John Cena Says He Apologized To The Rock’s Mother After WrestleMania 28 Match

John Cena opens up about WrestleMania 28.

The Miami-based show was headlined by a ‘Once In A Lifetime’ clash between John Cena and The Rock. The match featured a ton of buildup, as it was announced a year ahead of time.

The segments between Cena and Rock were harsh, as the stars would often taunt each other about personal and professional shortcomings.

In a new interview with Vanity Fair, Cena talked about towing the line between entertainment and realism.

“This was a wonderful journey to get to this. Lots of live moments before this WrestleMania. In sports entertainment, sometimes we do tow the gray area between entertainment and realism. I think that’s a lot of the cache that WWE and sports entertainment has. Everyone who shows up knows it’s entertainment. What was special about this is a lot of the moments along the way crossed the lines of, hey, I know this is sports entertainment, but man, those guys really hate each other.”

Cena went on to say that he and Rock had mixed opinions of one another before the match was planned. But when it came time to put things together, the friendship started to blossom.

“The two of us had mixed opinions of each other going into this. When you get to this moment, to plan what is really happening, what are we really trying to sell? Because you’re putting your life in somebody’s hands. This is the one thing we couldn’t wing it out there because it involves the physical wellbeing of others. When you get to this moment, after all this shit talking for a year, you get two abrasive and strong-minded professionals in the same room, we do what’s right for the business. That one moment between Dwayne and I melding our personalities, that’s when, at least from my perspective, I started to build a friendship with Dwayne Johnson. Dwayne had always been cordial to me and helped me out. I did something foolish and I started to go into business for myself and drum up rumors about things I knew nothing about, which were great for [the match], but it’s very much a professional faux pa. He finally shows up and he goes one way, I go another, we never talk and what you see play out on screen is very genuine. If we had only just talked about our shortcomings, if I had only said I’m sorry, I think we would’ve skipped all that but you would’ve missed out on great programming.”

Then, Cena went on to reveal that he apologized to Rock and his mother after the WrestleMania 28 match.

“After the show is over, the very first thing I do is apologize to Dwayne’s mother because she was the first person I saw. I apologized and said, ‘I hope you understand that I was just trying to do what was best for tonight.’ She having the wisdom and experience, she was extremely gracious and a class act like she always is. But it was importantly for me to get that weight off my backpack. Then, went right into Dwayne’s locker room and apologized to him. That was the first moment of me being like, ‘Man, this was great. If we had worked together, I don’t know how great it could have been, it could’ve been so much better.’ He was emphatic, he was gracious. I think he was riding high off of the moment because everybody loved it. You put all this equity into putting your heart out there and if they don’t get it, well, now your heart is out there and that’s the best you’ve got and they’re not into it. They were into this. That’s always kind of the healing power between two people in a WWE feud is when the audience is entertained. It kind of helps patch up whatever bad blood there is.”

As it turns out, Cena also knew he was losing to Rock a full year before the match happened.

“I knew I was losing the year before the fight. All of those promos you see, all those speeches, every single one of them, I knew that I was gonna finish second place. Amazingly enough, getting to this stage was like a catharsis, ‘Finally, we can do this.’ It didn’t affect my trajectory. As a matter of fact, it fueled me more to try and do better work.”

Cena and Rock went on to face each other again at WrestleMania 29, allowing Cena to get his win back.

Rock last wrestled at WrestleMania 40, teaming with Roman Reigns to defeat the duo of Cody Rhodes and Seth Rollins.

If you use any of the quotes above, please credit and link to the original source with a h/t and link back to Fightful for the transcription.