On the latest episode of “Grilling JR”, Jim Ross discussed how some of the top wrestlers ended up getting signed by the WWE. He discussed John Cena and his passion for the business as well as Vince McMahon not wanting to sign Randy Orton due to his dishonorable discharge from the military. Here are the highlights:

On What Sold Him On John Cena:

It was off the cuff. I don’t remember the questions. I really wish I did, it’s a great question from you. I know it was a wrestling trivia question cause he talked to me about growing up in the Boston area and he talked about what he watched allegedly when he was a kid, and so I thought, ‘Well maybe I’ll throw a couple questions at him to check his oil.’ And he passed. He passed. He had great recall and a great use of storytelling ability and you could tell he loved wrestling. A legit fan. There’s manufactured wrestling stars and there’s wrestling stars. He was never manufactured. Yeah, he got refined as a character, but the fundamentals of his passion were right there and then I even went a step farther.

Ironically, his strength coach at his college—Springfield College I think it was—he was an All-American center in football in Division II or III and his strength coach there is a friend who was with him, down at OU, Oklahoma University. So I heard about the connection so I called him up and talked to him and he said, ‘Man, that son of a gun was the first guy in the gym for workouts and the last guy to leave every single time. Nobody worked as hard as John Cena in the weight room on the practice field. Great leader. Man if he wants to get into wrestling, JR, he’s gonna be a big time player. So you hear that kind of recommendation so you know you might be kind of onto something so we followed through with it and obviously John has had a magnificent run thanks to those meetings that we had together and him getting an opportunity to play on the team and make the most of it. I get a lot of credit for signing these dudes, at the end of the day, I tell ’em: ‘I can only get you so far this journey you’re on. You gotta carry more of the water than me.’ So he did that and look at him now. He’s slowly getting in The Rock league of things outside of wrestling. Well not quite, but you know, The Rock’s in another world.

On Vince Not Wanting To Sign Randy Orton:

No, it didn’t matter. McMahon is that patriotic. I’m not saying it’s the right thing to do, we did it cause I talked him into it. ‘We gotta give him a chance. Everybody deserves a chance, Vince.’ He said it all the time. ‘Let’s give this kid a chance.’ Cause he’s getting one chance now, right? One chance. If it don’t work, he’s done with us. For f’n ever. There’ll be no more recalls and there will be no more call backs; we’re done. But he deserves a chance.’

But here’s the thing: here’s what you gotta forecast as best you can. You’re exactly right, you’re exactly right. I fined him five grand one time for saying a bad word to the barber at the TV tapings. He wanted a one and she gave him a two or some shit like that, some numbers in their haircuts. Anyway, it was bad exchange of dialogue and it cost him five grand. I just said, ‘You just paid for the highest haircut you’ll ever have in your life.’ That’s how I managed that roster.

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Credit: Grilling JR. H/T Wrestlezone.