Method Man Interviews John Cena

[haVoc 0]

John Cena's a busy man. On Sunday, he stepped in to the ring to beat the 7-foot-tall, 500-pound Big Show for the WWE U.S. Championship at Wrestlemania XX. But his biggest challenge may lie even further down the road, as Cena prepares to enter the rap game. The rising WWE star has proven that he can move arenas with his mic skills as easily as he does with his in-ring skills, and his debut album is expected to arrive later this year. Through the power of his weekly appearances on the WWE's Smackdown, the self-proclaimed "Doctor of Thuganomics" has already tried out his rhymes on millions of ears, but is he ready to go toe-to-toe with hip-hop's big dogs? Who better than Method Man to find out? The hip-hop icon (and wrestling fan) sat down with Cena recently to talk about their shared loves: wrestling and hip-hop.

 

Method Man: When did you fall in love with hip-hop?

 

John Cena: In 1985, my dad bought me a CD player for Christmas. This is when CDs first came out. I wanted the boom box with the TV in it. I got the CD instead. I didn't even know what CDs were. I was rocking tapes like everybody else. One of the first CDs he ever got me was the Fat Boys' Crushin': "The Fat Boys are back/ And you know they can never be wack!" Right after that, everything just kind of fell into place. I wore that CD out, then everything else hit after that. I must have been 10.

 

Method Man: Are all your rhymes you say when you come out the ring written, or off the head?

 

Cena: A lot of stuff is off the top of the head, but because they let me go off the top of the head so much, sometimes I say things that make Vince [McMahon] go, "It's a little too raw for TV." Now I burnt my bridges too much, so I gotta run everything by everybody to make sure, but once in a while I'll try to slip my stuff in.

 

Method Man: You are officially a rapper, 'cause they hit us with that every day, all day. "Can we have a chart of the lyrics so we can know everything you're going to say? No, that's not acceptable!" Last year at Wrestlemania, you issued an open challenge for a rapper to come battle you, and no one answered the call. How surprising is that?

 

Cena: That was something I could understand. I've been doing this rap thing not for a while, only two or three months. I'm a small-time white kid trying to represent hip-hop. If a hip-hop artist comes up and beats me in a battle, who did they beat? A small-town white kid who ain't never been an MC, who ain't never done nothing. Now if an MC comes to battle and they get beat by a small-town white boy, that's MC suicide. So there wasn't a positive aspect for the rapper, nothing positive that the rapper could gain out of it. There is no exposure they can possibly have, so I can understand why it didn't pan out. We had a little fun with that anyway. We had cardboard cutouts, just poking fun at people. It's all fun. We keep it on wax.  There's no worries ... nothing's going wrong.

 

Method Man: And plus, a lot of y'all rap dudes can't fight anyway, so all you'd have to do is just sit on it and be easy.

 

Cena: Nah, we had some fun instead. Hopefully, at the end of the year, or the years to come, you'll see some hip-hop people like Meth up on WWE!

 

Method Man: If you had a choice of rappers, what MC would you choose as your tag-team partner — present company excluded?

 

Cena: Man, Bone Crusher's a big dude, and he ain't never scared! I ain't forgetting about him. He's a big dude.

 

Method Man: And he don't look like he stinks. That's the biggest thing to me. Most fat dudes look like they funky. He don't look like he stink. He look like a rather clean brother.

 

Cena: I could ride with him, too. I'd be like, "All right. We got to travel, but you ain't gonna stink up the car. You're a big dude, so you're gonna hold it down." Bone Crusher, if you need me and you want to slam some bodies down, I ain't never scared!

 

Method Man How daunting will it be to make people believe you're a legitimate MC?

 

Cena: Well, the thing is, I'm doing an album. I'm rapping every week. If you watch wrestling, you now know the hip-hop culture is being represented with wrestling. For the longest time, the cultures have almost been parallel. They're very similar, but there's never been that joint, there's never been that bridge. I don't care if they recognize John as an MC or as a rapper. I want people to look at WWE and know that hip-hop is accepted in that circle.

