Bruce Prichard recently talked about a wide range of topics on his Something To Wrestle With podcast.
During it, John Cena’s surprise return at the WWE Royal Rumble 2008 after tearing his pec. Here are the highlights:
On the return:
“John Cena is an enigma, and John studies nutrition in what you know by eating this this morning. Oh, wake up at three o’clock in the morning. I’ll have a meal. That’s the kind of discipline that John Cena had. John hired a trainer to be able to, man. This is the injury; this is where I want to be right. Can you help me safely? Get back because the caution is the Marc Mero story. Mark, you’re gonna be out for six months. No, I can get back in three…..Well, now it’s out for nine. Right. So that was a big caution for Cena. Hey, man. Don’t do not rush this. Be careful. Yeah, yeah. Just be careful. And John was an enigma, a machine that I think is a prototype. But it’s right there. And John was willing to do the work. Like I don’t have to go to rehab and get it stretched by some little girl that you know. John wanted to get back in the ring. Sometimes that’s good. Sometimes that’s bad. In this case, John was able to overcome the odds. I would recommend it to everybody. But John Cena didn’t believe it, you know, yeah, he was a miracle man.”
On keeping Cena’s return a secret:
“Simple, we had him in front of everybody. So people were used to seeing John. Right. John dresses in the rain like he dresses in real life. At that time, for sure. So he’s out in front of everybody that has MS. Kids shit Johnson. Only a couple of people really needed to know. I gotcha. So it was easy. That’s the shed. There’s nothing to that.”
On whether the 2008 Rumble is remembered because of Cena’s return:
“The miraculous return and that’s what it was. Yes, John Cena. It was a good run. Yes, there’s a lot to it. There were a lot of guys gone, and it was Madison Square Garden. It was special. It felt bigger than it was. It wasn’t just another Rumble, man. It was the Royal Rumble match in Madison Square Garden. And it was John Cena returning when you thought you weren’t gonna see John for a long, long time.”
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article, please credit the Something To Wrestle With an h/t to Wrestling Headlines for the transcription.
