Kevin Owens will team with John Cena on the final episode of Friday Night SmackDown of 2022 this week as they take on Roman Reigns and Sami Zayn. Owens was challenged to a tag match by “The Tribal Chief” and was given the chance to pick his partner. Owens decided to reach out to Cena, pointing out that his decades-long streak of wrestling at least one match every year was on the verge of ending due to his busy acting schedule. Owens then appeared on Chep Heat and shared a funny exchange he had while texting the 16-time world champion.ย
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“We text here and there. The text messages…I’m not going to say that I actually use the emojis that he described, but it’s a lot like that. We talk about some silly stuff. ‘Remember when we had this match and this happened,’ stuff like that. We haven’t really discussed the upcoming SmackDown just yet. He’s very excited. The last text I got from him was, ‘I LOVE WRESTLING’ in all caps. Unprompted. I don’t know what he was doing. No idea. I think it was 1 AM. I don’t know where he was in the world,” Owens said.ย
John Cena at WrestleMania 39
Numerous reports have emerged recently that Cena will compete at WrestleMania 39 next April in Los Angeles. “The Face That Runs The Place” has been operating on a part-time schedule for years because of his acting career, but insists he hasn’t retired.ย
“To challenge myself as a 44-year-old to go back, there is an Intrinsic challenge there, a set of circumstances,” Cena said told Chris Hardwick last yearย while discussing the rest of his in-ring career. That’s a good challenge in many ways. My body could tell me after this extended stay, ‘dude, you’re done’ or it could tell me, ‘You’re so far from done it’s crazy.’ That’s another interesting conversation with myself. If physically, I’m slower, I’ve said openly to everyone that I will keep doing this until I feel I’m offending the customer. I will continually go out there and do what I can to contribute and add.
“I don’t want to go out there and be like, ‘Okay, just let him go out there and (do his thing).’ I’m not into that because I know what it’s like to pay for a ticket,” he added. If I were to get that on this go-round, it’s a humbling and tough thing that I will have to hurdle. If I get the opposite and it’s like, ‘You’re quicker and can do some things better and define a new personality,’ then that’s a new conversation because I do not have much time left and if I want to give it like, ‘let’s really commit to this thing and really go all in,’ that’s an honest choice where other stuff will have to take a backseat.”
