John Cena looks back on his memorable match against Brock Lesnar at WWE SummerSlam 2015 and shares his mindset about it.
Cena and Lesnar headlined WWE SummerSlam 2014, and Lesnar shocked the world when he repeatedly suplexed the former world champion. Lesnar controlled the vast majority of the match, whereas most of Cena’s main event bouts were much more competitive.
Speaking with Sam Roberts on Notsam Wrestling, Cena was asked about the match and the way Lesnar dominated him. Cena described how his experience as an enhancement talent influenced his approach to the match, as he realized that they had a story to tell. He also recalled how Lesnar and Steve Austin came up with the idea where he would repeatedly suplex Cena and win the match.
“I think the reason I still had that perspective is…I’m using Brock as an example only because it fits the narrative,” Cena said. “Brock was taken from OVW and pushed into being champion immediately. I was given an opportunity at the beginning, and then became enhancement talent. Even when I reidentified myself as a hip-hop artist or a rapper, I was an enhancement talent. I had a two-year understudy of ‘This is your job. This is the story.’
“Arn Anderson, I remember, [said] ‘It’s just not your night kid. The story is for this.’ So I have great equity in, my piece is to make this interesting. Brock is one of the most giving performers when it’s his time, and he will make anyone look great. But I remember Brock being like hey, you know, I had dinner with Steve Austin last night and we came up with this idea where I just start suplexing you and don’t stop, and then beat you.’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ He said, ‘What do you mean?’ I said, well, we both collectively agreed that you just beat The Streak. We ruin that if we have a 50-50 match.”
Cena continued by describing how, in the early days of his WWE career, Arn Anderson taught him that, sometimes, it’s just not your night. He then emphasized that he grasped the importance of his match with Lesnar, as “The Beast Incarnate” was coming off his major victory over The Undertaker at WrestleMania 30. Cena stated that by having Lesnar score another monumental feat, they could make him and, by extension, elevate others down the road.
“It’s not my night, kid,” Lesnar said. “Arn Anderson, I’m the back of my head, I hope he understands the influence he had on my wisdom of this. It’s not my night. How do you showcase the enormity of that win? How do we not waste The Undertaker’s streak? It’s not just Brock winning a match. It’s all those match that he had to lead up to losing.
“If I go out and have a 50-50 match and he just sneaks over, we wasted all that. But if you take that unbelievable feat with another unbelievable feat, now we’ve passed the energy, and that is how you make someone, and then that someone can make others. That’s how the business works. You have to be able to work together. People, oftentimes in life, this is not just business, we gotta see life through our own lens. Self-preservation is a lot of what we do, but you can survive and thrive by also being generous and being giving and working with others.”
The video interview is available here:
In the same interview, Cena recalled how he privately told Austin Theory everything he said in his promo on WWE RAW. Check out his comments here.
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