Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend - John Cena

Episode Date: August 24, 2026

Actor and wrestler John Cena feels curiously enthusiastic about being Conan O’Brien’s friend.   John sits down with Conan to discuss wrestling as a training ground for comedy, minimizing self-sabotage, the importance of a long-term mindset, and his latest role in the new live-action animated comedy Coyote vs. Acme.   For Conan videos, tour dates and more visit TeamCoco.com. Got a question for Conan? Call our voicemail: [phone]. Get access to all the podcasts you love, music channels and radio shows with the SiriusXM App! Get 3 months free using this show link: https://siriusxm.com/conan. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

My name is John Cena, and I am curiously enthusiastic about being Colonel O'Brien's friend. That sounds like there's an out. Yeah, you know. John Cena is one of those guys that's always thinking like nine moves ahead. Fall is here, hear the yell, back to school, ring the bell, brandy shoes, walking loose, climb the fence, books and pens, I can tell that we are. going to be friends. I can tell

that we are going to be friends. Hey there. Welcome to Conan O'Brien needs a friend. Sonam of Sessian. Hello. My co-pilot. And this is a plane that has two co-pilots. Or are you a navigator?

I'm not really quite sure. I'm that sits backwards and you know, takes a nap while you fly. Yeah, me too. I do that too. I feel like there's two of those. There's two of those. Matt, Gourley, good to see you. What's happening, Matt?

You've got, it looks like you have a bee in your bun, and you've got something to talk about it. I think there might be something you're interested in happening. Not far from actually from where I live, the original Wayne Manor from the 60s Batman show is for sale. I heard about this. And basically it's just the house, the mansion that was used in the exterior shot.

So the 60s Batman TV show for people my generation was the formative comedy experience. Yeah. And it's up for sale. For only $32 million. That's, Couch cushion money. You also might know it from the Charles Bronson film St. Ives.

Oh, that's where I know it from. Oh, good. Wait, $32 million. Where is it? It's in Pasadena. That is extremely, that is such a lot of money. How much land is it? It's big.

I mean, look at this, though. It's, you know, it's not unlike what it looks like inside the TV show bad. Oh, really? They actually made an attempt to. I mean, it's just a stately manner. A stately, yeah, stately, stately, way. It looks like a building on the USC camp. I know there's a lot more pictures. Yeah, look at these. So like it has a resort pool surrounded by boulders and stuff like that. Can I, can you buy this for me, Conan?

Yeah. This, you know, it's so funny when people, it looks like something that would be in the English countryside, but it's in L.A., you know, kind of not far from the Mexican border. I know. Can you buy this for me? What's it? Can you buy it for me? Sure. But just think of the crazy shit that probably went down here because this is right in front of the Arroyo, the, the, Pasadena Roya, which is famous for being the place where Jack Parsons, Alastra Crowley, and Elron Hubbard used to go and jerk off into the dirt for their sex magic rituals. What are you talking about? What are you talking about? I said what I said, and that's what happened. How do you know that? How does anybody know that? Did someone see them? Famous Pasadena lore. We have festivals celebrating. You know what I love. There's a lot of trust involved when you say, hey, Conan, I've got the intro.

And I think like, okay, Gorley says he's got it. Gourley, what's up? And you say, well, first of all, I want to use a podcast to show photos of some real estate. Nothing famous happened in this house. It was in one exterior shop that was used again and again and again for Batman. Then you start showing interior photos, which has nothing to do with Batman. And then you use that as a segue into a couple of guys. orgasming into the dirt. So, no, I gave you this mighty craft. I was the pilot and the guy who

sleeps and sits facing the other way said, can I take over and I said yes. And now we've slammed into the Himalayas. Was it a circle jerk? Or were they jerking themselves? But they were jerking into a circle in the dirt. It was like, you know, Alistair Crowley was the Satanist. Yeah, maybe explain who people are. Because you also toss these names. I mean, I know who Alastra McRowley is, but a lot of people don't. I don't know. I know who El Ron Hubbard is. So when you say like, and I'll tell you something, Baz Scalaway, Jim Mumford, and Stabas

McNulty used to get together. Who cares? So was Alastair McCrally, who else? It was, who was a, who was a, not a Satanist, but, uh. Well, he was, he had like, didn't he have the Satan Bible and all that stuff? Like, he, he believed, well, he had a ritual called sex magic with a. Satan had a Bible. He just, Satan just went through it and wrote not in front of everything.

It would be better if it was after everything. Yeah. Not joke. Yeah. Yeah. Or in my pants. Yeah. Yeah.

Thou shalt not kill in my pants. Thou shalt honor thy neighbors of, if that's one not covered thy neighbors of in my pants. So Alistair Crowley, who else? Elron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology. Of course. Jack Parsons, who, you know, found at the same time. I thought Alistair Crowley. I thought Alistra Crowley was lived before those guys.

He might have been older. I think he was around. And he's still able to get it up and into the dirt? That's pretty impressive. I don't know if it was three for three. I don't know how it worked. He founded Jake, was it Jack Parsons laboratory? And then they changed it to Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Oh, good question. You just know they jerked off in dirt. That I know about like the dirt. The name stuff. Yeah. What's that? Go ahead, Edwarno. It seems like someone is right.

Did you just go on dirtjerkoff.net? No, no. I didn't look up any of that. Yeah. It's a Jack Parsons co-founder of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. It's hilarious that JPL stands for Jack Parsons and not Jet Propulsion. But it's called Jet Propulsion. That's really funny.

I'm sorry. It just is. It's not that funny. You know what? It's not funny at all. I think it's funny that these three men were just like all realized they had the same kink and then did it together. That's French. Can I say something?

If you're aroused by dirt and you live in an agrarian area, you're hard all the time. They weren't roused by dirt. They went in to do this ritual apparently. It was called sex magic. It was some kind of like conjuring of their energy. Look, I'm not condoning this. And that's as far as I know about it.

Have you tried it? That's as far as you know about it. That's as far as he knows about it. Oh, please. This whole area of the Oroyo, you know, there's this big green and green, beautiful craftsman mansion that's featured in season two of True Detective.

a huge sex orgy there. I'm sorry. Wait. What other kind of orgies are there? I'm confused because I'm trying to figure out, are you primarily interested in real estate and it leads to sex? Or are you interested in kinky sex? Why can't it be both?

And then it's attached to real estate. Because I would love it if you were, I would love it if you were my realtor. And I was like, you know, Lise and I, we sold our house. We're kind of looking for something new. You want to show you a place. It's beautiful. It's sort of a, it's a mom. modernist design. It's got a little of a bow house influence. And hobos used to live in the

basement and shove corncobbs up each other's asses. You know what I'm talking about. That's the kind of real estate agent. And then my questions would all be things like, now is it permitted? Could we take that? Is that a load bearing wall? Because we want to have a much bigger kitchen. And how big were the corncobs? Yes. That's the stuff I want to know. I didn't know about this piece of of Pasadena lore. Yeah. So do you know a lot of creepy things about Pasadena?

