Freddie Prinze, Jr. story will fuel arguments about John Cena being a backstage politicker

For a quick interview about a new cookbook, Sam Roberts sure got a bunch of juicy quotes out of former WWE Creative team member Freddie Prinze, Jr.

On Sunday, we talked about a few of Prinze’s arguments in favor of Vince McMahon’s vision for the wrestling product we consume week-in and week-out. Today, Wrestling Inc. ran another couple of quotes from last week’s Sam Roberts Wrestling Podcast, and the one that caught my eye concerned John Cena.

Maybe it’s because I was just overthinking Stone Cold Steve Austin’s advice for AJ Styles when it came to working with the Face that Runs the Place. But all I could do while listening to Prinze’s story about having run-ins with Cena over an acting class he used to run for wrestlers during one of his two stints working for Vince was how it will be used as evidence by fans who believe Cena to be as savvy a political operator as Triple H or Hulk Hogan:

I would be running an acting workshop and he [John Cena] would just come in and like interrupt it and sort of take over the room. And I'm like, “Hold up, man”. I said, “Let's go talk outside.”

So he came outside and he gave me this speech, and I respect his view. He goes, “Look, I may be a neanderthal” and he said, “but you either got it or you don't.”

And I said, “Look, I agree, philosophically, to a certain point”. I said, “But you can get better or worse at something depending on how hard you work at it”. I said, “You don't need my help. I'm not writing for you. But they do, so let me do my job. I'll let you do your job and that'll be that.”

And it wasn't. It didn’t end.

But then one day, I did a segment with a guy that we were trying to get over and he did a great job, and he came backstage, and so did John, and John looked at me and said “hey, respect, that was a good segment, man.”

And I just remember in my head going “no sell it”... because I didn’t want to give him that satisfaction, you know what I mean, but that was sort of the last time he ever interrupted a class.

Now, I don’t know about you, but to me, “the champ” comes off pretty horribly in this story. If Prinze is shooting straight, Cena was intentionally disrupting something designed to help other wrestlers get better at promos and talking segments. And his justification was... hard work won’t help?

But I thought hustle and never give up and stuff, John?

It’s entirely possible Prinze has an axe to grind and he delivered this story in between anecdotes about cooking steaks for MVP and being married to geek goddess Sarah Michelle Gellar in order to get heat on Cena with the internet. I don’t know him, John or Sam - so I have no idea.

But regardless, this is likely going to join Edge and Chris Jericho’s discussion of the Nexus angle in the anti-Cena crowd’s evidence file.

Argue nicely, Cagesiders.