Actor and former WWE creative team member Freddie Prinze Jr. was recently interviewed on “The Ariel Helwani MMA Show” to talk about several topics. Prinze touched on he and John Cena not getting along during his WWE run, and shared an interesting story about one of Vince McMahon’s promo classes.
Check out the highlights here (H/T Fightful for the transcriptions):
He and John Cena not getting along:
John Cena and I were the only ones who didn’t really get along. I respect what John brought to WWE. He had to hold the company on his shoulders during the PG Era when no one else wanted to. That could have been [Triple H], but he wanted to be more Rated R and do the stuff he liked to do. John took that upon himself. For that, wrestling fans should be grateful. But we did not get along. He did not like that I was there.
I think he called me Ashton Kutcher for the first three months I was there. He walked in, in the middle of acting class, and sat down in between the two wrestlers. We go outside and I go, ‘You’re not in this class because you know how to do this. But you don’t want to teach these guys or girls shit. So let me do my job. Let me do what Vince wants me to do. And just stay out of here.’
To his credit, he goes, ‘I know approach this stuff in a barbaric sort of way, but you either got it, or you don’t.’ I said, ‘You’re right about that. But you can get better or worse depending on the type of instruction you have. Do you want them to have instruction from Vince in the promo class or from me?’
Vince McMahon’s promo classes:
To give you an example of Vince’s promo classes; he had Wade Barrett and Sheamus stand up in front of every wrestler and producer, and he looks at them both and goes, ‘You’re a dog. You’re a dog. Now make me wanna watch you fight.’ The room is dead quiet.
It’s so quiet that after a full minute, Sheamus said, ‘I think I’m having an out of body experience.’ Doesn’t know he said it. The whole room goes crazy. Vince yells, ‘YOU’RE A DOG!’ Both get quiet again. Wade Barrett is the courageous one. He thought he was supposed to be a dog. So he barked. Vince jumps up, flips a table over, and goes, ‘AH, DAMNIT!’ and storms out.
I go up to Vince after and say, ‘Maybe I can take over the promo class because I think I can speak the language you’re speaking and then translate it to them.’ And he handed me the promo class.
