WWE Champion John Cena spoke with Fanhouse.com this week about the release of Daniel Bryan.
Cena said:
“Well, the release is legitimate. It was something that I don’t understand. It’s something that a lot of people are upset about. This is one of those things where … you know, WWE is a business, and they chose to make a business decision. I think what is right for the WWE Universe to do is show that they have a bit of power. If they really feel so strongly about this subject — the consumer has the largest voice here, and if they were really serious they should organize their efforts and put forth some body of work. I’ve even signed petitions to reinstate Bryan Danielson. But if they can get enough numbers to say, ‘Listen, we would like this person back on WWE.’ Like I said, they made a business decision, but at the same time, they can’t deny good business. So if you get 200,000 consumers saying, ‘Listen, we’d like to see this person on television,’ I don’t think the bean counters are gonna ignore the potential dollar signs. I just think all it takes is, all those people to organize under one roof and say, ‘Listen, this is how we want to act,’ because the uproar you’re talking about, I have no spectrum about how big the size is.”
Cena was then asked about WWE having a rule against certain acts of violence, including choking. This was his answer:
“Well you have to understand, our programming across the board is TV-PG content, and anything that falls out of that TV-PG umbrella — we put a rating at the beginning of the show on our graphic that says TV-PG, so anything that even toes the line to being unacceptable from that, quite frankly needs to be removed from the program — because we pride ourselves on saying, for so long WWE has had the stigma of, ‘Yeah it’s fun to watch but I would never let my kid watch it.’ Collectively as a body, and as a business, we have taken the initiative to say, ‘You know what, I want your children and families to be able to come to our event because I truly believe we have the best value in entertainment. Jeopardizing all of that, it’s not worth doing something that falls outside the parentheses of TV-PG. That’s something that doesn’t fall in our lap, that’s something that has to do with the rating system.”
