#2423 - John Cena

John Cena (0:01)

Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out.

Joe Rogan (0:03)

The Joe Rogan Experience.

John Cena (0:06)

Trained by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day.

Joe Rogan (0:12)

Joe Rogan, what's up? John Cena, in the fucking house.

John Cena (0:16)

Put these on, yeah.

Joe Rogan (0:17)

Yeah, let's put these on. Pretend we're professional. What's up? Good to see you, man.

John Cena (0:22)

Thanks so much for having me. Pleasure to be in here.

Joe Rogan (0:24)

And there's no way I'm having a pro wrestler on without Tony Hinchcliffe. Of course. He's the expert. He knows more about pro wrestling than I know about UFC.

Tony Hinchcliffe (0:33)

Yeah. Sometimes I translate little things here and there.

John Cena (0:36)

That's cool. It's all right.

Joe Rogan (0:36)

Yeah, he has to. He has to. And he's a giant fan of yours too. You know what else is a giant fan of yours is Brian Simpson. Brian Simpson was going on last night about how intelligent you are. It was really interesting. You sure it was me? Yeah, man. Well, you do speak fucking Mandarin, which is kind of crazy.

John Cena (0:54)

Yeah, yeah. How long did it take you to learn that? Man, I was doing that for quite a long time. I've since kind of declined on the studies.

A wonderful takeaway from the study of Mandarin. Just because you know a language doesn't mean you know the culture. So that was a fantastic experience. But I studied Mandarin for like a decade. And I would say like not even conversationally fluent. It was a really tough hill to climb for me.

Joe Rogan (1:22)

But it seems like a really big hill.

John Cena (1:26)

Just different. You know, you can use the language and the structure. No, I didn't even bother to read. And like reading all the characters, understanding everything. Yeah.

Joe Rogan (1:35)

How long did it take you to learn?

John Cena (1:37)

Around 10 years. And then like, I mean, I would dream in Mandarin and like have conversations and kick down in that. So it became like a second language. But you know, I lived in China for a little bit. I filmed a movie with Jackie Chan. So I was there for like six or seven months. I lived there in, man, we were in Inner Mongolia, Yinchuan province. So like, like in China.

Joe Rogan (2:00)

Wow.

John Cena (2:00)

And it was fun. Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Rogan (2:03)

You were in Mongolia.

John Cena (2:04)

Inner Inner Mongolia. Yeah.

Joe Rogan (2:06)

What's the difference?

John Cena (2:08)

I don't know because I've never been in Mongolia. But Inner Mongolia was, man, I was I was the only person that looked like me there. And everyone would say, look, it's it's big white guy. Hyundai Byron. Hyundai Byron, that would call me.

Joe Rogan (2:20)

Wow.

John Cena (2:21)

Yeah.

Joe Rogan (2:22)

Wow. So what motivated you to learn that? It seems like such a task.

John Cena (2:26)

Honestly, man, it was everything in my life seems to be wrestling related. It was wrestling related. Like WWE's reach spread everywhere. I mean, I've been able to lucky enough to perform everywhere from like Moscow, Philippines, South Africa, Bangor, Maine, every place in between except China. China was like the one place that didn't understand what we did. So it's literally like it's a universal language because you can turn, it's like UFC, like you turn the volume down but you can see like, oh, this is two guys, best guy wins. I get it. The Chinese just didn't get it. So I figured if like one of our superstars spoke the language, maybe that would help break down the barrier. Was it your idea? It was my idea but the WWE offers, and I think they still offer it, they offer free second language program. So like when they rolled out the initiative of like financial advice, and they'll pay for portions of your secondary education and free second language, this is like 2011, 2012, big talent meeting in like an auditorium. I'm one of the old guys at the time sitting in the front being like, these kids don't know how good they have it. I should stand up and tell them, I'm like, no, fuck that. I'm actually going to lead by example and take a language.

So I signed up right then and there for Chinese because I wanted to get us into China.

SPEAKER_6 (3:46)

Wow.

John Cena (3:47)

And like I said, it worked, but it kind of only worked. And I think actually right now China is experiencing what wrestling is to them. Because like there's, I've read articles that there's promotions over there that are thriving. So like now they get it.