 

Method Man: Who are some of the people that you're working with on your album?

 

Cena: I'm looking forward to working with my boy Freddie Fox. Maybe we can get some members of the Wu, maybe Meth, Red. Anybody over there from Def Jam, I'm feeling Joe Budden. Joey's one of my guys. Eminem, obviously I'm a fan of his. Pretty much my feel toward MCs is, if you really got heart, you got passion, let's get on and do something. I like doing stuff with people that's real.

 

Method Man: So, there's not a collaboration that's about to go down with 'NSYNC or Christina Aguilera?

 

Cena: I won't be doing that.

 

Credit: MTV.com

[Guest Jimbo]

He's so damn fake.

[Perfxion 0]

Which one?

[Guest MikeSC]

They had Method Man interviewing him? Jeez, couldn't they dig up Jesse Camp or somebody to do the piss-poor job?

-=Mike

[Guest TheArchiteck]

Hah, this interview wasn't bad.

It was pretty good, although it did kind of surprise me that Cena was listening to rap for long. And to think that his dad put him onto rap.

lol

[Guest Polish_Rifle]

The only thing that was surprising was Method Man using the word "daunting."

[Art Sandusky 0]

Best interview ever as of the moment that Meth says that big dudes all look like they'd be funky.

[King Cucaracha 0]

Best interview ever as of the moment that Meth says that big dudes all look like they'd be funky.

 

Yeah...word to your mother and all that.

 

 

I mean come on. "We keep it on wax". WTF!?!

[Brett Favre 0]

The only thing that was surprising was Method Man using the word "daunting."

Rappers tend to have a larger vocabulary than rockers.

[Corey_Lazarus 0]

Depends. I have yet to hear a rap song use "perspicacity" or "auspicious," and Dani Filth is known for using "auspicious" way too much.

 

Duncare for the interview, though.

[Brett Favre 0]

Rappers have to have a larger vocabulary. I've heard auspicious tons of times from rappers. But rappers need a larger vocabulary, to rhyme. Unless your name is Nelly.

[Guest Adrian 3:16]

I mean come on. "We keep it on wax". WTF!?!

What do you not understand about "keeping it on wax"?

[Guest Choken One]

Rappers have to have a larger vocabulary. I've heard auspicious tons of times from rappers. But rappers need a larger vocabulary, to rhyme. Unless your name is Nelly.

unless you are John Cena, then you can rhyme MAN with MAN~! and get away with it...but yeah...Rappers have bigger vocabularies then Rock Singers, no question...

[Brett Favre 0]

Rappers have to have a larger vocabulary. I've heard auspicious tons of times from rappers. But rappers need a larger vocabulary, to rhyme. Unless your name is Nelly.

unless you are John Cena, then you can rhyme MAN with MAN~! and get away with it...but yeah...Rappers have bigger vocabularies then Rock Singers, no question...

On the man with man commerical, if you listen closely, he rhymes the 2nd to last words. I don't know why he adds man.

[ChrisMWaters 0]

Come on...SOMEONE get Anglesault into this thread to get his opinion on it!

[Guest Anglesault]

There's some hard hitting journalism.

[Guest Quik]

I want Schooly D to rap battle John Cena.

 

Actually, scratch that. Sign New Jack, and then have him battle Schooly D.

 

The FCC would have enough money to buy the world.

[ant_7000 0]

Im surprised that Cena's pops put him onto rap. Pops must be a Beastie Boys fan or something. I hope Meth aint too hard up for money to do a song with Cena. Cena does spoken word on Smackdown, the commericial he was on sounded ok lyrically, I still don't know if I could take him seriously.

[Perfxion 0]

Yeah...word to your mother and all that.

 

 

I mean come on. "We keep it on wax". WTF!?!

You come off sounding like a complete retard.

 

As for "Keeping it on wax". That means not taking it more than words on a song. No real beef with each other. IE: Flame wars on the Internet. It is just words, they will not hurt you.

