John Cena says it was great to reconnect with The Rock when The Great One made a surprise return to WWE SmackDown last month. It was the first time in years that he'd been face-to-face with his former rival and Cena used the opportunity to get some things off his chest.

Cena appeared on WWE's digital series The Bump on Wednesday to hype his match this weekend at WWE Fastlane. Cena and the red-hot LA Knight will join forces against The Bloodline's Jimmy Uso and Solo Sikoa.

When asked what it was like to see The Rock in person after once again, Cena explained that he still carries regrets about some of the things he said to and about The Rock during their WrestleMania rivalry a decade ago.

They battled in 2012 at WrestleMania 28 (Full Match) and the following year at WrestleMania 29 (Full Match).

The gloves were off when Cena and The Rock were on-screen rivals. Their promo battles in the lead-up to their matches got very personal and blurred the lines between fiction and reality.

Cena chastised The Rock for 'abandoning' the WWE Universe, leaving for Hollywood and only coming back once in a while when it suited his own personal needs. He'd ultimately go on to follow a similar path as The Rock and has expressed his regret for questioning Rock's loyalty to the fans.


Cena and The Rock had a nice backstage interaction on the Sep. 15 edition of WWE SmackDown, but it was what he told The Rock off-air that meant the most to him.

"In between the times that we’ve spent with each other, I’ve openly come to a realization that the first attempt of us competing against each other probably was a professional mistake on my part. I’ve been very apologetic, and very open with my apology, that the way I conducted business was not in the realm of conducting good business - we did great business.

It was good to see him and reconnect after all this time. That was the first time we’d seen each other since I publicly apologized for that and I just wanted to make sure he heard that face-to-face again. It’s just good to see a friend.”

That was a classy move by Cena and hopefully he got some closure from the interaction. Thankfully, there's a chance they'll see each other at another WWE event over the next year.