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Hulk
Hogan, John Cena Talk Candidly About Wrestlemania
Past, Present and Future -
4th April 2014
(Sports Illustrated
- Extra Mustard)
Profiles
Hulk
Hogan John
Cena WrestleMania
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When
WrestleMania debuted March 31, 1985 in Madison Square
Garden, the event maxed out with an attendance of
19,121. The last seven years, attendance hasn’t
dipped below 70,000 as fans fly in from all over the
world to see WWE’s Super Bowl.
From
Mike
Tyson punching out Shawn Michaels to The Undertaker’s
undefeated streak to Edge spearing Mick Foley through
a flaming table, WrestleMania has a head-slapping
history of shock and awe as superstars try to snatch
the spotlight on the biggest stage of the year.
This
Sunday, WrestleMania XXX is about celebrating the
past as much as it is looking into the future, as
Hulk Hogan returns to host the event, while younger
stars such as Bray Wyatt and Daniel Bryan get their
opportunity to steal the show from more established
headliners like Brock Lesnar, The Undertaker and John
Cena.
But
are Bryan and Wyatt the future of the business? Or
is a heel-turned Cena the future WWE really needs?
Hogan
and Cena sat down with Extra Mustard to give us the
inside info on everything WrestleMania before Sunday’s
big event.
When
Vince McMahon decided to take a chance on the first
WrestleMania, how big of a risk was it? If it failed,
could we have seen the end of WWF?
Hulk
Hogan: Vince McMahon has never been happy doing the
same old thing. He could’ve kept doing what he
was doing and he would’ve had what he always
had. WrestleMania was a gamble, but Vince wanted to
roll the dice. He inherited the company from his father,
but it was a very regional promotion. That’s
why Vince came to me and we teamed up. It was his
vision to take the chance on WrestleMania to make
this thing a global phenomenon. So if WrestleMania
failed or never came to be, WWF would’ve still
been around, it would have just continued to be regional.
And what’s funny is, the more things change,
the more things stay the same because we’re at
a pivotal point once again. We’ve had 30 WrestleManias,
so what’s next? 30 more? 60 more? No, Vince wants
WrestleMania 31 to be under this groundswell of the
WWE Network. So here he is rolling the dice again.
He’s had 30 years of getting things locked in
and now he’s ready to take this thing where no
entertainment company has ever been. The WWE Network
is one of the reasons I wanted to come back. I know
how great Vince has made things, and I know this is
his vision, so I wanted to come back so I can be here
to ride this wave all the way in.
How
do fans at a WrestleMania event differ than fans at
your average Raw?
John
Cena: You just see passion, and passion comes in all
forms. We do these big stadiums for WrestleMania,
where we did Ford Field in Detroit then we bounced
around to the Georgia Dome and MetLife Stadium, and
70-percent of that audience is not domestic. People
fly in from 45 different countries, and to these people,
this is something that they’ve saved up all year
for to be a part of, so when they finally get there,
they’re overwhelmed with excitement. You see
people breaking down and crying in front of you, they’re
speechless, they throw fits of excitement … everyone
is just really excited to be there, not just from
a superstar’s standpoint, but from an audience
standpoint, and that really helps make WrestleMania
special.
What’s
been the most elaborate way a fan has tried to contact
you or attempt to get your autograph?
John
Cena: I can’t say elaborate, but I can say awkward.
Someone followed me into a bathroom one time and while
I was in a stall, there was a piece of paper and a
pen slid under the stall. I didn’t sign the autograph,
and I did not use the paper for what I was going to
use it for before sliding it back, I just kind of
left it there.
Hulk
Hogan: We get the chance to meet the fans at Axxess,
and fans will be wearing costumes, they’ll dress
as me, they’ll dye their beards black and paint
mustaches on. The girls will dress like me, the guys
will dress like me, but the craziest thing I’ve
seen are people who will get Hulkamania tattoos on
their arms or their rear ends, then they want me to
sign their tattoos so they can have my real autograph
underneath the tattoo. Where they actually put these
tattoos is crazy.
What
do you think has been the biggest change to the wrestling
business from WrestleMania I to WrestleMania XXX?
John
Cena: To me, the one word answer is expansion. The
first WrestleMania was held at Madison Square Garden,
and if you wanted to watch it outside of the Garden,
you had to watch it on closed-circuit television,
which means you had to find it in a movie theater
or a screen showing this event, and you had to watch
it in that theater. Fast forward to WrestleMania III
and you had pay-per-view, so if you weren’t in
the Pontiac Silverdome, you paid your cable provider
a fee and you were allowed to watch the event. But
now, for WrestleMania XXX, the 30th anniversary of
all this, WrestleMania can be watched on even more
devices thanks to the forward thinking of the WWE
Network. You can watch it on iPad, iPhone, any Android
device, Xbox, PlayStation, you can stream it through
any digital device anywhere you want and still experience
WrestleMania. So expansion is giving us more eyeballs,
and more eyeballs makes the event even more spectacular.
All we need to do on our end is deliver with the most
unbelievable pageantry and the most unbelievable show
on the planet, and to us, that’s what we do on
the regular.
Hulk
Hogan: The biggest change to me is how the storylines
just move so much quicker. It’s not like I could
confront Andre The Giant this week then wait to fight
him a year later. Now you start a feud and end it
in 12 weeks just so you can have it air at the top
of the hour and spike the ratings. Everything just
moves at such a faster pace.
When
you look back at the early days of WrestleMania, are
there any wrestlers who would fit in better today?
Are there any differences in what it took to be in
the main event back then compared to today?
