. Okay, so the Make-A-Wish, he has over 650 wishes. 650. I was just, oh, when we were in the South at Easter. Because I was telling that story from, I won't name the restaurant, but a bit of a famous hot chicken restaurant in Nashville. It was when Huey and I were first falling in love.

Oh, yes. Oh my God, what an incredible story. So, Huey and I are maybe on our third date ever, and we're eating on the deck of this restaurant, and the owner comes out, and he comes up and he says, "'Excuse me, are you Dex?' And I go, "'Yeah, yeah, I'm Dex.'" And he goes, "'Oh, great, great, great.

Listen, we got a girl inside, a crippled girl, and boy, she'd just love to meet you and take a picture. And she's pretty, she's real crippled, and if you could come in and take a picture with her, that'd be great. She's just in the corner, this crippled girl. He said crippled probably 15 times in two minutes. And I was like, I'm like, can you still say crippled probably 15 times in two minutes. And I was like, I'm like, can you still say crippled?

And you have to imagine what I'm picturing as I walk into the restaurant, because I've heard the word crippled 15 times. You and I go in and there's like a 12 year old girl with a cast on her leg. Some broken foot. She has a fucking cast on her leg. But we got a crippled girl.

It sounded like she was dying. And that then led to somehow, like Huey and I were telling that story at Easter. And then I got to bring this up, this John Cena thing. And I'm glad you just said 650, because I'm like, guess how many he's done? People are like, they go crazy. 100, I'm like no, 600.

So I'm delighted that I got that. Yeah, it's even more. But then what's funny is you're in a position where I think they are weirdly assuming that I just haven't volunteered. So I had explained to them, you have to be picked. That's what was so endearing and sweet about it is he was just like the honor of being requested

that many times, it's huge. And it is. Before John, the second was someone who granted 200. Right, I know. Three acts, the record. That's so, it's so sweet. That's a cool record to have in life. God, it is.

You really did something right. Anywho. What a good boy. John Cena. John Cena, yeah. I know. We said it in the intro, but he had a lot of people who wanted to take his picture here at your house. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

About the construction workers. I would kind of like to shadow him walking around the street. I kind of want to see. Yeah, I think it really is an intense life. Yeah. What's the Rock's life? He's got like the mega movie stardom

and the mega WWE stardom. He seems to do it just effortlessly. The Rock, both those guys have incredible attitudes. Yeah. Fuck. We'd love to have The Rock on. The Rock, if you're listening. You out there, Dwayne?

The Rock doesn't still wrestle, right? I think he occasionally pops in. In fact, he just had a post. I was so confused by it. Because it had a tone that is not Dwayne Johnson's. Like Dwayne Johnson's so positive. Yeah. And this post was like,

this happened after they cut the cameras and I don't even care. And I'm glad they caught this. It had this crazy tone. And I'm like, this does not sound like him. And then I'm glad they caught this. It had this crazy tone and I'm like, this does not sound like him. And then I realized, oh, this is, he's like promoting some weird rivalry with WWE.

Wow. And he like switched personas on me. Code switch. And I had to keep up. That's crazy. I love The Rock. Yeah, he's back, 2024. The final boss.

The final boss. I'll go. Yeah, have you back 2024. The final boss. The final boss. I'll go. Yeah, have you been? No. I went with Charlie and someone else. So loud. You've never heard anything louder in your life. No, this makes Monster Jam seem like a symphony.

It is so loud. You'll never see an audience more into something than WWE. I don't think I can go anymore. I'm busy. Okay, so you're gonna cancel last minute? Yeah, I'm gonna let everyone down. All right. All right, well good luck tonight.

Have fun. Thank you so much. Love you. Love you!