John Cena wants to wrestle more often, he just isn't allowed to do so.
The 16-time World Champion hasn't been seen much in the WWE since WrestleMania 34 when he lost to the Undertaker. Cena wrestled Triple H at the Greatest Royal Rumble in April and appeared at WWE Super Show-Down in October, teaming with Bobby Lashley to face Kevin Owens and Elias. Cena stood on the apron for most of that match, only tagging in to debut his new "move of doom" and score the victory.
Speaking to ESPN, Cena revealed that his lighter WWE schedule has nothing to do with him slowing down and is more the result of him not being allowed to get physical in the ring due to his movie commitments.
"Anything that you rely on your body for an end result, time is going to catch up with you. There is going to become a point where I can no longer keep up with the pace. I made a promise to myself years ago...when I can't keep up with the pace, I have to walk away," said Cena. "I don't want to take a ticket buyers money and have them say, 'Ah, he's just hanging on.' I don't ever want that feeling. I don't think that correlates with what I'm doing now. The biggest difficulty is trying to juggle stuff. I have learned, and I'm trying to fight the system but I'm losing, when you are in production for a movie they don't allow you to wrestle. I can't go to a WWE taping and have my nose put over here. They shut the movie down, there's 150 people expecting a paycheck for the movie and I just screwed them out of their wage. It ups the budget of the movie, so I put the movie behind the 8-ball."
Cena continued, "As much as I want to do everything, you can't. This is a giant misunderstanding I had about what The Rock was doing. He does movie after movie after movie. I know the feeling of wanting to go back, and I'm going back as soon as I can, but I can't go back until I'm done with this. I called him out for it and that was me being an ass. I was wrong and ignorant. I told him 'I'm sorry,' but it's something that our fans don't understand."
The Leader of the C-Nation is expected to begin working WWE Live Events following Christmas. His new movie Bumblebee hits theaters on Dec. 21 and his film Project X is in post-production. Cena has already signed on to star in Playing with Fire, but the film is currently in pre-production.
You can view the full interview with Cena in the video above.
