During the October 10 episode of WWE NXT, John Cena paid a visit to NXT and took the opportunity to lead a seminar with the trainees at the Performance Center.
Lexis King shared her experience of learning from Cena during the seminar in an interview with Chris Van Vliet on Insight.
“He actually came and did a seminar with us at the PC. I thought, ‘Okay, I’ll see what’s going on.’ I’m so glad I went. It was the most enlightening…it wasn’t just little questions that people would ask. We were getting into it. We were talking about contract negotiations and all this different stuff. It was amazing, the amount of questions we were able to ask and get answered. One of the coolest things he said was, ‘you can’t control the booking and who is wearing what belt, but you can be the best version of said character.’ He was the rapper guy. If you’re the best rapper guy on the roster, creative goes, ‘We want the rapper guy to take on a huge monster.’ They’re going to pick the best rapper guy and put him against the best monster character. I’ll never pitch an idea again. He said, ‘there’s no point in pitching an idea.’ If you pitch something and they don’t use it, now you’re disappointed and upset. If you just be the best version of your character and they decide to choose you for these things that they created because they are the writers and they come up with the ideas. They don’t want you pitching stuff, they want to come up with it because it’s their job. It’s a contract from the company I was at before where, that was where our success came from because there is not as much of a writing team there.
“I had successful pitches at AEW. At WWE, we have people for that. We have writers and creative, we don’t have to pitch stuff, we just have to be the best in-ring performers and on the mic performers and be the best Rock N Roll conniving, look at me, pick me kind of guy. If I’m the best dirt bag that they have and dress like a Rock N Roll wannabe, they’re going to pick me for that role. I’m not going to go to the office, ‘I really want to do a program with so and so.’ I’ll never do that again. John Cena told me he never pitched an opponent his entire career.”
(H/T to Fightful for the quotes)