Everything You Need to Know About the Public Feud Between Dwayne Johnson and John Cena

Published 05/20/2023, 9:48 AM EDT

Last summer, WWE icon John Cena completed 20 years in the promotion. In his two-decade long career, the wrestler has had several feuds with other top stars, including Brock Lesnar and Roman Reigns. But none could match the magnitude of his work with The Rock. The two generational stars feuded for a very short time, considering Cena’s prolonged career, but it was the one with the most impact. It certainly helped that the locking of horns was fuelled by real life animosity that the two superstars had for each other.

Dwayne Johnson and John Cena: How did it all start?

The Rock had transformed into Dwayne Johnson by making a name for himself in Hollywood by the time John Cena rose into prominence in the WWE. While in the beginning, he received movie credits under the name ‘The Rock’, Johnson was able to get studios to use his real name as the years progressed, coinciding with Cena’s rise in pro wrestling. There was no reason for a feud, as the two had vastly different paths. Yet an interview with The Sun in 2008 changed it all.

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The 46-year-old was asked how he felt about the WWE legend, to which he started off by appreciating the wrestler-turned-actor, but then, it went downhill from there. “He, at one point, loved wrestling and wanted to do this all of his life. Explain to me why he can’t come back for a 15th Anniversary show or why he can’t make an appearance at WrestleMania. Simply put, it’s because he wants to be an actor,” Cena said, directly questioning Johnson’s love for the wrestling business.

“Just don’t f*** me around and tell me that you love this when you are just doing this to do something else. That’s the only thing that gets me really pissed off,” he added. That was the beginning of it. Johnson, the senior statesman, waited three years for his moment and it came in 2011. WWE announced The People’s Champ as the host for WrestleMania 27, which saw The Rock return to the promotion after seven years. Needless to say, The Great One wasn’t pleased with what he had heard from the new superstar and it made it clear in a long promo.

Cena, who wasn’t willing to back out from the fight either, mounted his defense and it kept the feud fresh and engaging. However, the 46-year-old dealt a big blow to Johnson after exposing one of his practices during a promo. On February 27, 2012, John Cena rushed to the ring to face The Rock and put forward his rebuttal.

During his promo, he accused Johnson of being indifferent towards WWE’s future and then caught the Hollywood star off guard by accusing him of taking the help of notes to cut his promos. He proceeded to take off his wrist band while muttering “I don’t need words like respect or loyalty to trend worldwide, just like I don’t need my notes for my promo on my wrist.”

As cameras pointed at The Rock’s wrists, it showed patches of ink, tipping the scales in Cena’s favor. The Doctor of Thuganomics’ mic drop moment genuinely left The Great One unhappy, judging by his reactions. This stirred the pot a little more than expected and threatened to boil over.

At the following WrestleMania, Cena and Johnson went toe-to-toe in an encounter that was dubbed as “Once In A Lifetime” match. While Johnson won the bout, it was a huge humbling experience for his opponent.

John Cena takes the blame on himself for ruining his relationship with Dwayne Johnson

A decade after their final WrestleMania bout, John Cena has opened up about his past mistake of calling out Dwayne Johnson. Cena reflected upon the acclaimed feud while conversing with MTV News’ Josh Horowitz as part of 92NY Recanati-Kaplan Talks recently.

In a complete U-turn from his thoughts as a young wrestler, the 16-time World Champion called himself a “hypocrite”. He said his view about Johnson ignoring the wrestling business was wrong. “Like, what a hypocrite I am because I still love WWE and can’t go all the time. And I just didn’t see that. I was so selfish,” Cena said about his former self. Ironically, Cena followed Johnson’s path and moved to Hollywood from WWE while being at the top of his game.

The wrestler-turned-actor name-dropped Muhammad Ali and Mike Tyson while explaining his feud with The Rock. “He came in in a league of his own, and to make sure that it’s like Mike Tyson [versus] Muhammad Ali, I gotta be Mike Tyson, and Rock was like Ali, and I was like some scrub like Glass Joe from Punchout. I had to punch my way up, and I had to do it by really blurring the lines of collaborative work,” he said.

Cena said he was selfish and wanted to have a marquee match with The Rock. Due to his lack of knowing any better, he thought it was right to rile the bigger star to get heat from the spectators. “That was short-sighted and selfish. It worked! But it worked at the cost of two people who communicated and almost put it in jeopardy. There was a moment where there was a lot of bad vibes between us and rightfully so,” he said.

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Johnson too had corroborated that the feud between the two was real when he told chat show host Jimmy Kimmel: “We had a great rivalry. In the world of wrestling, it’s fictionalized, it’s a show, but our rivalry was, it was so real. We had real problems with each other.”

Fortunately, the two icons were able to solve their differences and according to Cena, it took place after he lost against Johnson at WrestleMania 28. The Marine actor said he first approached Ata Johnson, Dwayne’s mother and asked her forgiveness and upon receiving it, met Johnson backstage.

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“I went to Rock. I said the exact same thing. It’s only we started to build up for [WrestleMania 29] that I got to look at myself in the mirror deeper and I was like, I was wrong. Not only did I hope he understood my perspective, but a year later, I knew that my perspective was wrong,” he said.

The decline of the animosity was evident as Johnson and Cena put on a classic act after the former lost his WWE Championship at WrestleMania 29 to put over the 46-year-old. Later, they hugged and celebrated with each other while urging the spectators to acknowledge.

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This brought an end to one of WWE’s most realistic feuds and while fans have waited to see the stars in the same ring since, they now have a chance to catch the two together in the recently released Fast X.

Watch This Story: Dwayne Johnson John Cena Hulk Hogan and others 10 WWE legends who acted in films

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Written by:

Sudipto is a WWE writer at Essentially Sports. He holds a PG degree in Mass Communication. Being an experienced journalist, Sudipto has interviewed WWE Superstars Alberto Del Rio and Sheamus and hopes to add some more names to that list.

Edited by:

Abigail Kevichusa

Everything You Need to Know About the Public Feud Between Dwayne Johnson and John Cena

Dwayne Johnson and John Cena: How did it all start?

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John Cena takes the blame on himself for ruining his relationship with Dwayne Johnson