You should give a creepo tour. Yes. I'd love to. Where you get a bus and you saw off the roof and you drive around. Yeah. Well, there's also that famous

lamb family mortuary where they were... So stop saying famous when it's stuff nobody knows. There's a Netflix documentary that just came out about it. Well, they'll do a documentary on anything. Anyway, that's true.

What is the lamb family mortuary? Well, they were... Oh, they were scamming people. Over-cremating people and just throwing their ashes around and stuff like that. Well, what were they doing? What were they doing with that?

I'm trying to remember. There was this one. They were combining people in the, in the crematorium and then not really giving people the, like, their real ashes of their. And taking their valuables and stuff like that. And their house is right on Orange Grove, which is also where another house was where Jack Parsons blew up his garage doing a rocket test and everything. But there's this green and green mansion from season two of True Detective.

So should I watch season two of True Detective and wait and see the mansion at some point? Well, it's this gorgeous, gorgeous house. I wanted, and so when Amanda and I were getting married, we were curious if we could rent this place. And then I wanted the invitation to say, Mr. and Mrs. Amanda Lund, cordially invite you to the wedding of their daughter, Amanda, to Matthew Gourley, at the Pasadena Fuck Mansion from season two of Trudita. That, you know what?

I was very dubious about where you were going when you took control of this podcast. And you did. The wings came off. We lost a lot of passengers. Yeah. I'm horribly burned now. Yeah. But then you made a nice landing.

I sullied it. Yeah. You sullied it. I would be able to look at like the Mars rover the same way again. Because like. Jack Parsons was a was a nutball. He was a genius nutball. I didn't know that.

Let's just make sure that we're educating people property. You're talking about, say the name again. Jack Parsons who. Jack Parsons who invented JPL, the big Jet Propulsion Lab. Is that also with the building? Yeah. The building is named after? Yeah.

And so you're saying that he had some, he was a, a, crazy guy and eccentric guy, and he was into erotic adventures. Is that what you were saying? Yeah. And he was bros with like Elrond and what the fuck, Crowley? Yeah, Alistair Crowley. Alistair Crowley. Alistair.

No one names their kids, Alistair anymore, but it's a cool name. Give me half a chance if I would have had a boy. That's a cool name. I believe Alistair Crowley was a big influence on Jimmy Page from Led Zup. Yeah, and he's on Sergeant Pepper's cover too. One of the heads is Alistair Coley, I believe. Wow. Okay.

Turn it off into the dirt. Are you guys going to try it? What's that? Are you going to try it? Are we going to try it? You mean, what are you talking about? Yeah. What are you talking about?

What are you talking about? There's not a square inch of my yard. Oh, God. Oh, God. Ew. Well, I'm sorry, but you know what? It's good for the grass. Is it?

People come, and Mike Gardner is always like, how do you do it, Mr. O'Brien? And I said, now what I didn't realize, What I didn't realize is we have a security camera back. Oh, no. Do you have a crew? What's that? Do you have like a couple pals that come with you?

Yeah, who's your, what my whack pack, my crew? What's your dirt jerk? No, no. No, no. Sometimes they rent me out of golf courses to put new holes in. Oh. Okay, we're going to take a break. Oh, God.

You mean end the show? And I mean fully and completely. When I say take a break, I mean, let's just stop talking. This is awful. And you did this. Adam, did he do this? He did, yeah. Yeah, I didn't do this.

For the first time, I didn't do this. What did I do? I think what I brought enriched, it changed the tenor. You brought up a cool house and we started talking about him jizzing in his yard. The idea when you have a big podcast like this is to cast a wide net and let everyone in. Yes. You pretty much said if you're into kinky sex and you love Pasadenae. Dean Allure, and you want to hear some names you've never heard before and some fun facts about

someone behind the jet propulsion laboratory. You narrowed it down, so I think the only person who's going to happily listen to this is you. Well, I do edit it, so I got to put something in there for me. If you make yourself happy, I guess today is the most decorated wrestler in W-W-E history. He has every award you can win, and outside of wrestling as well. He's got a Nobel Peace Prize. Oh, cool. He's got it all. He's also has an impressive acting. acting resume. You can see him in such films and TV series is Peacemaker, Barbie, and the Suicide Squad. Now you can see him in the new movie Coyote versus Acme. I've been waiting for this film. I saw it. It's so fun. Yeah. Okay. I'm thrilled to talk to him today. John Sino, welcome. You've done the show before, but this is a new experience for us. One on one. I'm just trying to be here. Normally it's like, hey, you have four minutes a break and three minutes and a live audience to entertain. So it is, it's a different conversation. Yes. I was in that world, as you know, for a long time. I like this world because I really get to plumb the depths of someone's soul.

And that's what we're going to do right now. Fair, fair play. John, I'm going to start with... Quick Rorschach test. My dad, my dad, my dad. Every plot is your dad? I'm just showing you photographs of your dad. John, I'm going to tell you something.

You and I, I think, are very similar in one way. We both came to, listen to me. Listen to me. Listen to me. Not just physique. Not just physique. We both came to a fork in the road and we took very different paths. I've done some research on you.

I'm a fan. I know a lot about you. When you were 13 years old, you were bullied. And your response was to go and build up your body by lifting weights. Yes. When I was 13, I was bullied. my response was to comb my hair up into a pompadour. Essentially, we kind of did the same thing, though.

You, we both appeared larger. Yes. To stave off harassment. We both, yes, we, and you actually physically made yourself more imposing and stronger. So did you. No, what I did was, you know, those animals that are really scrawny and in the wild, but they can go boop? Yeah.

And they fill themselves up with. A peacock. And people got like, oh, my God, I'm going to back away from this. But it turns out they're just still this little piece of shit animal. That's me. There's a piece of shit inside me. It's waiting to come out. I'm going to give it another eight hours.

There's one inside me, too. We also are both from Massachusetts. Where are you from? I'm from Brookline, Massachusetts, outside Boston. And you're from... West Newberry. Where is West Newberry? So as you follow the coastline north of Boston, it is literally one town in from Newburyport,

which is like a border town. Yeah. And then you can just walk into New Hampshire. Now, it's funny because I'm from Massachusetts, but I don't know that I seem like a guy from Massachusetts. You don't seem like a guy. We don't have. Did you ever have a strong Boston accent? Yeah.

When I look at old footage of me, I have a Boston accent. And I didn't even try to make it go away. Did you try? No, because that's how people talk. You don't know that there's any different. I'm from a small town. When I was there, the town population was 1,200 maybe. Wow.

