It may sound like wild speculation, but according to his former manager in developmental, John Cena may want to leave WWE and try his hand at other things. That’s despite Cena’s status as one of WWE’s most recognizable and biggest-drawing performers of the present and also in the company’s long history.
John Cena is considered one of the first top prospects to emerge as a star in WWE’s so-called “Ruthless Aggression” era. Despite losing his first WWE match against Kurt Angle, Cena was given a good push from his very first day in the company and has come a long way to become a 15-time World Champion and arguably the promotion’s number one draw over the last decade or so. He’s still a polarizing character, as evidenced by the dueling chants of “Let’s go, Cena” and “Cena sucks!” that remain a part of his matches, but there’s no arguing with his success.
In an interview on the Two Man Power Trip of Wrestling podcast, veteran wrestling manager “Star Maker” Kenny Bolin sounded off on a number of topics, including the earliest days of Cena’s WWE career, when he had just come up from OVW.
In quotes published by Wrestling Inc., Bolin talked about the big “rub” Cena had gotten upon his WWE debut, where The Undertaker congratulated John on live television and praised him for his good work following his debut loss to Kurt Angle. It wasn’t long, though, before Cena was paired with mid-card talent Barry “Bull” Buchanan as his bodyguard, and Bolin feels that wasn’t the right way to give the young up-and-comer the momentum he needed back then.
“They really gave him the ‘pat on the back’ when they had him do the bit with The Undertaker. Then Taker goes into the back and says ‘hey, good match’. Which Taker didn’t do that for f—ing anybody. But Taker is the one that really put Cena over on a show they had on Smackdown. (Cena) then eventually teamed up with Buchanan and dropped down a little bit, but finally (WWE) figured out that he was going to be a major star there.”
The early days are one thing to look back at, but the present, according to Kenny Bolin, is another story. He also took some time to speculate on John Cena’s future in the WWE now that he’s almost 40-years-old and taking more time off than he usually used to, with several endeavors beyond the square circle taking up his time.
Is it time to consider Cena’s days in the WWE as numbered just because his former manager from OVW hinted at it? Everything appears to be all-systems-go for Cena’s year-ending return to SmackDown Live next Tuesday, as the Inquisitr reported. And while he’s got some non-WWE projects lined up for 2017, including two films (The Wall and The Pact), it doesn’t seem likely that he’ll soon be cutting back on his wrestling schedule more than he already has. So while it may or may not be true that he’s “tired of taking bumps,” the odds of John Cena leaving WWE in the near future are still very slim at best.
