John Cena has accomplished a lot on his historic career. But it's the story he told prior to WrestleMania 34 that is one of his prouder moments.
Speaking to Jimmy Traina on the SI Media Podcast, Cena discussed the challenges of "being a fan" at WrestleMania 34 and how he wanted to take in the authentic fan experience.
"I loved WrestleMania. It's one of the performances and lead ups that I'm proud of because of the challenge of the story. It went from no one believing that the WWE would put a healthy John Cena on the bench to me in the crowd at 2 PM, drinking beers with fans," said Cena. "I was in that section, by myself, and it was awesome. They wanted to shuffle me out there at 5:30 for a quick on-camera and I said, 'No, I'm a fan. Give me my ticket, I'm going to my seat. By the way, give me a beer and some stuff to eat.' When you're around the same 600 to 1000 people, there's that rush. Then at hour three, I'm nudging them, they're nudging me. It was awesome. I hope one day every superstar can sit in the seats and be with the fans. I loved it. For what it needed to be, my job and the performance, to make the Undertaker look like the Undertaker; I believe we achieved that objective. If someone critically thinks that we should have had more time. That's a better criticism than someone thinking we should have had less time."
Lead up to WrestleMania 34, Cena looked for multiple ways to be included on the card, but came up short in his quest to win the WWE Title or become the number one contender. As a result of his failures, he resorted to calling out The Undertaker. The plan didn't work, as Taker was a no-show on RAW episodes prior to WrestleMania. With no road to the biggest event of the year and not wanting to take someone else's spot, Cena settled for being a fan. That is, until The Deadman finally showed up.
Undertaker defeated Cena in under three minutes, marking the shortest WrestleMania match for either man in their Hall of Fame careers.