Randy Orton has been making waves on social media lately with his supposed plans for WrestleMania 36. First he challenged The Rock, but was sadly shot down. Then he turned his attention to his old rival John Cena, a man he’s faced countless times over the years but hasn’t seen lately due to Cena’s growing Hollywood career. He took to Instagram last week with an image of Cena on the cover of Sky Magazine, which featured the headline “Up For a Challenge.” “The Viper” saw that as an opportunity to try and get a match with the 16-time world champion at WrestleMania 36 in Tampa next April.
“I’m on a flight to London and see this striking young man asking me a question,” Orton wrote. “Why yes @johncena I am up for a challenge, are you? Let’s say ohhhh I dunno, #Wrestlemania36 maybe? Or does Hollywood have you booked solid? #WM36”
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Cena didn’t respond on social media, but did comment on it in a new interview with Sports Illustrated this week.
“I wasn’t even aware of that,” Cena said. “I never make the matches, I’m just grateful to be able to perform in WWE. Every day away from it, I miss it more and more and more. I’m becoming more honest with myself about how much I miss it. I’m very eager to get back into a WWE ring soon.
“And on the subject of WrestleMania, I can tell you this — I haven’t missed a WrestleMania since my first appearance at WrestleMania 19, and I do not plan to miss a WrestleMania for decades to come.”
Cena currently has five movies that are currently in production — Dolittle, Project X-Traction, Fast & Furious 9, The Suicide Squad and The Janson Directive. He admitted during a recent interview on Today that he can’t physically keep up with WWE’s full-time schedule anymore.
“That’s the great thing about WWE, you can perform in any capacity,” Cena said. “And, as long as I’ve made a promise in the in-ring aspect of things, as long as I can keep up with the current product, I can perform. The opportunities that I’ve been awarded keep me from being in the ring and I actually think that’s good because it makes any time that I’m invited back to WWE super, super special. And that’s the way it should be.”
“If I didn’t have these opportunities, I still would be taking, actively taking, time off. My body just can’t handle the schedule anymore,” he later stated. “When I turned 40, I really took a look in the mirror and said, ‘Hey, man, I know you really like this, but instead of 250 performances a year, from here on out, just do it 100 times and do it well,” he continued. “And then it became, ‘Just do it 50 times and do it well.’ And now it’s like, ‘Hey, you really have to prepare to get ready to perform and then really recover after a performance.’”
Over the years Cena and Orton have faced each other in televised matches more than 60 times. Their last singles match took place in February 2017 on an episode of SmackDown, which Cena won.