Three towns or the municipality to go to high school and still the graduating class is 200 kids. Like, it was small, no stoplights. And everyone just talked like that. Yeah. And then you get put in a pool of people who have varying accents, and you realize, oh my God, I sound a certain way, and that might get misunderstood later on in life. Yeah, yeah. So I went to dormitory.

school as a 15, 16-year-old. And they kind of nudged me in the right direction of like, hey, you can also learn to speak a different way if you'd like. So that's when we kind of lost it. You'd like to get the cod out of your mouth. Yeah. Yeah. I remember not even being a conscious choice. I think it was just erosion. Oddly enough, though, when I go back to Massachusetts, and I, you know, my brothers and I hang out. I got four brothers. We're all still very close. We open a few beers and honestly get me around them. like six beers deep, it comes back instantaneously. Yeah.

And I can't shut it off. The first time my wife heard it, she's like, what the fuck happened to you? I don't understand what they're saying. Now I don't understand what you're saying. This is not the man I married. I can marry this guy from every other Ben Affleck movie. You got it this great story. It's a classic story of someone who feels insecure, feels is being bullied,

And first of all, why were you being bullied? Because you seem to me, I know why I was bullied. And anyone who meets me today or looks at any of my contents, like, I would bully that guy now. You, I don't see it. What was it about you that were? I was bullied because I did what you did. I put my hair up in like a high top fade. I really fell in love with then rap music before it became hip hop.

Right. In like the mid-80s is kind of when rap became public and mainstream, like Rundee and Cianero Smith and rapping Roddy Dangerfield had a rap album. It was just very commercialized. And with that became more exposure. Television and all that stuff. Yeah, it was a big thing on it. It broke through on MTV and suddenly your rap.

Kids, yeah, everybody wanted to. So in West Newbury, I'm, you know, 12, 13 years old and going through a stage of a rebellion in my life. and this music definitely spoke to me. I certainly couldn't put myself in the shoes of the artists, but what I got from it was like the voice of rebellion, and I embraced it, like airbrushed overalls, M.C. Hammerpants. I mean, and in my town, West Newbury is either 100% or 99.9. Repeating all white.

It's a farm town. It's a rock and roll town. It's four chords, ACDC, and that's it. And there's nothing wrong with that. But I was way different than everyone else. And I completely embraced, you know, I can't believe how many times I watched house party and tried to emulate the tag team dance of kid and play. A dance I do every time Chris Hayes and I see each other.

Chris Hayes does all our IT stuff and he knows it cold. And whenever we see each other, we just start to do it. Are you saying you guys both know this tag team dance? No, I know. It had a parking space for a while. It's going. Because I thought we're in for a real moment here. Yes, I do know it.

Because I put my hair up high, I was bullied. Yeah. And it just, I just didn't look like everyone else. And it was an easy target. I was skinny and scrawny. I had grown in height, but not in stature. Sure. And I just hadn't filled out my frame yet.

And I was an easy target. You know, it's so funny, had I responded differently, had I gone the John Cena route and hit the gym, I don't think muscles would have formed. I really don't. It took me. And I'm not even doing a joke. I think when I was, you know, 13, 14, 15, you could have put me. me in a gym and I could have been lifting weights, but I had no testosterone at that point. I didn't get testosterone until, well, I like to say this, but it's true, late in Obama's first term.

And you had it imported, too. You had laid that foundation until then when you hit that, it was fine. I just don't know if that would have happened for me, but who was supervising you? Who was telling you this is how you do the weights? Nobody. Just figured it out. Wow. My grandfather convinced my dad to get me a weight bench.

for Christmas. And it was like one of those home weeder gyms with every attachment to my dad's credit. He went in. I self-assembled it. And as soon as I got it done, I just worked out. And it came with a little pamphlet to be like, these are the exercises that this machine's capable of. And I just did the whole thing every day of like four sets of 12. So I used every possible combination on the machine, every single day. By the time I was age 15, I'd begun to fill out my frame. And that's when you go from junior high to high school and like the football coach is like, you, come here.

And that was the first time I got sort of mentored as a ways of like, do this and do this. But I just looked at the Joe Weeter pamphlet and did all the exercises. Wow, that's so cool. The football coach looked at me and said, you, come here, but he just wanted to kiss me. Fair. We went out for

three years. Sonia, you keep covering your face when you laugh. Let those laughs go. They're the mama's milk of this podcast. I'm just, I'm in embarrassed for you. Oh, please. I think that's my problem.

It's over for a relationship. I love that, man. I love that man. They're still together today. You come out to Los Angeles. I think I came out here for the first time in 1985. I know I did. You came out here.

And I don't know if you felt the same way, but when I came out here, it felt like I was going to the moon. I came from Massachusetts. I go to Los Angeles, and I had a really crazy. crappy car. I didn't have any money. And I was just, I think I would have felt exactly the same if you would drop me onto Mars and said, you have a very limited food supply. That's how strange it felt to me. And you came out here. Did you have a job when you came out? No, but no. And I felt it was strange, but I felt it was strange like, this is Mars. And if you'd been like, you have three days. I have three days of food, this is going to be great.

Attitude is everything. I made a choice to come out here. Even my first trip, when all the, you know, I'd saved up some money for like my senior year of college spring break and everyone was going to Cancun to have fun. And at the time, I didn't drink, so I came to Los Angeles

to check out places to do an internship. And as soon as I got off the plane, I'm like, man, I'm coming back here. I'm finding away. And the rest is kind of just finding a way. Yeah. You know?

I know you worked at Gold's Gym for a while. I started at a warehouse assembling and disassembling old fitness equipment, and I thought that would be a way to use my degree. I thought I would end up getting into the sales branch. But I was so good in the warehouse that it kind of chained me there for life. So I had to quit that. I worked security at bars. I worked a place called Sharkies over in Hermosa Beach.

I was there like five days a week from happy hour to close. Wow. That allowed me to work out at Gold. during the day, and then I actually got a job at Golds. That was very advantageous because I had to switch living situations. I had no place to live, so I just kind of lived in the parking lot and showered in the locker room and then just worked all day and then slept in my car. That was for a few months, and then I moved into a garage in Venice.

And then, again, I just got into wrestling by accident and now we're here. Yeah. And you made it. It's simple. It's really simple. This is an interesting thing I've been thinking about, which is, To me, it makes perfect sense that you would be in professional wrestling and then be so adept at comedy. Because I think there's some, I've always said there's a relationship between comedy and musicians.

And I think there's a relationship between comedians and what really good, you know, wrestlers are doing in professional wrestling, which is you need to figure out who you are. And then you need to attack that 100% with an attitude. And there's all these disciplines that go beyond the actual physical part of it. Obviously, you had the physical part of it, but you're a, I just look at, I was thinking about all the different characters you inhabited as a wrestler. You keep coming up with new ways to come at this thing. And some of the, was it the professor of, the Thuganomics.

Doctor of Thuganomics. And when I hear a doctor of thuganomics, I'm like, that's great comedy writing. That's really good comedy writing, and that's a great comedy character, and the fact that you have to keep changing it up, you can do something for a year or two, and then you have to switch it and come out a different way. It's almost a really good school for comedy, if you approach it the right way.

