wwe: John Cena's former WWE rival claims he was offended by chants of "You Can't Wrestle"

At the peak of John Cena's WWE career, several fans constantly chanted "You Can't Wrestle" at the wrestler-turned-actor. His former on-screen rival, Nic Nemeth, fka Dolph Ziggler, discussed this.

On the latest episode of the Busted Open podcast, Nic Nemeth recounted working with John at WWE live events. The TNA star noted that Cena often pulled out unusual moves from his arsenal. While they were not inherently special, it became so when the 16-time World Champion did it:

"When it comes to Cena, there came a point where I was getting a lot of street cred from the crowd even though I was losing a lot. But I was in matches with him, and people saw me as someone good at wrestling, and him as someone good who knows how to shake hands and kiss babies," Nic Nemeth recounted. "We would wrestle many times, and [the crowd] would be like, 'You Can't Wrestle,' and he'd be like, 'Oh yeah?' and then he would go back to OVW mode."

Nemeth ascertained this as John Cena taking offense as he wanted to show the fans that he could do all of those moves, but there was no rhyme or reason to regularly execute them as he was the star player in the game:

Alberto Del Rio returning to WWE?

"It's such a basic wrestling thing, but to watch him do it all of a sudden, it would shut them all up right away. I don't know if it really got to him. But it was just like, hey, we are in a live event, and I'm just letting you know—I do this because I know this works. But if you say I'm bad at this—there's a reason I'm in this position because I can do all of this if I wanted to," Nemeth said about John Cena. [From 7:26 onwards]

John Cena's next scheduled appearance after WWE Elimination Chamber 2025

At Rogers Centre last Saturday, John Cena finally went through with it. He is now a heel through the lens of fans, especially the younger demographic, who were heartbroken when he battered the Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes.

His next appearance is reportedly on the March 17 episode of WWE RAW. Interestingly, The American Nightmare will also be there, per the report. After such an industry-defining moment at Elimination Chamber in Toronto, Canada, what would happen if the two were in the same building?

Please credit the source and give an H/T to Sportskeeda Wrestling for the transcription.

About the author

Joel has been a WWE news writer at Sportskeeda for the last 2 years. Always having a penchant for writing, he worked as an independent screenwriter and a copy/content writer for almost 2 years before joining Sportskeeda.

Joel’s pro-wrestling knowledge comes from hours of watching it from a young age. His favorite wrestler is Shawn Michaels, but if he could go back in time to The Attitude Era, he would like to manage Chris Jericho and advise him to cut his hair and portray a character similar to Javier Bardem in the movie “No Country for Old Men,” something which Jericho later pulled off in 2008.

Besides Michaels, Joel is also a fan of Eddie Guerrero, Randy Orton, Edge, CM Punk, and Brock Lesnar. His current favorites are Roman Reigns, Gunther, and Drew McIntyre.

Joel is a team man and works closely with his colleagues, conducts thorough research, and only relies on top pro-wrestling sources for information. His well-researched news reports have received close to 10 million reads till date.

When not following pro wrestling, Joel can be found designing built spaces, auditioning for films, working out, spending time with family and watching movies.

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Edited by Arsh Das