This weekend, at Saturday Night's Main Event, R-Truth faces his childhood hero, John Cena, after the Undisputed WWE Champion put Truth through a table at the post-Backlash press conference. R-Truth's love for Cena might be what brings the champ back from the dark side in the end, but away from wrestling storylines, John Cena was once upset over what R-Truth said about WWE when he was in TNA. When Truth later joined WWE, the face of the company called him out.
It's hard to believe, but R-Truth, now 53, was wrestling for WWE back in 1999 as K-Kwik. However, after two years with the promotion, he went to TNA, where he went by his real name, Ron Killings, and was nicknamed "The Truth". It was there that the rapper put out a diss track about WWE on YouTube, and one John Cena heard it. Not too long after, they ran into each other at a Charlotte airport, but did little more than nod at each other. One of R-Truth's friends, Konnan, was disappointed by the lack of a story from their encounter, and he wanted Truth to embellish it and say that he pushed Cena. In a September 2022 interview with Premier Live TV, R-Truth added:
"I said, ‘Bro, don’t go spreading that!’ And then before you know it, was all the way around that we had this big beef thing, the whole nine.” (h/t 411 Mania)
Things got awkward for a bit for R-Truth when he returned to WWE in 2008. It was then that he was approached by John Cena. R-Truth said:
"When I got to the locker room though, all of the boys were sitting down just watching. Cena was in the bathroom. So, when I came in I didn’t know this. They’re all sitting there waiting. And when he came in, he looked and said, ‘We not gonna have any problems, are we?’ I said, ‘Man, hell no. I’m on your ship.’ And he was like [scoffs], and we clap and [hug]. The whole locker room went, ‘Awww, man! S**t!’”
John Cena was able to see, maybe because he's a rapper himself, that the diss track was no big deal. Still, don't look for him to be so forgiving at Saturday Night's Main Event.
More must-reads:
Get the latest news and rumors, customized to your favorite sports and teams. Emailed daily. Always free!