Do you think that's true? I think it's a great perspective, and you said good comedians and good professional wrestlers. I think comedy and live sports entertainment, professional wrestling, run parallels. So bad stand-ups are in that phase of trying to find themselves. So we're bad wrestlers. And they're working at shit clubs.

And they're mostly working for free and they're losing money. But they are trying to hone their craft. All they need is reps and the ability to be coachable, a little bit of magic. But they do find themselves. And once comedians do find their voice, you know, they do. They attack it. And the ones who have stood the test of time as storytellers can't just lean on successful material. They have to continue to bring the personality that the audience identifies with,

but in a new presentation. Yeah, yeah. And we in sports entertainment have to do the same thing. After 23 years of tenure there, and now this is my sports entertainment uniform because I need to let the audience know, like, I don't want to confuse the audience of like, he's going to do something physical because I've been the first wrestler ever to retire. And I've said, I'm not going back to falling down. I'm just not. It's not conducive to the goals I've set for myself. We were going to hit you with an orange crate. That's here. That's here.

Ed Warner, were you ready with the crate? I was ready. Yeah, yeah, okay. But again, I'm kind of still doing that. I'm still curating what the personality is. It's never over. It's never, and it's over when you walk away from it. Yeah.

You know, so as long as I'm still involved and I'm, you know, WW is my family. I'll never leave until they throw me out. Right. So I have to continue to evolve. And in doing that, my first rule is don't confuse the consumer, show up in a different outfit. fit so they know you're not getting your hands dirty.

Right. And now I'm far more of a promoter in a sports part. Sure, sure. So the, I guess what I was like obviously seen you over the years and in preparation for this, for this talk, I was looking at a lot of your, you know, iconic performances in the ring. And what I see is 100% commitment to whatever you're doing. You, you go in there and there is no fucking around and there's no lapse.

there's not a moment where you drop who it is that you want to be out there. That's really impressive and that's really hard to do. Because you're coming in as an athlete and doing this really incredible, these incredible moves and displaying these great gifts in your physicality, but also just you as this persona, you don't drop it for a second. It is life or death. And then to me, it's perfectly natural that you've had all this success in film and and television.

You just, because that is 90% of the game, is going in with that kind of, is this life or death I'm going to commit to this? I think that's also a good perspective, and I agree. I learned that the hard way. I thought just doing moves was important and almost lost my job.

Yeah. And then they were like, oh, you can rap? Would you mind being a character on TV? That's right. Well, they... Fuck, yes, I can. And that's when it was like,

you couldn't... Didn't someone hear you? You were like on a plane. I'm here by accident. Well, all of us are here by accident, except for Gorley, who seems to know what he's doing. But... What am I doing?

Oh, I don't know. I mean, what am I doing here? Well, please. I don't know what you're doing here, but... No, I've always heard the story that they're like, yeah, okay, maybe this over for this guy. We'd get rid of him. No, it wasn't, maybe this is over.

It was like, hey, we're doing December cuts and your name's on the list. Okay. They used to at least, back when I broke into the business around 2000, 2001, they would make cuts in every April and every December. But there would also be a list of people on the bubble. So at least they would make you aware of like, and I think that was to light a fire under you. Like, hey, three months, show me something, kid. But I had nothing.

And I had little understanding of how I could find myself. But because I had nothing, I had nothing to lose. And I went into a professional environment with the advice of, mouth shut ears open, which is great. I learned a lot, but I never spoke up for myself. When I knew the ship was sinking, and the guys were wrapped in the back, I was like, fuck this. I'm just going back there. And the head of creative happened to be sitting at the front of the bus.

And they were like, can you do that on TV? I said, I sure can. And it wasn't like the kid's a star. They started putting me in forgettable matches on their Saturday night broadcast that aired on nowhere. But in 100% commitment, I was like, called. myself Mr. Saturday night. Like the show is my show. You give me an inch. I'm going to take a mile.

But it was just the direction of, hey, you're the white kid from West Newberry who's the rapper. Yeah. I get that. I can work with that. Let's go on. The idea to only wear cut off jeans. Yeah. That to me, that to me, anyone, if you told me that

ahead of time, like, here's my thing. I wear cut off jeans in the ring. I'd be like, that's terrible. That's absolutely. That's absolutely terrible. Believe it or not, that was a process in itself. I was wearing everything. I was wearing like yellow corduroys. I wear like blue sheepskin pants.

I was really leaning into like urban wear. I would literally, you know, one win. I never wrestle in corduroy. That is a deal breaker from me. Went over one audience member at a time. And I would literally go to the city where we were in and shop in the hood for my gear that night. And while I'm paying, I'm like,

yo, I'm going to wear this tonight. And the jersey, I'm going to throw out to the crowd. people like, oh man, I'll go check that out. But just the fact that I'm going to these places, you know, for all the media, I would freestyle, everybody had freestyle kids in the parking lot. I have an album, for God's sakes. Like, I went in.

I went in, and the jean shorts became a necessity because that was kind of the style in 04, but the jean shorts were super long and super baggy, but in the evolution of the character outside of rapping, like the next chapter of the next chapter of, of this patriotic, aspirational figure that admires members of service, all core values within me, just like hip hop and rap music,

just one lane. The transition became, what is the material I can wear and wrestling that my crotch won't split? And denim, time over time. I see you're working backwards from something, yeah. Time over time, denim stands up to any test. I've worn like regular cargo shorts and I've blown my crotch open a bunch.

I blow my crotch open, I think, once a week. Jorts, jorts just were more durable. And they also fit the evolution of the character. So that was the thing that could kind of like, you know, they started going above knee height. And by the time I finished, it was like the John Stockton jorts. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. If you looked really close, you could see everything that was going on.

But they would, I knew they would never tear. That's fantastic. I mean, it just, I love, the best part of any story is the beginning to me because you understand, and you like the Beatles as an example. It's still interesting later on, but nothing's more fascinating than when they're figuring this out

in Hamburg, Germany. That's always the most infastinating part to me. How did these people come together? What are they doing in Germany? They're not supposed to be there. And how do they become these guys? And understanding, you know, a million things went into you

getting from North Shore, Massachusetts, to being in the ring, wearing shorts. Yeah, exactly. All I wish is that you sold shorts on TV and always open with tired of your crotch blowing open. That would be such a great ad, you know? Are you tired of your crotch?

And then just a series of shots of crotch is just exploding. Like they put a grenade in a mannequin's, where a mannequin's dick should be and it just explodes. And then you're like, I've got just the fence for you. Hi, I'm John Cena. You'd be, I mean, I'm sure you're doing well now, but you'd be a billionaire. If I could have sold jorts like that to prevent, Brent crotches from Boroa. You start to make this transition into film.

And you have this interesting story, which is true for so many people, but your first foray is not a commercial success. No, not at all. And neither is the next one or the next one or the next one or the next one or the next one. Certain people, Judd Apatow, Tina Faye, they're like, Amy Schumer. Amy Schumer. Like, no, no, no, there's something good here. And we're going to stick with this.

