This weekend will represent the second WrestleMania since WWE founder and former chairman Vince McMahon had to leave the company again amid allegations of sex trafficking and sexual assault that were levied against him in a lawsuit by a former female employee.
But McMahon’s decades-long control and role over pro wrestling’s biggest brand still looms large as its biggest event of the year approaches.
While many current WWE superstars have chosen to distance themselves from McMahon in the aftermath of his WWE departure, John Cena is taking the opposite approach ahead of his main event match with Cody Rhodes for the Undisputed WWE championship on Sunday during night two of WrestleMania 41 in Las Vegas.
Cena, in a New York Times profile before what he has announced will be his final WrestleMania, emphasized he still has positive feelings for McMahon despite multiple instances of alleged sexual misconduct and sexual assault behind-the-scenes at WWE (and alleged hush money doled out in conjunction with those incidents). McMahon has denied the allegations.
‘I don’t care who hears it: I love Vince,’ Cena said. ‘I’m not downplaying anything that needs to be decided or allegations of any kind, but when I love somebody, I love them wholeheartedly.’
Cena added: ‘I know people are going to be angry about that, but they can’t put their value on my relationship with somebody I love.’
Cena, 48, became one of the WWE’s biggest stars of all-time under McMahon. The 16-time world champion would surpass Ric Flair and set a new WWE record for most world championships won if he were to beat Rhodes on Sunday. Cena is notably performing as the heel (or bad guy) during the lead up to WrestleMania 41 after spending most of his pro wrestling career with his character packaged as a face (or good guy).
Not everybody in WWE thinks about McMahon the same way Cena does, though.
Roman Reigns, in his own Vanity Fair profile released earlier this week ahead of WrestleMania, acknowledged that McMahon reached out to him last year to wish him happy birthday. But Reigns did not offer any support of his former boss after Janel Grant, a former WWE employee, accused McMahon of sexual assault and trafficking, as well as physical and emotional abuse.
‘She’s got to live with all these situations that happened and hopefully she’s in a place where she feels comfortable and she’s secure in her own place,’ Reigns said about Grant. ‘It’s embarrassing. That’s stuff you don’t want to hear about. You don’t want your family to hear about.’