John
Cena: It’s tough to say. We always come up with
these whimsical scenarios of “what if.”
What if Hulk Hogan was in his prime right now or would
John Cena survive the Attitude era or vice versa,
how would a flipping the bird “Stone Cold”
Steve Austin find success on a program that’s
PG? I think ability is just rewarded, period. The
people who have made it before would have been successful
again because you can’t knock that drive, you
can’t knock that hustle, and you certainly can’t
knock that passion. This is certainly not an easy
job, but if you love it, it’s very rewarding.
So if you’re in it just for the money, it becomes
old hat very quickly and you walk away. But for those
who have had a wonderful career over a certain amount
of time and have made an impression on the fans of
the WWE, I think they would be successful no matter
what.
Hulk
Hogan: I think you have to have it in your blood.
If you want to be a top guy, back then, if you’re
not up at 5bam and working out with Hulk Hogan, then
you’re not taking my spot. The shortest day I
ever put in was a 14 hour day, so if you weren’t
out there putting in 14 to 18 hour days, then you’re
not going to take my spot. I think Cena has this down
to a science. He works harder, trains harder and does
everything with more intensity than anybody out there
today. You have to be totally dedicated to make it
to the top. This has to be the priority over friends,
family and everything. The only thing that can be
in your focus is being the top guy.
How
do you think fan expectations at WrestleMania have
changed throughout the years? WrestleMania I’s
main event only lasted like 13 minutes. I don’t
see anyone putting up with that today.
John
Cena: It was 13 minutes long, but it was a spectacle.
You had Mr. T, Muhammad Ali and Liberace all involved
and it was something really special. I’ll give
you a comparison. Arnold Schwarzenegger was just on
Raw, and if you go back and watch Commando, then you
watch a recent action movie like Taken, it is a very,
very different dynamic. Would the main event of WrestleMania
I be a success now? It’s tough to say. Was it
an unbelievable success back then? Absolutely, even
if it was only 13 minutes long. Will the main event
at WrestleMania XXX be 13 minutes long? I don’t
know, but I know it will be spectacular.
Hulk
Hogan: It was a completely different situation. We
had an actor in there with us in Mr. T. I think he
did a great job when he was out there, but it would
be really hard to go out there with an actor and put
a 45-minute match in. I think the fans expect to be
taken on a roller coaster. They want to experience
all of the emotion, excitement, drama and tension
while they scream and yell for their hero or scream
and yell at the villain. They want to be taken on
that ride, and it’s not so much about the length,
it’s about the quality of that ride.
How
much pressure is there being in the main event of
WrestleMania, not only from the fans, but backstage
from Vince McMahon?
John
Cena: I love it, and I want to be in that position.
I think everybody who laces up a set of boots wants
to be put in that position. Put me out there in the
spotlight in front of everybody and let me bring the
people these special moments that are unexpected.
That’s why I do what I do, man, and if there
are superstars in the locker room who don’t want
to be in that position, then they’ll flame out
rather quickly. I don’t feel any pressure from
the audience, I don’t feel any pressure from
my boss, I don’t feel any pressure from my opponent.
My job is to be out there and I get excited to be
out there and I embrace those moments. The bigger
the stage, the better performance from me. That’s
what I live for.
WrestleMania
is known for celebrity involvement, from Kane tombstoning
Pete Rose, to Mr. T in the main event of WrestleMania
I. Do you have a favorite celebrity moment?
John
Cena: I loved Mike Tyson, just because of what he
brought to WrestleMania. It’s moments like that
where maybe you feel the momentum of WrestleMania
dwindling a little bit, but then here comes the baddest
man on the planet to make it so enormous, that WrestleMania
became bigger than it ever was before, and because
of that, Tyson is my favorite.
Hulk
Hogan: My favorite celebrity moment is when I was
standing in the ring at WrestleMania I and looked
across the ring to see Muhammad Ali as the referee.
That said a lot to me about what WrestleMania was
all about and how we were on to something special.
WrestleMania
XXX is putting some of the younger stars like Bray
Wyatt and Daniel Bryan in high profile matches. Do
you see any of these guys as main event players in
the next five to ten years?
Hulk
Hogan: Well, John Cena is definitely not done, brother,
and to me, he’s at the perfect time to pull a
“Hollywood” Hulk Hogan on everybody. If
he was to switch and take that hustle, loyalty and
respect and tell everybody how he was running game
on everybody the whole time, he’d have another
ten years wide open without even looking back. So
maybe in five years, it’s John Cena running the
game on everybody. When I look around the roster,
Daniel Bryan is on one hell of a roll right now, but
he gets beat to death every night he goes out there.
The big guys just go out and stomp on him. Can he
handle that for five more years? I don’t know.
It’s anybody’s game at this point.
John
Cena: I think this is a very interesting time, and
this is why I love WrestleMania XXX. If you look back
at WrestleMania XX, all of the showcase matches had
these up and coming talents like Randy Orton, Batista,
Brock Lesnar and John Cena. These names became etched
all these years later as the people who would be carrying
WWE. This year, you have a flux of brand new superstars
or superstars who are just waiting to make their impression
once they get their opportunity. Bray Wyatt, The Shield,
anyone involved in the Andre the Giant Battle Royal,
and then, of course, you have Daniel Bryan. So if
you ask me right now who is going to carry the WWE
into the next decade, I don’t know, but I truly
think that you will get your odds on favorite at WrestleMania
XXX on April 6, and that’s one of the things
that just makes this event so interesting. It will
give you a little bit of insight into what’s
to come for WWE.
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