We're going to work with this guy. And you start working in these and doing a really good job in these great movies. I appreciate that. So you had said, like a million things have to happen to take it from the North Shore or wearing shorts. 900,000 of those aren't strictly me. Like, it's all a collective work. Yeah, yeah.

What can I control and what can I learn from my experiences? The reason those movies, or the reason I can control that those movies sucked, I wasn't wholeheartedly invested. Right. I wanted to be in the ring. Yeah. Because as a 27-year-old, spending 15 hours a day to watch one thing blow up in a library quiet set is not near as cool as being in an arena in Lexington with 22,000 people

going ape shit to be like, this is the fucking best thing I've ever seen in my life. Yes. And then you drive to the next town and do it again. I wanted to be there. My focus was elsewhere. And again, I think I've had at least a bit of control over knowing when something is happening. Like, do you want a rap? I do. It's going to be ridiculous. I'll do it. Like, I'll be ridiculous instead of putting roadblocks. By the time I auditioned for train wreck, I was like, hey, you've already been run out of the movie business once. And you're also doing okay. You have other things going on. I was, I was, I was, hosting the Today Show, reading the news, doing live programming. I was having fun. So if you're going to get back into this, I just told myself, put the same amount of passion you do in wrestling into this.

Yeah. And at the very least, you won't regret your choices. And that's exactly what I did in that audition. I'm sitting with very funny people. I have no business being there. But I didn't give a fuck and just let it go and realize that, like, I was the joke in many cases. So I didn't put the roadblock in front of myself.

I can't laugh at myself. because I'm cool and fuck that. Like, let's go, let's make the funniest, coolest thing. And in being on set in New York, man, Judd called Tina, who was filming just up the road and be like, hey, I'm done with John. If you have a small part for him, which they did, they needed a drug dealer. And they were like, yeah, sure, he's not going to sink the movie. If he sucks, sure, we'll give him a chance.

And then I got, like, within a small period, I got to work with and watch very funny people, not only on screen, but also how they see comedy. It was like how I learned from my mentors in wrestling. Like the people when I started my character and got some speed, the experienced folks that I got to work with every night was like fucking college. And just those instances, I got to go from Judd and Amy and everybody they brought in to Paulette Pell, Amy Poehler, and Tina Fey, everybody they brought in. And then like Will Farrell and his whole crew with Mark Wahlberg, it was just a storm.

of very funny, very successful comedians. I got to work with Seth Rogen's group. Like every single time, I wasn't the smartest guy in the room and all these smart people were like, we want you to be funny because if you're funny, it helps us. Yeah. So I was also in an environment where it was okay to fail.

They're only gonna show the funny stuff. Don't be afraid to tell a joke that bombs because it doesn't fucking matter. Like I really got nurtured and combine that with, hey, don't fuck this up this time. Go wholeheartedly. Like be in it. Know that every day is going to be 14 hours

and don't complain to try to get it done faster. Just show up and go. And that's been a system that's, you know, it worked in wrestling. And I look back on those decisions. I'm like, what the fuck was I doing? But I'm just so grateful that I did get another chance. And I didn't hold out for like, I have to be the star. No, I'll be a fucking merman.

I don't care. Like, it's a chance to be creative and do something. I'm holding out for a merman. Again, like putting a dorn. in front of a window. Yeah. See the opportunity. I'm not saying say yes to everything because, you know, it's impossible to do that.

But a lot of times we might have something going or there might be potential there. And the biggest obstacle is self-sabotage. Yeah. So I just try to minimize self-sabotage. I get the impression talking to you that you've done a lot of work, meaning you've read a lot about strategies, you think a lot about strategies to succeed. You've done a lot of work. I don't know if it's a self-help book.

books or something, but I get that impression that you take, you, you were very honest with yourself about what could I have done better. Yeah. How could I? And not a lot of people are. A lot of people, you know, it takes a lot of discipline to constantly look at yourself and say, okay, I'm doing well, this went okay, but how could it have gone better? That takes a methodology that you had when you were 13 years old and you decided I'm going to lift weights every day and read this book. It's all the same thing over and over and over again. That's the part that I respond to viscerally when I'm talking to you is I know that I've screwed up a million times in a million different ways. But my methodology when I was 13 was, well, I would like to be better than I am.

Or I'd like to take this, yeah, a little bit of thing that interests me that I think I have some ability in and I want to see how far I can push it. And then here I am all these years, decades and decades later, and I'm still doing the same thing. It's just, it's not that romantic or cool. It's just this, I'm going to go back at it again today. And I think that's what is romantic and cool. So I'm going to, I'm going to lean into those two words for a second. Romantic and cool. New romance.

That's, you know, passionate and fiery. What really tugs at my heartstrings is when I see a 50th anniversary. Yeah. And that's beautiful. When I see an old couple. walking hand in hand. That's romance. That's cool.

You know what that takes? The same fucking thing every day. And it's not easy. There's sensitivities. You fucking brush your teeth too loud. There's so much to coexist. Thank you. You know, to coexist with somebody.

Yeah. To build a team to be successful for that long. Yeah. That's romance. That's cool. What's interesting is that we're in this. this immediate satisfaction culture. And when you talk about these things, like, no,

you got to commit to this over this many decades. You can see people's eyes kind of glows over. See it. Yeah, because we live in a culture where, wow, that looks cool. Amazon will bring it to you by 5 p.m. today. 5 p.m. I need it by 1. Yeah. God damn it.

Amazon. 5.05. You're in front of your house. Why have I been lied to? My life sucks. I think that's what helped with physical fitness. I didn't blow up the second I did all those exercises. Right. Nor three months later, nor a year later, nor two years later.

Yeah. Like, it was a very long-term thing. And right as in that, you know, adaptable period where you're learning about life and self, I found that like, oh, nothing is gained tomorrow. It's trench warfare. It's an inch at a time. And eventually the inches make a mile.

Yeah. And I kind of use that as a template of like, Like, oh, man, I mess around a piano. Like, strictly for me, not to monetize it, not as a skill to show. It's a hobby. It's like a safe space for me. I'll hear. Is that something you were interested in even as a kid?

Or is this something that came much later? I wanted to play music so bad as a young kid. And I look at my hands and I'm like, oh, I try to pick up a guitar. I have like a catcher's movie with small sausages attached to it. So it was very easy. I feel like it's like Hulk. Hulk want to play obo. Crush, Hulk's sad.

It was just easy for me to say, I'm not built for this. Yeah, yeah. And for the longest time I did that. And on my 40th birthday, I'm like, fuck it. You're going to learn music. You're just going to learn. So I got a shitty keyboard and just started mashing keys.

And I did mash keys. And I was like, man, I'll be good at this in five years. And in five years, I was better than I was when I was mashing keys. But compared to someone who's a musician, I still sucked. I've been playing for almost 10 years. Yeah. And I'm better than I was yesterday, but I still suck. What kind of stuff do you like to play?

