John Cena Says He Got The Idea For The John Cena Classic From The Saturday Night’s Main Event Show Where He Retired

John Cena discusses where he got the idea for the John Cena Classic that is set to go down this year.

At WWE Backlash, Cena would feature on the show to make a major announcement that would become the John Cena Classic, an event where main roster talent will take on NXT talent in major matchups, with every competitor to be featured in a fan vote to determine a winner. Similarly, the night of Cena’s final match would feature an undercard full of similar matches.

While speaking to The Rich Eisen Show in a new interview, John Cena spoke about the upcoming John Cena Classic.

“I can tell you I’m pumped and I can tell you this is an idea from me, and I can also tell you that this is going to get a lot of chatter too, because the audience is kind of every which way, but loose on this. I got the idea from that last event, that Saturday night’s main event where Gunther and I were the close of the show. But the idea for the open of the show and the way I wanted to promote it was instead of doing, you know, a 90-minute tribute showing highlights and interviews of folks to essentially my career, there’s no pay it forward there. So I chose to use the rest of the evening as showcasing marquee superstars as a way to get crowds in the building and keep them excited. You hear the music of your favorite superstar, that’s great, and pair them up against the future of our business. Names like Sol Ruca, Je’Von Evans, certainly Oba Femi, they all kind of debuted on our grand stage that day.  I thought the event went well. Not only was it well received by the audience, songs from my part in the ending, which is okay, because I’m the polarizing guy, I can bear the weight on my shoulders. When I promoted it, people enjoyed the idea. When we executed it, people enjoyed the event, and more importantly, the talent. It’s not like the talent aren’t excited for an event, but the talent felt like they were part of something new, and that was really important. So I got the idea from there, and then I kind of wanted to extend it a little bit more. I’m like, ‘how can we involve the fan base?’ So that’s where the fan vote came from, and then I tried to take it a little bit further in saying that, like, man… If you’re a talent and you go out and you actually tear the house down, but you’re this close to winning and maybe you came up short, you still have the opportunity to be in the running to see if you won the fan vote enough to be crowned champion.”

Elsewhere in the same interview, John Cena spoke about creative decisions in WWE. You can read more about that here.

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