Cena was not on board with the change.
In the early portion of John Cena’s time in WWE, he donned the nickname, The Doctor of Thuganomics. There came a point when WWE instituted a dress code policy but Cena was not in favor of it.
He recounted this story while on Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert podcast. In front of Cena’s colleagues, he stated that he would not be adhering to the dress code because he felt like it would hurt his on-screen persona as he kept it up in public.
24/7, I was in the rap gimmick. They instituted a dress code in WWE soon after I changed my gimmick and raised my hand, I said, ‘I’m not doing it,’ in front of everyone, in front of my peers. I rebelled against authority, because you guys are gonna kill my character, they’re never gonna believe it. We’re going from city to city to city and we’re traveling with everyone else, we rent cars from everyone else, we go to the hotel with everyone else, we pull up to the arena and there are fans out there. I used to freestyle battle kids in parking lots in front of the arenas.
The last time Cena brought back the persona was at WrestleMania 35 where he had an in-ring segment with Elijah a.k.a. Elias.
If the quote in this article is used, please credit Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcription.