Right now, man, I want to just play jazz. I want to sit down with like a scotch and just jazz it up. Like that's my goal. And I know I'll be there in five years. Wow, so cool. So like that's, I'm just learning like fundamental 12 bar blues and cocktail jazz and stuff like that. And I try to put in an hour a day and I know like fluency takes eight hours a day or four hours a day. I don't have that.

So I'm on my own speed. but because it doesn't sound right now, I don't care. I'm like, hey, what's it going to sound like in 2035? Yeah. And if I'm not there, then I got to pivot. And each year I kind of take an assessment of, all right, I'm not where I want to be, but dude, you didn't know how to play this last year. Yeah.

And I'll work on a piece for a year or I'll work on fundamentals. It's just the same. Dun, dun-da, dun, for a fucking year, 18 months. My wife's like, you're going to learn something new? And you're like, can you try and brush your team? It's a little more. It's 505. Where's my Amazon package?

Do you... It's interesting, because I have a similar thing with guitar. I don't think I'm a natural musician, but I was just really interested in it and, you know, went and got a guitar when I first came out to L.A. And got a booklet, just, you know, like you did with the weights,

and sat in my... I didn't have a girlfriend when I first came out to L.A., so I just sat in my room and played... forced myself to do these scales and and trichords. And I know that if I sit with musicians, they're like, oh, he's a comedian. But I also know that I just enjoy it. It's something that's for me.

Yeah. Like you also don't, I was never going to be Mr. Olympia. I lifted weights like it was my job. It's never going to be Mr. Olympia. I committed to football as if it was the last thing I'd ever do. I played Division III football. I was never going farther than that. And I was never going to play football in front of more than maybe 1,500 people.

Right. I started wrestling not because I knew I would make it, because it was a way to justify staying in California and proving my dad right that I could make it, working my shitty job, as long as they gave me the weekends off, and I would dress up as a fucking superhero and do kind of be athletic. Yeah, yeah. Justify like, why do you spend so much time at the gym? Because I'm a wrestler, and it works, and that's fine.

Like, I never, it's okay to have. have something, you don't have to be, you don't have to be a gold medalist. Yeah. You might still like to go out for a run. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Like piano for me is, that's for me. It's not for somebody to be like, oh, you can't play.

Yeah, I can't play like you. But you should have seen me when I started. I fucking couldn't play. And now I can kind of play. So that's all I can't play like you, but I can rip your head off. Thelonious Monk. You just go to jazz clubs and beat, I love you going to different jazz clubs and beat the shit out of all these like old amazing players you can't do this can you john sina killed 11

greats today and a uh berserk yeah it's it's weird now like i i also am very grateful for when i grew up because i don't think i would have had the perseverance yeah like when i grew up you'd look at a picture of arnold schwartzinger in a magazine or or you might be able to if you're um If you're an aspiring musician, get a dubbed tape of some like live performance. Now you go on your phone and you see the 1% of everything. And there are so many, let's say you're into lifting weights, right? And you want to be Mr. Olympia. 8 billion people in the world is probably, you know, I'm making low estimations,

100 million people that train dedicated every day, that have profiles, that post shit. You're going to be flooded with people who you know. If I work the fucking hardest I can, I'm never. going to look like that. I'll be the best me. Yeah. But that shit's out of reach. I think if I if I was 13 now, it would be very tough for me to be like...

Would kill your initiative. Yeah. Man, I remember when I was young and I saw my first Corvette. I was like, man, that's fucking aspirational. Now, it's just super cars everywhere. It's like, how the fuck am I ever going to get a $12 million car? Because that seems to be what everybody's driving. But it's not. It's what a small percentage of people are driving, but you're flooded with all this information of,

you know, if you're not like this, don't even fucking try. Don't try. And that's difficult. And I really have a lot of empathy for young folks out there. And that may a short attention span and all that, but even being flooded with that information might really stop people from like, I'm just going to fail anyway. That's why you need to block some of the apps sometimes and just get into your garage

and work on what you're going to work on. That's also like saying like, hey, yeah, stop doing crack and hanging out. Like, it's so addictive. You know, blocking the apps is so easy to. say, oh, we just need to be on our phone list. That's the easy fix. Dude, it's addictive. You know, I know, I know. It's just tough. It's tough. You know, so again, I don't know. I'm just very grateful for the time of life I grew up in and the fact that everything is gone the way it's gone. But I just think it was like, I didn't know any better. Yeah. So even when it came to

telling jokes, I didn't know any better. I knew I was sitting with, you know, comedians and important people in that field, but I didn't overthink it. And I didn't. And I didn't think it. And I didn't know that like, if I tell a shitty joke, I'm going to feel less than. I just got in and went. This is interesting thing, too, like, I'm a fan of peacemaker, you know, I think you're really funny. It's a really funny character. I think that's a great role for you. And one of the things that makes it work is you're not telling jokes. You're just, you're saying everything with complete sincerity and you're very earnest. And your character's outrageous, you know, he's, He's a total asshole.

He's got a cruel nickname for everyone. Yeah, he's self-absorbed. He doesn't see himself properly. So what your approach to it is you could be Lawrence Olivier. What you're saying is very important to you, and it's real. It just happens to be completely wrongheaded and insane. But it's what makes it so funny, you know, that a lot of being funny is not saying a joke. People, because I've been in comedy for so long, sometimes,

Older people, younger people never say this, but older people like, oh, yeah, you're that funny guy. Tell me a joke. I'm like, I don't know a joke. I've never said a joke in my life. And when I do hear a funny joke, I can't remember it for more than five minutes. But it's about committing to something absolutely absurd with incredible intensity. You do that so well. Well, we're all storytellers.

Yeah. And again, that's just something from wrestling. Yeah. Don't drop the act. Yeah, yeah. Because if you do, people notice. Yeah. And I got to see it every night.

like I did the Beatles thing. I performed five nights a week for 23 years, nonstop. Yeah. But we don't have an off season. We don't stop ever. So like I had my time in Germany. And by the time I got to my Ed Sullivan show

trying to play different characters other than John, oh, you just never break the bit. Yeah. And swing big and go for it. Yeah. You know, like. And that's what you're, I mean, that's what you're doing.

And I want to make sure I get to because, we were talking to Eric Andre. We were talking about your new project together. By the way, tremendously talented, too. He's got so much talent and skill that he kind of keeps for him. Yeah. He's a really... Well, this is interesting, too.

I'm realizing, you know, he's a jazz guy. He's a serious jazz guy. Have you ever played together? So that I don't want to, like, have my dreams crushed? Because he is very good. Yeah. Well, he's Berkeley School of Music. He is very good.

Upright bass playing. Yeah. So like when we were filming a little brother, like, man, you know, you're all over the place. What are you doing? He's like, after this, I'm rapping, I'm going to Budapest to do some classical jazz album. We're going to score it and everything.

