Arn Anderson Recalls Vince McMahon ‘Handing Him’ John Cena To Teach, Was Cena’s Match Agent For Ten Years

Arn Anderson shares the influence he’s had on John Cena’s WWE career.

2025 will be John Cena’s final year as an active member of the WWE roster, as he looks to retire from the sport of professional wrestling at the year’s end. However, back when Cena first started in OVW and later WWE SmackDown in the early 2000’s, he was not the star that fans see today.

While speaking to Bill Apter in a new interview, Arn recalled how Vince McMahon handed him John Cena, and urged him to teach the now 17 time WWE world champion.

“We need to right away catch up people that have been living in a cave. John Cena was handed to me by Vince McMahon and said, ‘we got a kid that’s got some potential here, Arn. Teach him. He’s all yours.’ He didn’t know shit from shinola when he started. I was his agent for 10 straight years at least with WWF. I took all of his matches. I helped him learn the simple art of storytelling and getting heat was something that John was foreign to him. But when I’m talking about now getting heat on him, not him being a heel and getting heat, I’m talking about him being a babyface. I taught him, I think, I’m pretty sure, make your opponent, ‘John, if you make your opponent on the front end, I quit looking at your body and I look at the other guy as having a chance.’ Because if you just take it on face value, who would be the guy that was jacked like that? Nobody, right? So make your opponent, create an opponent, and do it bell to bell.”

Apter would then ask Arn if he expected Cena to reach the heights of success that he did in his wrestling career.

“Once he started listening and taking advice and more or less just picking it up. I figured not right away. I didn’t know because back then there were a lot of guys (who) look good. There’s Batista, Randy Orton. I mean, think of all the body guys that were around when John came along. He wasn’t the only one. So you didn’t necessarily say that guy looks better than everybody. He’s going to be a big star. Well, you got Kane walking around and Big Show and all those kind of guys. It’s not a gimme that he’s going to be a big star. He needed to learn how to sell, and he did, and that’s why he’s still relative today.”

Cena recently commented on his upcoming opponent at WWE Clash In Paris, Logan Paul, noting that Paul belongs in WWE. You can read more about that here.

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