John Cena is stepping back from the WWE ring but it wont stop the business from taking a slice of all his career earnings
John Cena is one of the greatest WWE superstars of all time. For some, he is the out and out GOAT.
But despite being the go-to man when it comes to selling the business across the world for almost two and a half decades, the wrestling company consistently takes a percentage of Cena’s earnings from outside of the WWE.
And that will still be the case once the professional wrestler-turned-actor hangs up his boots (or whatever wrestlers hang up) at the end of next year, with Cena officially retiring from in-ring competition when 2025 comes to a close.
Cena has been part-time in the WWE since 2018 as the 47-year-old started the slow walk towards retirement and taking up other business ventures, such as acting, on a full-time basis.
He wouldn’t be the first, with The Rock quitting WWE back in 2004 to focus on a full-time career in show business under his real name of Dwayne Johnson. More recently, WWE superstar Batista moving in to full-time acting under his real name, Dave Bautista, starring in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Drax the Destroyer as well as other flicks such as Dune and Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery.
With Cena, his acting career began back in 2006 with The Marine. Since then, he’s starred in the likes of Daddy’s Home 2, Blockers, The Suicide Squad, Fast X, and Ricky Stanicky. On the small screen, Cena has also starred in Peacemaker, a show based off his Cena’s character of the same name that appeared in The Suicide Squad.
His time in the ring is now – but it’ll soon be over for good (Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)
The difference between someone like Cena and Johnson is that The Rock didn’t compete in the wrestling industry under his real name. On the flipside, John Cena is John Cena’s birth name.
As a result, the WWE gained rights to the title which he’s since gone on to use for his acting career. Cena discussed WWE’s ownership of his name during an interview on The Howard Stern Show.
He confirmed that the wrestling firm gets a cut of all of his movies as a result of who owns the name from a moniker point of view. When asked whether having his name owned by the WWE bothered him, Cena said: “Absolutely not.”
Cena’s move in to the acting world has been a slow burner as he remains committed to the WWE as long as his body allows it (Todd Owyoung/NBC via Getty Images)
He explained: “Howard, before this I was a kid in a small Massachusetts town mowing lawns for a golf course. I don’t mind kicking a percentage of my earnings to the person who gave me a chance and an opportunity.
“If anything that’s a sign of respect, I owe [them] a lot.”
Cena did admit that not owning the rights to his name is a ‘weird concept, in a way’.
Investigative journalist Tom Colohue spoke further about WWE’s ownership of names during an episode of Dropkick Discussions, where he claimed Cena isn’t the only one subject to the intellectual property rule.
One last WrestleMania appearance is on the cards (Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)
Colohue said: “To cite an example, the WWE owns the name John Cena and that is John Cena’s actual name.
“That means whenever John Cena is filming, whenever he is credited in a film, the WWE gets a pay cut. They get a cut of the profits.
“There are some people currently working for the WWE whose names are owned by the WWE. I don’t know who, I don’t have a distinctive list. I haven’t read everybody’s contract but those people know who they are.”
As a result, it means that even when Cena’s WWE days are long behind him, the wrestling company that helped make him a household name across the world will still get a percentage of any work he does under his real name.