I'm like, wait, what? I want to come too. I'll bring my piano. And it's just one of those things that like, in everybody's got a story, you know, we know nothing about. And to hear his, and he does it, it's pure passion for him.

He's not trying to blow it out of the water. He just wants to be around good musicians. He wants to compose. He wants to create. you know, he's known to me, and I think a lot of the people know him for outrageous physical comedy and commitment to concept.

And that's why I love Eric. And I was so happy to work with him and allow a project that I thought was written for him with outrageous physical comedy and commitment to concept. And in learning who he is, like, man, he's a real, he's a fucking talented director. Like, he's got so much stuff going on.

He knows, it's one of the things is knowing how you're funny and Eric knows, I could just see him knowing exactly this is how I'm funny in this situation. What makes little brother, I think the core of it is you two are a funny comedy duo because you present as so different. You know, your complete opposites,

and your character also is incredibly uptight, you know. And then again, committing to the bit. I got this guy going crazy around me, Right. But you're supposed to be type A. Yeah, and you're not laughing. You're not thinking it's funny. You're not winking at the camera.

You're incredibly irritated by the fact that Eric Andre has shown up in your life. And it's just wreaking havoc. It's wreaking havoc. And you are trying to hold it all together. The thing I wanted to mention that I got to see last night, Coyote v. Acme, which is something I've been waiting for. This is such a funny. And they gave me a chance to watch it.

it. And I was thinking, okay, it's such a funny idea. And I'm a fan of yours. And I love Will Forte. I think this is, I like all the ingredients, but are they going to do this correctly? And the nice surprise for me was, yes, they did it correctly. It's really funny. It's really funny. And you're, of course, the head lawyer, head chief counsel for Acme, which is really funny. And the coyote's really good, forte's great, and they did a really nice job of blending that sort of classic Warner Brothers animation

with real-life characters and having them all come together. David Green, and that's all for him. It's one and lost in prep when you do, when essentially you're acting with a tennis ball. Yeah. It is one and lost in the prep. And I have done a lot of digital stuff before. Dave had so much realism on set

to allow us to get lost so we don't drop the bits so we're not winking at the camera because it is just a tennis ball. Man, he really directed his ass off for that thing in his shows. I'm very glad that his movie is going to be seen by people because, man, I would love to get him another chance to do something. This is a crazy story because I remember being very excited about this movie and then hearing that, well, Warner Brothers isn't going to release it for tax purposes.

You're like, wait, what? And they were going to take a loss because they do that now. The business has changed and they can sometimes they think they can make more money if they write it off as a business expense. And you're like, wait a minute. No, I want to see this movie. And what's nice is that there was this explosion online of people saying, no, no, no, no, no. You can do this with a lot of crappy movies. You can't do that with this movie.

We want to see it. And so that won the day. And the movie's coming out, and I just watched it, and I really loved it. I appreciate you saying that. Thank you. And I guess, you know, when we do creative work, it's for an audience.

Very few things we do creatively. I mean, I'm not saying, I know I play piano for me, but like very few things, it's for an audience. It's a storytell, it's to entertain, especially when you have that many people involved. I completely understand someone who pays for the thing, getting the thing,

and be like, I just want to put it over here. and even though I'm upset, I didn't pay for the thing. You did. It's yours. It is technically yours, yes. I've been compensated. Everybody's been fairly compensated. The only thing we're missing is the approval or disapproval of, you know, the loud voices out there. So if you buy it and you're like, I'm just going to put it in a baggie, I'm a car guy. There are some car guys who just buy nice stuff and put it in a bag and don't drive it.

I think everything should hit the road and be out there because that's just my philosophy. Yeah, I'm not way about instruments. A lot of times people say, I mean, this guitar is really great, but, you know, I'm just going to keep it in storage because it's really worth a lot of money. It's like, no, guitars have to be. You got to get out there and play it, you know?

But that's only my perspective. I respect somebody who's like, it serves us better here, as long as everyone's fairly taken care of. If they didn't pay anybody or if, like, they tanked it or whatever, that's a different story. And then even when it got a chance, the fans, you know, voice their opinion of them want to see it, It still had to go through a lot of loopholes.

It had to get purchased to be seen. So you have to have another company be like, it's worth the risk and not a cheap buying for another place. So the people who bought it originally get their money's worth and the people who inherit it now can hopefully give something that the audience enjoys. You mentioned you're a car guy. What are your go-to cars? Man, I love everything.

I'm not as eclectic as like Leno, but I mean, I love, I grew up off American muscle. So that's the stuff I saw as a... What is your iconic American muscle car? 1970 Pontiac GTO. Yeah. The judge package. Like, I think that is the toughest looking car, period.

And the thing is, they're all the same. Like GMA bodies, I believe, like the Chevelle, the 442, the Buick GSX, and the Pontiac GTO, they're all the same. It's just they did a little bit of things different. For some reason, that mixture of the 70s psychedelics and the stupid colors and all the stripings. Pontiac just got it right, man. I think that's... Do you have many of those, then? No, no.

I had a phase where I had those cars and drove them. They're rewarding, but they're also, like, enormous. I would also put the Plymouth Superbird, the one with the nose and the huge wing. It was Joe Dirt's kick-around car before you got his awesome car at the end. I think that's a nice thing because, like, racing was so big and you had to sell a certain amount of them. and the dealers to be able to race them on Sundays, so they actually sold these cars. And that's a pretty cool connection.

I like, like, first of all, I'm a Honda man. And my daily driver is a Honda Civic type R. And I beat the shit out of that thing. I love that car. Like, it's, it is the best of all worlds. You see you beat the shit of it. You just attack it with a bat? Or you drive it rough.

With you, I don't know. Sorry, I drive it like I'm testing it to withstand anything. Yeah, great. It's a manual shift car. Oh, I love that. four door, it's got just enough horsepower. It's like 330 horsepower, so it's not one of those thousand horsepower deals where if you do mash your foot, you get thrown back so far. You can't steer like you're always on it. The interface is great. It's got everything that I want in a ride.

But I, and I also like a lot of the old British stuff for the reason of... You just have to maintain it. Sure, they all break. Yeah. But that's the fun part. That's also kind of the fun part of like... I never got that being the fun part. When a car doesn't start, I just lose it. And I start murdering people. But if you're essentially driving for another reason than to get to 0.8 to point Bs, that's why I love the Honda.

Because I know when I put the keys in that, I don't care where I'm going. And I don't care if I shift everything at 6,500 RPM. I'm going to get to my destination. Yeah. That's why I love that car. The other stuff, leaks, brakes, and it's tough to get parts, tough to find a skilled mechanic. But I like it because it looks sleek. They're very small, and you're not going at a death-defying speed when you're ripping through the gears.

An old Austin Healy, you can club through the gears, and your third going to fourth, and you're like, man, this is great. I'm going 40 miles an hour. Okay, I'm also safe. This is going to be fantastic. I like someone shouting in a car. I'm also safe. Well, there's no roof on it. Yeah.

