John Cena was the latest guest on Variety.com’s Playback podcast with Kristopher Tapley to promote his new movie The Wall, which released in theaters this weekend. During the interview, the 16-time WWE champion discussed his role in the film, the performance of his co-star Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Avengers: Age of Ultron, Kick-Ass), proposing to Nikki Bella at WrestleMania this year, and more.
One piece of news coming out of the interview which will excite wrestling fans is the confirmation that more Southpaw Regional Wrestling is “on its way”, according to Cena. SRW is a series of YouTube shorts put together by WWE, based on the old pro wrestling territory days, that released back in March to tremendous acclaim from online fans. Cena plays an old-timey announcer named Lance Catamaran, who is joined at the booth by a constantly hungover Chett Chetterfield (Fandango).
Below are a few highlights from his interview with Variety.
John Cena on the wrestling industry changing, and being able to create a new character for Southpaw Regional Wrestling:
“It’s amazing, because it captures everything of that era, but we never show any wrestling. It’s great. It just goes to show how far sports entertainment has come. The sports entertainment of yore, the old WWF, or the WWE Attitude Era, or even when I started coming in as a newer generation post-Attitude Era, you very much focussed on your brand and only your brand. I remember being the hip-hop guy. I dressed hip-hop, made an album, made videos, free-styled people in the parking lot; it’s constant method acting. That was me, I love hip-hop culture. But at the same time, that’s not all me. I also love to tell jokes, if you get me in the right scenario I’m pretty decent with my hands in a fight. There’s certain facets of your personality, and because you have to identify with the audience, you try to showcase the one that will resonate the most. And in my case, the fact that I’ve been on TV for fifteen years, my life is an open book to these people. So now I’m at the point where I really have a lot of fun, and I like to mess around with stuff like [Southpaw Regional Wrestling].”
On how YouTube has changed the game for content creation:
“YouTube is a great outlet to do digital shorts and fun videos. We did one on the Bella’s YouTube channel celebrating half a million subscribers, where we got naked. It truly was just a funny video where I was the butt of the joke, pun intended, and I’m looking like an idiot. But everyone had a good laugh about it, and it was a great way to tell the subscribers ‘hey, thank you for your support’. So Southpaw was awesome, because you get once again to create a new character.”
On the creation of his Lance Catamaran character, and how he came up with the name:
“I, like you, was a fan of Gordon Solie. Lance Russel came to mind, and I tried to get a commentary name that sounded like Lance Russel, but not like Lance Russel; almost sounding like Ron Burgandy. I remember passing the Catamaran Hotel in San Diego, and going Lance Catamaran. Holy s— that’s it, it’s Lance Catamaran. It sounds like a sailboat, it’s distinguished – he’s Lance Catamaran! And the reason I chose Utica is because Ithaca College has a wonderful broadcast program. And nobody tells you this, but once again, you get out of it what you put into it.”
On the success of Southpaw Regional Wrestling and its future:
“That is what’s fun about the creative environment. It was a hit, and there’s a great core audience in the WWE that looks for stuff like that. Yes they like to see heated rivalries, and they love that good versus evil story, but they also have a sense of humor. And we’re essentially laughing at the industry – we’re parodying the industry the way it was. People enjoy it, and here we are thirty years from that era or more, and we can look back and laugh at the way things were done. It was really fun, and there’s more on the way. I have seen Tex Ferguson unleashed – be on the lookout for more Tex Ferguson.”
