John Cena Says WWE Fans Telling Him ‘You Suck’ Helped Mold Him As A Person

John Cena is a 16-time World Champion and carried the company on his back throughout the PG era. His name also still trends on a daily basis, even “Black John Cena.” From 2017 John Cena became a part-timer in WWE and has appeared sporadically due to his busy schedule in Hollywood. That could change after SummerSlam, but he is still booked for the SmackDown supershow at Madison Square Garden.

For the majority of his career, John Cena has always received a very divisive response from the WWE Universe. While there are those who absolutely loved Cena, many also hated him and would continuously boo him at every chance. ”Cena sucks” chants would be a common occurrence for several years.

While speaking to Chris Hardwick on ID1OT, John Cena was asked how he deals with the perception others have of him. Cena revealed that WWE fans telling him that he sucked actually helped mold him as a person.

“A lot of it comes from WWE and its audience. Being told ‘you suck’ every time you go out, five times a week, genuine visceral. The reason I know it’s genuine is, I was a fucking good guy. I was deemed the role as a hero and there was an adversarial visceral force of reminding you ‘don’t get too close to the sun. You suck.’ A lot of that helps…one, take their opinion in and understand why they think I suck. Two, be okay with being humiliated every night. Three, look in the mirror and being like, ‘I’m okay with what I see.’ I always say, I owe the WWE audience more than I can explain. They made me into the person I am, not the professional. I take a lot of professional tidbits from my time there, but they molded me into the person I am.”

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In WWE, when you hear that reaction, the thing to do is to turn on the audience and become a bad guy because they are telling you what they want. Under our set of circumstances, it’s like, ‘Nope, go out there and smile.’ I have to have the patience to deal with that and having to be told, ‘You cannot waver’ helped my resolve, patience, and empathy.”

John Cena also previously admitted that he isn’t used to being cheered by the majority of WWE fans since his return to the company. Cena also made it clear he plans to stick around after the WWE SummerSlam pay-per-view if he wins the WWE Universal Championship from Roman Reigns.

We will have to wait and see how his match against Roman Reigns at WWE SummerSlam will be booked as we approach the pay-per-view and if he will end up winning the match or not.

h/t to Fightful for the quotes