You know, so it's, to me, that experience of, I love to drive. And I don't love to track drive. although it's the same experience you're on the track. I never listen to the radio. I look at the car like a pilot of like an old prop plane. I'm always clocking the gauges, my rearview mirror. I'm listening to the motor. My wife thinks I'm nuts.

It's literally like we have permission to jam out on some of the cars that have audio systems. She's like, can I connect? Yeah, go ahead. Go for it. I'm okay. But there are sometimes she knows it like, oh, man, you just need to listen to the thing. Okay, it's all right. I'll be over here. You just do your thing.

You'd be happy and I'll be over here. I love, yeah, I'll be over here miserable. Yeah. I'm gonna brush my teeth. There you go. There you go. My man, right there. I just love that experience of being connected.

Yeah. To take it back to the old muscle cars, they're so big and wobbly. Sometimes you lose a little bit of that connection. Yeah. You know? But like, man, I just love stuff that you're on. I was just in, we were shooting something. And Sona was there too.

We were in Morocco and we were at the foothills of the Sahara. And we were driving around in this, I think it was a, not a Land Rover. It was a Land Rover. It was a Land Rover. It was a Land Rover. It was a Land Rover. But it was manual. And I realized how much I miss manual. Because I used to have, I still have it actually, but it needs to get fixed up a Ford Tourist S-HO. Oh, yeah. Yamaha V-6. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Is it British Racing Green?

Yes, it's British Racing Green. It's the wolf. You know what? People have been laughing at me. And I finally met the guy who's giving me fucking respect. A car fucks. That thing was awesome. Yes. Do your kid and play dance. Come on.

Yeah. A do. Tap, tap. The, the, uh, the, uh, so that car, I had it for years and I would always talk about it on the show. And it became this thing that all my fans knew that I have a Ford Taurus, a 1992 Ford Taurus, SHO. And, uh, with the Yamaha engine. Tim Leather Interior. Yes.

Yes. Yes. God damn it! I want to marry you. Anyway, we left it at Warner Brothers, and they still don't know. We, like, hit it in a parking garage. It's covered in dust.

And recently, we heard from Ford that they might rehab it for me because it is beat to shit. It doesn't even run. But I want to get that thing rehabbed, and I want to tool around in my green Ford Tourist S-HO. That's a fun-d-d-drawn truck. I miss shifting.

And I want to get that back into my life. off the phone. If you're worried about driving me on the phone, like having to work both your feet and your hands, like, it's like riding a motorcycle. I also fondled myself while driving. Oh, Jesus. You can't do that much. I know, I can't.

You can't. I'll be like, shit in a second end. I don't know, la la la la. I just heard from Ford. You're out. Ford's out. Ford's out. God damn it.

All right, I've kept you. But Chevy's in. The old new Chevy masturbator. Calvin Fissing on it, but no stream. Okay, take it easy. Let's all settle down. And I apologize to all car companies everywhere. I've kept you too long, but it's because I just love talking to you.

You're fantastic. Coyote v. Acme is dropping and it's really funny. You have to check it out. And it's a theater movie. It's something you've got to go see in big screens. And you know what? It looks great. It looks great.

It's really fun. And also, I grew up on those Roadrunner cartoons. And I love all the callbacks to the classic moments in those cartoons. So very cool. And I'm just, I'm very happy for you because you seem like a really good guy. who just keeps applying himself and doing the work and it's leading to all these amazing things. And I hope that it's going to just keep happening for you.

So I like your vision of prediction. I realize that it won't. And I think that allows me to invest wholeheartedly in these moments. Yeah. I mean, within reason, you will die. Of course. And this is how we end all podcasts now. By the way, guests, you will die.

Also, there's a high likelihood that before that, The town stops calling. Yes. And like, we all, we all know that's coming. It's weird, though. And I'm just going to take some more time. Fuck it. Yeah.

Because I'm having a great time. Oh, good. You get into this thing and you're awarded a few opportunities and you think it'll last forever. I think it's really important to lean into the fact that it doesn't. And it makes me sitting here with you extra special. Oh, cool. God damn, I'm sitting here with you.

Like, this is fantastic. We get to talk. Who would ever thought we'd been talking about a Ford S. S.H.O. Taurus. Like, that's the way. That was, that was kind of, We ended until I fucked it all up.

Yeah, yeah. But like, brings it up a lot. Maybe it doesn't continue. Yeah. And I think the way to look back on it and we spoke off camera and you came in, you're like, man, I do this because I love it. Yeah.

And in a nutshell, you were like, because I love it, that doesn't mean it's easy, which I, there's a whole other podcast there. Right. But man, this is going to end. And all, like, opportunities are beyond my control. I'm not a studio head. I don't green light movies. I don't know what the future holds.

I don't know what's going to happen. So when I get a chance to talk to you, I'm going to pump it a few minutes because this is fucking great. And I don't want to end. But it is going to end. But I think that's refreshing to hear because I think about that all the time.

It is good. I've had a lot of nice things happen in my career. And I've had some low times. I've had some high times. And I'm very aware I've built a life where, you know, without getting too sentimental. But I love my wife. I love my kids.

I really like my friends. there's a bunch of things that I'm interested in doing and getting involved in. So I always have this reserve idea in the back of my brain, which is they can take all this stuff away. And I don't even know who they are anymore. But that can all go away. And I think I'd still have a lot of fun. And then you feel bulletproof.

And that's the most important thing. I just retired from in-ring performance last year. And everybody was like, are you going to be okay? In many interviews, I was like, I was heard athletes die twice. I never just labeled myself the pro wrestler. There might have been a period in the beginning of that windfall, but I'm more than that. And when it gets taken away, it doesn't take all of me with it.

You know, I love doing this. Also, you still have that. You'll always have, I mean, there's huge tracks of the Internet that are devoted to all of your work and all your iconic performances. But what's nice is that that's out there. It's just, that's not been deleted. Now you can go on. If I want to relive those moments, fine, but I didn't wholeheartedly invest so people would build statues and talk about me forever.

I wholeheartedly invested because people paid that night. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? And that's it. And after that, the experience is over. And any ancillary stuff we get, that's great. It will end. And when it does, I hope I have a long run afterwards because that's not what defines me.

I find a whole other shit interesting in life. And that's the fun ride of like figuring out what's next and what's going on. So with that in mind, I thank you guys for the time today. This has been awesome. Is there a more delightful person than Don Cina? Do you do life coaching at all? I have some questions. Well, listen, you are welcome here anytime you want to shoot the shit about anything

because you're also that very rare person. You're incredibly so well-mannered. Yeah, I know. And you are not, Sona. I'm not. No. I'm agreeing with you. Yeah, yeah.

She's a monster. But John, continued success to you and such a joy having you here today, seriously. I can't wait to talk again. All right. Thank you, guys. This won't air. It's unerable. It's unerable. Conan O'Brien needs a friend with Conan O'Brien, Sonam of Sessian and Matt Goreley.

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