What Happened Backstage After John Cena WWE Retirement Match

WWE

A WWE star has revealed what happened backstage after John Cena’s retirement match at Saturday Night’s Main Event this past December.

At the December 13 edition of WWE Saturday Night’s Main Event, John Cena had his final match in a loss to GUNTHER.

The rest of the card was put together as a showcase of the future of WWE, with NXT stars Oba Femi, Sol Ruca, Je’Von Evans and TNA’s Leon Slater all featuring.

Appearing on No-Contest Wrestling, Femi has spoken about what it meant to be part of that night, and told the story of Cena doing shots with the locker room post-match.

He said:

“It was a feeling of privilege for sure. Because that is another short list – the number of people who got to perform at John Cena’s retirement match. It’s very symbolic that John’s end is my beginning, and that fact I kind of enjoy.

“I really wanted to work with John. I was really hoping and praying, ‘Don’t go, don’t go too fast.’ But he did. I was really hoping to work with him, especially when a lot of people were putting fire under the idea of me being the one to retire him and stuff like that. I was really hoping that would happen, but it didn’t.

“I’d already rubbed minds with John in the past, he had given me advice, he had seen me wrestle before, he knew who I was and what I was all about. He had good things to say about me. Whatever he felt was a correction or something I could do better, he always told me. So I’m glad that before that day came, I was at least able to have some sort of relationship with John.

“A lot of people don’t know this, maybe they do, but after the show, John came back to the locker room – big star, big shot John Cena – he came back to the locker room with all the boys, and he shared one last toast and took shots with us, and I’m glad that I got to be a part of that.

“It really showed how humble he was, no matter how big he got in WWE or in Hollywood, he was, at his core, still just one of the boys. So respect to John.”

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Femi also shared the biggest advice Cena has given him, saying:

“He’s very big on ‘look at me’ moments. I don’t know if you’ve heard the story with he and Cesaro, where he told Cesaro to go and get the ball that was being thrown around in the audience and pop the ball.

“But he’s very big on crowd interaction and ‘look at me’ moments. He told me that he understands that NXT is a very fast-paced style of wrestling, because that’s what Shawn wants, but at the same time, he encouraged me to, when the opponent is down, I should always take my time to interact with the crowd and do something that will be memorable to them so they can always remember me.

“That’s one of the things that John said to me that stuck, that was a pretty big one. Amongst many other things, but that was the big takeaway.”

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• wwe
• John Cena
• Oba Femi

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