WWE: John Cena on Original Plans for Pairing with The Rock & Travis Scott Being “Who Cares? It Doesn’t Matter”, Royal Rumble 2026 Official Poster Released, Mark Shapiro Says TKO Are Working On New Non-Exclusive Deal For WWE Library

John Cena Comments on Original Plans for Pairing with The Rock & Travis Scott Being “Who Cares? It Doesn’t Matter”

A recent episode of the Insight with Chris Van Vliet podcast featured John Cena as the guest. One of the topics discussed included Cena’s thoughts about the original plans for his heel run pairing with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and rapper Travis Scott.

“Who cares? It doesn’t matter. We can talk about what could have been until the cows come home. And I think that’s what’s great about the people who are left standing. Certainly me and Cody. What’s the change? this? All right, let’s go. I don’t dwell for one second on what could have been, because what could have been is Brock doesn’t leave for the NFL and there’s no John Cena.”

Cena also gave his thoughts about if there could have been a match with The Rock for the plans.

“Could there be anything? That’s the thing that sucks about what could have been, it’s not what it is.”

Cena also gave his thoughts about if a match with The Rock was something that was talked about within WWE.

“I don’t care. First of all, I’m always the last to know. It doesn’t trickle down to me. If you watch Unreal, that process is genuine. ‘I talked to Rock and then the last guy I gotta call is John.’ I’m usually the last guy they call because I’m the easiest. ‘Yeah, let’s do it. No problem. I’m in.’ So I don’t sweat the [small stuff]. ‘Yo, we don’t have those guys anymore.’ Cool, what do you want to do? We would like to do this. We need you to start being more competitive. We want to put you in these matches. We were going to build to this. That’s over. I didn’t even get that. Okay, fine, great. What are we doing now? That’s what’s tough. I think it’s great to talk about. It gives good argument, gives good perspective, of like, how do they book this stuff? A lot of that stuff’s beyond control of even the people who own the sandbox. If I decide to walk, I have contractual obligations, but they I’m not gonna be there on the 13th. Like, if I decide that, you know, and they’ll figure it out. I saw Austin get fired, you know what I’m saying. I saw Brock leave. I saw, you know, Dwayne take his break, and I don’t sweat any of those guys for what they did. Austin was worn out. Brock was probably going to assault somebody in an airport, and Dwayne had such great opportunities, I don’t fault people for being like, I can’t do this right now. McAfee being burned out behind the booth. The guy has got so many opportunities, dude, you got to just focus on what you can do. I don’t sweat them for that, but shit changes. Open opportunity for Wade Barrett, and I love listening to that guy on TV. Not that I didn’t like Pat but I really like listening to Stu [Bennett]. So I don’t really sweat it, but could there have been? That’s why I don’t choose my opponents.”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com

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WWE Royal Rumble 2026 Official Poster Released

WWE CCO Paul “Triple H” Levesque released the official poster for next year’s Royal Rumble event on January 31, 2026 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

The countdown starts… and the Road to #WrestleMania begins again.

Tickets for the 2026 #RoyalRumble live from Riyadh, KSA go on sale tomorrow at 7pm local / 11am ET. pic.twitter.com/YWIFECwAph

— Triple H (@TripleH) December 9, 2025

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Mark Shapiro Says TKO Are Working On New Non-Exclusive Deal For WWE Library Content

WWE’s current media rights deal for their WWE library content on Peacock is set to expire at the start of 2026. WWE currently has a media rights deal with ESPN for WWE PLEs and also a separate media rights deal with Netflix for WWE RAW shows in the United States.

A recent UBS Global Media and Communications Conference event featured TKO COO Mark Shapiro as one of the guests. One of the topics discussed included Shapiro providing an update on the future of NXT PLEs thw WWE library and revealed TKO is currently working on a new non-exclusive media rights deal for WWE library content.

“We haven’t gone to market yet on the NXT PLEs, we have a lot on our plate right now and we want to be smart and strategic about that. We’re in no rush. We need to be deliberate and thoughtful. As it relates to the library, we’re working on a non-exclusive deal at the moment. I think we’ll have something to announce in Q1 [Quarter 1 2026].”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com