From WWE champions to action stars in Hollywood, Dwayne Johnson and John Cena have had very similar professional journeys. The two stars have made a seamless transition from competitive sports to acting. While Johnson made a splash on the silver screen in The Mummy Returns, Cena’s tryst with the movies began with The Marine. Both actors are also part of the DC franchise with The Rock playing Black Adam and Cena portraying the role of the Peacemaker.
With similar career trajectories also comes a high level of competition and Dwayne Johnson and John Cena are no strangers to that. The two stars are self-confessed close friends now but there was a time when their competitive spirit to outdo each other was at an all-time high. This resulted in a fair deal of friction and animosity between the former WWE champions.
John Cena And Dwayne Johnson Were Intense Rivals
John Cena and Dwayne Johnson both made the huge leap from wrestling to acting very successfully. While the two stars are known to share mutual respect and rapport today, the situation was very different years ago when the Black Adam actor and The Marine star were competing with each other for supremacy inside the ring. Cena who was present at the Salt Lake Comic Con in 2016, reminisced about his disputes with The Rock during their wrestling days and said,
“For two years, The Rock and I kind of made fun of each other a lot. It got pretty heated and it got pretty personal. I said some things that were less than nice. He said some things that were less than nice.”
Dwayne Johnson also confirmed his colleague’s words during his appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live but went on to add that it was all water under the bridge now as the two actors shared a close friendship and camaraderie today.
Also Read: John Cena’s Peacemaker Co-Star Rumored to Appear in James Gunn’s Superman Movie With David Corenswet
John Cena Was Booed During A WWE Match
It’s not often that a champion like John Cena faces flak and trolling from the public. The situation happened when WWE organized the first ECW One Night Stand event back in 2005 and after seeing its immense success, decided to reopen the event as a brand. The ECW went on to become one of the most famous professional wrestling promotions of the 90s. It was ultimately purchased by the WWE after it became bankrupt.
Professional wrestling legend and WWE Hall of Famer Rob Van Dam who is also a former WWE World champion, recently looked back at his World Championship match against John Cena from the ECW One Night Stand pay-per-view event from 2006. The athlete remembered it as one of the rare occasions where he was the main draw while Cena was trolled mercilessly by fans. Speaking of the incident where fans made shocking gestures using the star’s t-shirt including throwing it back to him, Van Dam said,
“What are the chances that a fan who can have a John Cena shirt, since they are all fans at heart, would do that and boom, the 2nd guy does it again, 3rd guy wipes his a** with it. I had no idea that it was gonna be like that”
Van Dam went on to add that while he was a huge fan of John Cena and the star power he brought to any match, it will remain his best memory from the WWE simply for the crowd support he received despite the Hollywood star being the big draw for the event.
Source: Wrestling Edge
