The idea was presented to Matt by Vince.
At the Money in the Bank Premium Live Event, John Cena returned to WWE and announced that he’s retiring from in-ring competition and that road will conclude in December 2025.
Matt Hardy was asked if he has any John Cena stories to share (via Reby Hardy’s TikTok). He remembers freestyling with Cena during overseas tours and that led to Matt telling the story of Vince McMahon asking him if he could ‘rap and act Black.’
Whenever John (Cena) started doing the whole rapper gimmick and it was kind of based off Eminem obviously at that time and whenever we do European tours, we would have long bus rides. Sometimes four, five or six hours and a lot of times, there was a group in the back that would do freestyle raps and it would often come down to myself and John and we’d be like the last two… Vince (McMahon), at one point, wanted to stick me with Mark Henry. He had an idea, he said, ‘Well, you can rap and act Black, right?’ And he was gonna have me act like Mattitude was something that was oppressed like being a Black person and he had an idea about that, and fortunately, that never materialized. I think Mark would’ve shut it down anyway but I was gonna team with Mark Henry and that was an idea Vince had because he heard about our epic freestyle rants on overseas buses.
McMahon, John Laurinaitis and WWE are in the midst of a sex trafficking lawsuit that was filed by former WWE employee Janel Grant.
John Cena and WWE Chief Content Officer Paul ‘Triple H’ Levesque were asked about the suit during the Money in the Bank press conference.
If the quote in this article is used, please credit the original source with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcription.
