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The Rich Eisen Show

Exclusive interview with John Cena

The Rich Eisen Show

ESPN

Sports

4.31.4K Ratings

🗓️ 18 February 2026

⏱️ 154 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

"Never seen 17" WWE World Champion John Cena joins O'Shea and TJ for an epic all-encompassing interview. The recently retired, future WWE Hall of Famer joined the guys in-studio to discuss his love of wrestling and the business, his legendary 20+ year wrestling career, and what he wanted to accomplish in his final year competing in the WWE. The conversation detailed Cena's humble wrestling beginnings which included him sleeping in his car in Venice Beach, a woefully short-lived career as an airport chauffeur in early life, and how a moment in the back of a bus became a turning point in his wrestling career. John reveals never before told stories about The Bloodline (including the original planned ending of his 2021 SummerSlam fight against Roman Reigns), how he and AJ Styles conceptualized their love letter to wrestling at Crown Jewel 2025 in Australia, and why he chose to end his career the way he did. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

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0:31.9

What's going on, everybody?

0:36.1

It's the hill that you love to hate.

0:37.2

O'Shea Jackson, Jr., a.k.a.

0:39.5

Petty Guerrero.

0:40.9

Hey, yo, it's me. It's me. It's the T-O. The J-I-G-G-2-G-G-T.J. T.J. Jefferson. What up, Bill? TJ, we got a special guest today. We, absolutely. This man has seen more world championships than the clippers, then the Cowboys,

0:57.1

then the Mets, and the Sixers combined. That is so unnecessary, but it's true. It is true.

1:02.8

We have a guess. Yeah, that's true. From spinning titles to Spinacotta, we're going to go all over the globe with this man. He's been around the world

1:11.5

in Ai, I, I, I, I, the Never Seen 17. The Invisible One is with us. John Cena.

1:17.3

What an introduction. Thanks.

1:22.7

Yeah, man. I try to, we pride ourselves on the intro. That was great. Nailed it. Very important me by the way thank you for having us johnsian sure it's your show yeah i know man but i've told this story a few times now on how we even got here so it could you put it in your words how did did you pick NCW? Oh, my goodness. So pretty big moment

1:50.1

in my life happened in December when I chose to close an in ring chapter in WWE and retired.

1:56.0

And shortly thereafter, you on behalf of no contest, supposed to a five minute monologue that really struck

2:03.6

to one of my core values, respect.

2:06.5

And what I admired about it most is you spoke honestly

2:11.3

in saying that, hey, this guy might not have been the guy

2:15.6

I was rooting for, but we all still kind of needed

2:19.6

them for these reasons yeah and man I I sent it to everyone that I love well and

...

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