John Cena On WWE Product: “I Miss WWE Allowing Blood”

John Cena made a brief appearance at Wrestlemania 32, but he’s not expected back inside the WWE ring for a few more months. Despite that fact, it doesn’t stop the fifteen time WWE Champion from having an opinion about what’s going on in the squared circle.

Cena recently spoke with Rolling Stone for a highly detailed piece on his WWE career, his life outside of WWE, and much more. It also contains comments from his off-screen girlfriend, Nikki Bella.

You can read the full interview right here. Below are some of the highlights:

What do you think about Vince McMahon and the current WWE product?

“I’m a 38-year-old man. I’d much rather it be a program geared toward me, whether that’s TV-14 or sometimes even more graphic than that, which is what I like. For one thing, profanity brought fire out of people with personalities that backed the language. It’s very difficult to say, ‘Oh, you’re being poopy,’ especially when they’re meant to be fighting words.

And now, if someone starts to bleed, the referee intervenes to stop the bleeding. But before, you’d just let it fly. Blood is one of the things that made fights cool. Like, you knew it had gotten serious. I understand why we don’t do it anymore. Vince has been a coach to me, a father figure, a boss and a friend, and his goal and my goal are the same: to make the company be as big as it can be. But, yeah, the blood is one thing I miss.”

What do you think about turning heel? 

“Look, your job as a superstar is to manipulate the audience and try to tell your story. I like the dynamic of the audience. Every single night it’s different. But what’s weird is that I’m a good guy because of all the kids and parents who like me, and a bad guy because I won’t turn heel, which actually makes me both good guy and bad guy in one person.”

Do you think WWE should allow WWE superstars to bleed again in certain matches to add depth?