Rob Conway has reflected on training alongside John Cena in Ohio Valley Wrestling and being with him when he learned about his WWE debut against Kurt Angle.
During an appearance on the INSIGHT with Chris Van Vliet podcast (see video below), Conway said Cena may not have been the most naturally gifted athlete in OVW, but no one worked harder. He also praised Cena as the best promo talent he has ever encountered.
“Yeah, another guy that, oddly enough, he was the first one at practice and the last one to leave,” Conway said. “Not the most talented athlete. By far, the most talented promo guy I’ve ever seen.”
Conway believes WWE fans never got to see everything Cena could do on the microphone because he spent so much of his career portraying a babyface. Cena primarily worked as the heel Prototype character during his time in OVW.
“I still feel like what you’ve seen on television, he’s got way more to give from a promo standpoint,” Conway continued. “Because he was a babyface all those years. In OVW, he was a heel the whole time.”
Conway also recalled traveling with Cena to the June 27, 2002 edition of WWE SmackDown, where Michael Hayes informed him that he would be answering Kurt Angle’s open challenge.
“I was driving with him on his debut in the WWE,” Conway said. “It was the two of us. We stayed in the hotel, went up, went tan, got to the building, and Michael Hayes sat down with us and said, ‘John, you know what you’re doing tonight?’ He was like, ‘Nope.’ He goes, ‘You’re going against Kurt Angle.’ He was like, ‘Okay.’”
Before the match could take place, Cena was instructed to change his hairstyle. With WWE not yet having hairstylists available backstage, Conway handed Cena the keys to their rental car so he could visit a barber.
“He had, like, Zack Morris-type hair,” Conway explained. “It was long, shaved on the side and long on top. It’s blonde, and they said, ‘We want you to get a haircut.’ It was before we had the people backstage to do it, so I had to give him the rental car keys so he’d get his hair cut.”
Cena made his debut as a babyface despite spending his OVW run as a heel, forcing him to incorporate moves that were unfamiliar to him.
“He was a babyface that night. I don’t think he’d ever been a babyface. He was always a heel as the Prototype,” Conway said.
“Then he did, like, three or four moves that he’d never done. I think he did a victory roll. I mean, heels don’t do those moves. As the Prototype, he wrestled a lot bigger than he did as John Cena because, as John Cena, he has to sell. So, as a heel, you’re pretty indestructible when you look like him.”
Conway also addressed a story Randy Orton has told about their first meeting. According to Orton’s version, Conway refused to shake his hand after the two were introduced at a gym. Conway remembers things differently.
“Now, the first time I met Randy, I remember I knew who his dad was and stuff like that,” Conway said. “We were at a gym, and me and him are still good friends, but he claims that the first time I met him, that I walked in the gym, they said, ‘This is Randy Orton. He just got signed.’ He stuck his hand out, and I looked him up and down and walked right by him.”
Conway jokingly suggested that the behavior sounded more like something Orton would have done at the time.
“That would have never happened,” he continued. “That sounds like something he would do, but I don’t know how [that came up]. I can’t imagine me in this lifetime not reaching out and shaking somebody’s hand.”
Though Conway immediately recognized Orton’s natural ability in the ring, he said the future WWE star initially struggled with his conditioning.
“When I first wrestled him, he’s a natural, but he was not in the best shape,” Conway said. “When I wrestled him, he was so tired that I was basically having to pick him up to clothesline myself.”
That apparently motivated Orton to improve his cardio in a hurry.
“The office kind of got on him, and I think the next day, I saw him on the stair climber at the gym,” Conway added. “Then, within a month, he was in fantastic cardio shape.”
