John Cena Confronted WWE Superstar Backstage About Stealing His Gimmick

John Cena is known for being invisible, because you can’t see him. He even has a famous hand gesture to let his opponents know this while he’s wrestling them in the ring.

Pro wrestling is a dog-eat-dog business and you must protect your territory. Cena saw a young Mike Bennett doing his “you can’t see me” gesture, and he had to say something about it.

While speaking to Lucha Libre Online, Bennett, who wrestled for WWE as Mike Kanellis, revealed a story about John Cena getting very protective of his gimmick. This took place during an episode of Sunday Night Heat in 2007 when Bennett was an enhancement talent.

“We were wrestling Cryme Tyme. It was my first time ever working for WWF doing extra work. They wanted to get Cryme Tyme over. So they put us in there. And I remember calling this spot with JTG and at the time he had gold teeth in, that he would put in and call it as grill. So every time he did like a move he would he would take his fingers like this and kind of show his grill. And and so we came up with this idea, or he came up with this idea that I would do this spot (mimicking teeth grinding) and I would get up over on him and then I would mimic him, and then he would turn it around as kind of a good baby face. He’s dynamic there.”

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“Unfortunately, what happened was this ended up looking too close to this (You can’t see me taunt). Yes, so I think you can see where this is going. I think someone told Mr. Cena that I had gone out there and I had done this (You can’t see me taunt) on Sunday Night Heat. So when I got to the back, on my very first match, John Cena was there to inform me that I should not be doing this (You can’t see me) in any way, shape or form. It was put to me not so nicely. Which is funny because after I got to go (to WWE), when I went back to WWE, I never got to tell him that story which I wanted to. I actually really enjoyed seeing him when I went back.”

“He was a very down-to-earth and a very cool guy. I really enjoyed interacting with him. He was super helpful with everything. But I think at that time, I don’t blame him. Here’s this, you know, in his eyes, here’s probably this punk kid copying him what he’s doing. That’s his money maker. It’s his bread-and-butter. I’d probably be pissed too. I’d be like, yo, you don’t even work here. What are you doing? It was a simple mistake. I thought I was done. I went back to my hotel that night and I was like: ‘Well, I’m never working in wrestling again. John Cena hates my guts’. But now it just kind of makes a funny story. But at the time I genuinely thought that: ‘I’m done. Never working again. That’s it. John Cena is the top of the game and he thinks I just copied him’. So it ended up being a funny story. But at the time, I was terrified.”

John Cena is very easy to see now. He’s set to star in Fast 9 (whenever it finally comes out) and there are many more projects to come. He’ll also be the Peacemaker in the upcoming Suicide Squad sequel, and he’s filming a HBO Max spin-off series in Canada for the character. That is the reason why fans really won’t see him at WrestleMania this year.