[Papacita 0]

As for "Keeping it on wax". That means not taking it more than words on a song. No real beef with each other. IE: Flame wars on the Internet. It is just words, they will not hurt you.

He still comes off kinda fake there. In order for him to keep it on wax, he'd have had to put out a diss record in the first place, which he hasn't done.

 

Cool interview though.

[Perfxion 0]

Freestyles are not always recorded: But still the saying could be used. Like the Busy Bee vs Kool Mo Dee from WAY back in 81. It was done live but there was no fight or beef after it. It was kept on Wax as the saying goes.

[Guest Anglesault]

Yeah...word to your mother and all that.

 

 

I mean come on. "We keep it on wax". WTF!?!

You come off sounding like a complete retard.

 

You actually read that interview and decided that King is the one that sounds lik a retard?

[Papacita 0]

Freestyles are not always recorded: But still the saying could be used. Like the Busy Bee vs Kool Mo Dee from WAY back in 81. It was done live but there was no fight or beef after it. It was kept on Wax as the saying goes.

Oh I know freestyles aren't always recorded, but I've never heard the saying used for live battles or whatever, at least never by people who aren't in the industry. That's why it comes off fake to me.

[Nighthawk 0]

Rappers have to have a larger vocabulary. I've heard auspicious tons of times from rappers. But rappers need a larger vocabulary, to rhyme. Unless your name is Nelly.

unless you are John Cena, then you can rhyme MAN with MAN~! and get away with it...but yeah...Rappers have bigger vocabularies then Rock Singers, no question...

On the man with man commerical, if you listen closely, he rhymes the 2nd to last words. I don't know why he adds man.

Why do you have to listen closely? Just listen.

He adds man because it improves the cadence. It's done.

[Brett Favre 0]

I happened to listen because everyone was talking about it, and I figured John Cena can't be this stupid.

[CanadianChick 0]

I feel very, very white right now. I had to re-read a couple of those lines to figure out what either guy was saying.

 

Cool interview though. It's nice that Cena is getting a little mainstream exposure. Can't get more mainstream than MTV, right?

[Guest wildpegasus]

** could easily ask 100 people what the world "We keep it on wax" means and 99% of them wouldn't be able to answer.**

 

The 1 % remaining is myself asking myself and I only know because of this thread.

 

 

 

"Meth says that big dudes all look like they'd be funky"

 

WP -- What on earth does that mean?

 

The only way to learn is to ask questions. Who is Method Man? A singer or an interviewer?

[Papacita 0]

"Meth says that big dudes all look like they'd be funky"

 

WP -- What on earth does that mean?

I can't tell if you're serious It's pretty self-explanitory if you read the comment in context.

 

And Meth's a rapper, BTW.

[2GOLD 0]

I believe Cena was referring to the insults he made at Mania when no rapper showed up to battle him. Or maybe he DOES insult some rappers on that damn album he is making.

 

And at least we know why some of his raps have gotten tame and corny, the WWE has jumped in with their own brand of comedy.

 

What's odd is I don't think he KNEW Meth was interviewing him.

[Guest Choken One]

Before AS, asks…Method Man is a pretty well known Rapper in the game, He isn’t the BEST(not by a long shot) but has been able to cross over into the Hip-Hop and R&B scene and even collaborated with XXXTINA on her last album and appeared in a few movies. He is often considered the Nicest and funniest rapper around (in general, not his raps) and is a pretty big name for Cena to be connected with; Method Man is a well spoken wrestling fan and often is seen at Smack down shows and even was subjected to a diss from Cena himself but later that same year; Cena gave a shout out to Meth, whom was in the crowd again. It should be interesting to see if Cena, whom has already appeared on BET, MTV and Hot 97.1 (a well known rap station in NYC), can get even more exposure. A Video for the New Album is likely and I figure as long as Vince and the rest of the WWE stay away from it, he could have some success. I’m not saying he can be a Grammy winner or a MTV Music Award “Rap Artist of the year” recipient but some modest success seems plausible.