Pretty much the entire match card for WrestleMania 33 has found its way online early this year, but despite that, it doesn't appear as if Vince McMahon has any intentions of changing what he has planned. However, one of the more surprising decisions is for John Cena to be placed in a mixed gender tag team match with real-life girlfriend Nikki Bella against The Miz and his wife Maryse.
It's not exactly a main event spot for Cena, though it has been rumoured that the match will culminate with him proposing to Bella and the two then taking several months off from the company.
We'll just have to wait and see if that's the case, but during a recent interview with Sports Illustrated, Cena was asked if that's a match he pitched to WWE and the amount of creative control he really has.
"I know people have a perception of who I am. There is nothing I can say in this interview that changes that perception, but I’ll say this: I don’t pitch ideas, I don’t go and say, ‘This is what I would like to do.’ I’ve had tremendous success in being a versatile poker player, if that’s a good analogy. I get my hand told to me, and I play it the best I possibly can. As far as WrestleMania is concerned, whatever I’m supposed to do I’m going to do to the best of my ability.
I can reference last year as a great example. I was ready, healthy, and one-hundred percent activated by early March, and I was told that I would be assisting The Rock in WrestleMania. Quite honestly, if it weren’t for The Rock’s involvement in WrestleMania, I would have been told that I would have been sitting out WrestleMania. You sometimes get an off-the-beaten path request, and it’s your job, as a professional, to make it interesting and make it the best you can. To be quite honest, way, way, way back, AJ Styles was an off-the-beaten path request, and I loved that. It brought out the best in AJ Styles, and it brought out the best in me. I’ll always try to do the best with what I’ve got."
Of all the people in WWE you would think can call their own shots, Cena would have to be right at the top of the list. While he no doubt has some say in that, it's interesting to think that he's still happy to do what he's asked and how his perception of AJ Styles changed both in and out of character after their classic series of matches.
Still, Cena's role in WWE is now much different to what it used to be. He's something of a "part-timer" these days, dividing his time between wrestling and film and television appearances. The whole thing brings back memories of how Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson transitioned from the squared circle to an acting career and Cena admits to having som regrets about comments he made about his former rival back when they were feuding.
"It was stupid of me. It genuinely was. That was my perspective at the time. When you’re involved in the daily grind of WWE, and that’s something I never will let go of—I promise you that. I just love it, and I don’t think I need to say that, ever again, or have somebody question my allegiance to a brand, not the sport of professional wrestling, so to say, but a brand. I love the WWE. For me to not be able to see Dwayne’s vision on what he wanted to do personally, and how his personal success could affect a growing global brand, that was just ignorant on my part.
We have our blinders on, sometimes, in these daily situations of life, and, to me, my thing was, ‘Hey man, as a fan, I loved you performing in this venue all the time, you left us high and dry, why aren’t you back here? It’s obvious you’re still healthy and obvious you’re still capable.’ On the other side of the fence, I didn’t see the man who is so driven to crush the stereotype of ‘pro wrestlers are just pro wrestlers, and they can do nothing more, period.’ Here we are, when Rock left in 2002, it didn’t happen overnight for him, and through fifteen years of hard work, he is the number one box office draw in the world. There is not more of a foot in the ground that you can stake your claim in and say, ‘WWE superstars are so much more than WWE superstars, and here’s proof.’ I was foolish and ignorant to not see that, because I just wanted him, selfishly, on Monday Night Raw and on Smackdown Live."
If the plan is for Cena and Bella to take on The Miz and Maryse, expect to learn more about that on tonight's SmackDown Live when the budding feud between the four continues to grow, especially after the shocking events of last weekk's episode!