4 Wrestling rumors we hope are true and 4 we hope aren't: WWE's big plans on the road to Hell in a Cell revealed, Reason for backstage heat on John Cena

#4. Hope isn't true: Backstage heat in WWE towards John Cena

John Cena on WWE SmackDown

WWE legend John Cena has been in the mainstream headlines recently, and for all the wrong reasons. His recent film Fast & Furious 9 released in China, and it proved to be an unsurprising box office success.

However, in an interview promoting the film, John Cena referred to Taiwan as a country. Given China's complicated political relations with Taiwan, his comments seemed to stir some trouble.

As a result, John Cena had to put out a public statement in Mandarin, apologizing for calling Taiwan a country. In his statement, he said:

John Cena apologized in Chinese on Sina Weibo after calling Taiwan a country during an interview promoting Fast & Furious 9 pic.twitter.com/dzRKIYgEzL

— Joe Xu (@JoeXu) May 24, 2021

“Hi China, I’m John Cena. I’m in the middle of Fast & Furious 9 promotions. I’m doing a lot of interviews. I made a mistake in one of my interviews. I made one mistake. I have to say something very, very, important now. I love and respect China and Chinese people. I’m very, very sorry about my mistake. I apologize, I’m very sorry. You must understand that I really love, really respect China and the Chinese people. My apologies. See you,” said John Cena in Mandarin. (h/t SCMP)

According to Andrew Zarain of the Mat Men podcast, the apology put out by John Cena has reportedly not been received well backstage in WWE.

This John Cena apology is NOT going over well at WWE right now...

— Andrew Zarian (@AndrewZarian) May 25, 2021

We hope this isn't true because in all likeliness, John Cena was pressured by higher-ups to make a quick apology to ensure that the running of Fast & Furious 9 in China runs smoothly. While he was also mocked by the likes of CM Punk and The Young Bucks, a lot of the matter wasn't in John Cena's hands.