John Cena reflects on his rivalry with Randy Orton.
Randy Orton is arguably John Cena's biggest rival as the two men have clashed for nearly two decades at the top of the card. Aside from Cena, no one has had as much world championship success as Orton over the past 20 years in WWE.
Reflecting on his top matches over the years in a WWE exclusive, Cena gave his thoughts on Orton and their clash at WWE Bragging Rights 2009. He first highlighted the advantages of an Iron Man match before he admitted that there might have been some audience fatigue, given his lengthy feud with Orton.
"I think the great thing about an Iron Man match is you have the luxury of a three count. The three count fan elicit excitement. So if people aren’t interested, you can give them a pinfall. The match had a digger dynamic to it. Any time I can get in there with Randy’s great. He and I fit together well. We work together well, and I love working with him. This is the fourth premium live event, as we now call them, and we’d done a lot of stipulations before, and we’d added tons of stipulations to this match, with anything goes and if I lose, I leave Raw. One could speculate that possible audience fatigue, of watching performers together for half a year, that’s a lot of interaction. That’s a lot," Cena said.
Cena then recalled the memorable spot where Orton practically tried to blow him up with some pyro. He noted that if they were coming up with concepts like that, it showed that they had exhausted more traditional methods of combat. Cena also stated that they knew they would have to do something different, as they had already clashed several times before.
“So I do remember the concept of, maybe he should hit the pyro and try to explode me, and him being okay with it. Not only being okay with it, he made that work. I think that just goes to show, if we were coming up with concepts like that, we had certainly exhausted every traditional method of competition. But the fact that both of us could be like, ‘Yeah, that’s a good idea, and let’s wholeheartedly try it.’ It’s a cool concept, a cool idea, and we were brave enough to try. I think when you’ve had such a history with someone and been in the ring with them so many times, we both kind of knew, ‘We’re gonna have to do some different stuff here," he said.
Cena went on to praise Orton by comparing him to Shawn Michaels. He spoke highly of Orton and his understanding of nuance. The 16-time champion also complimented Orton for his timing and the way he shows emotion as a performer.
"Randy is my generation’s Shawn Michaels. He has an understanding of nuance, and how important it is. He has the best timing of anybody. He’s always there, he’s never late. He shows emotion as a performer. He’s incredible. He makes difficult look simple, always."
Cena was victorious in the Iron Man match at Bragging Rights, winning 6-5.
Elsewhere during the interview, Cena reflected on his bouts with Brock Lesnar. You can find his full comments by clicking here.
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