Over the past couple of years, John Cena hasn’t been present in the WWE locker room like he has over the rest of his career. He has been away from the company due to injuries, big commitments to Hollywood, and other business ventures. His importance to the company is always tied to his merchandise, ticket sales, and a lot of other factors, but many fans forget how important his backstage presence is inside the locker room.
A big part of being a top guy for the company is taking care of backstage issues and ensuring that morale is as high as it can be, which is pivotal since everyone travels together roughly 300 days a year. As John Cena’s time with WWE has decreased over the past few years, he hasn’t been as responsible for that, but he revealed during an appearance on the E&C’s Pod Of Awesomeness his unhappiness with the current state of the locker room. Cena had the following to say about the behavior backstage during the interview:
“The amount of complacency is staggering I mean these guys are all so gifted and there’s never been a better time ever to make a name for yourself in WWE. With all of the platforms that we have. With Raw , with SmackDown , with NXT we’re increasing our amount of pay-per-views. We’re throwing so much content at the network it’s insane.”
Many years ago, WWE only put out two hours of Raw and maybe another hour of content during a normal week, but Raw is three hours and SmackDown Live is two hours. NXT, 205 Live , and other content exists on the WWE Network. On paper, WWE stars have more opportunities to get over with the WWE Universe than ever before, but someone like John Cena remains disappointed that the locker room is so complacent.
During his interview, Cena also spoke about how many WWE Superstars wait for creative to come up with something for them to do on WWE programming rather than create for themselves. He spoke about going to Vince McMahon to at least understand the logic behind the creative to help with their performance, but a lot of superstars don’t do that. Cena seems blown away by so much talent just doing what they are told.
There is no question that the current WWE roster is one of the most talented in the company’s history, so a lot of people wonder why WWE television can lack excitement sometimes. Cena has given a clue as to why that has been the case. With so much content being produced, it seems the only thing stopping the current crop of talent from excelling is themselves. Hopefully, Cena’s words can be something of a wake-up call.
[Featured Image by WWE]
