John Cena admits he was ‘selfish’ during feud with Dwayne Johnson

John Cena has admitted he was ‘selfish’ during his public feud with fellow wrestler-turned-actor Dwayne Johnson.

The two Hollywood stars had a long-standing feud while in the ring as professional wrestlers however, they maintained a friendship behind the scenes.

Their friendship hit a challenging period in 2012 after Johnson made a number of public comments about the professional wrestling business.

Cena publicly criticised The Rock, which led to the Black Adam star declaring: “This is what happens when idiots have confidence.”

In a fresh interview for the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Cena, 46, reflected on the public feud and said: “I got selfish and me - living WWE at the point and not having any concept of growth or someone else’s perspective - I took Dwayne’s comments as not genuine.”

Instead of airing his grievances privately, Cena decided to speak publicly about Johnson, 51, which he regrets.

@therock/Instagram

“Instead of going like, ‘Hey man, I’d like to try to do this thing to hook you back in and maybe we can collaborate and really make it big,’ I was just like, ‘Eff this, I’m calling this dude out. This is a moment. You gave me an opening. I’m going to kick the door in'."

The two sports-entertainment icons faced each other in the ring in 2012 following their public spats.

Prior to the first match, Cena rattled off to fans how The Rock had been absent from the ring for eight years and revealed he had been ‘questioning whether or not The Rock even cares about the business’.

Cena told the podcast: “I just got selfish and wanted a main event marquee match because it would better what I thought was the business. That was short-sighted and selfish. It worked!

Universal Pictures

“But it worked at the cost of two people who communicated and almost put it in jeopardy. There was a moment where there was a lot of bad vibes between us and rightfully so.”

Meanwhile, the Moana actor spoke about his feud with Cena during a recent appearance on The Late Show with Jimmy Kimmel.

“We had a great rivalry,” he told the host. “In the world of wrestling, it’s fictionalised, it’s a show, but here’s the thing. Our rivalry was, it was so real. We had real problems with each other.”

Cena and Johnson have made up since then and the Fast X star shared that their friendship ‘is in a really good place’.