John Cena tells NXT crowd he'll be competing again in three weeks

Just one day removed from surgery, WWE superstar John Cena showed up for a scheduled NXT taping at Full Sail University in Florida last night (Sept. 20, 2012) where he was originally supposed to wrestle. Obviously, due to his having bone chips removed from his elbow, he wasn't able to do that.

In his apology to the fans for as much, though, something interesting came up. According to a report from PWTorch.com, Cena told the audience that he would be back to "compete" on Oct. 11, which is just less than three weeks from today.

What makes that interesting is the absolute bomb he let off on Twitter just days ago regarding the WWE.com report that said he would require two to three weeks recovery time. Cena's issue was that the doctor who performed his surgery, James Andrews, had apparently informed him it was much worse than originally thought and six weeks was a more realistic goal.

He went on an absolute tirade over this, keeping it PG all the way, of course. Many suspected it was a work, seeing as he did something similar when he tore his pectoral muscle in 2007 and came back way sooner than expected to win the Royal Rumble in 2008. His comments to the crowd at NXT would seem to confirm he was, in fact, just working the Internet.

But that's the part that's so confusing. What's the point of going on such a large scale Twitter tirade regarding WWE.com erroneously reporting the time table for his return just to set them straight when they had it right all along? Furthermore, why announce as much at an NXT taping where actual live people are in attendance who are surely going to take that information to wrestling websites so the lies can be laid bare for everyone to see, presumably ruining the surprise that he could come back sooner than expected on WWE television?

Naturally, it will almost assuredly be passed off as just a work and hell, maybe he's working the NXT crowd too. It's times like these it's difficult not to just shake your head at the entire pro wrestling construct.