Joe Hendry reveals advice from John Cena that helped him with WWE WrestleMania 41 appearance

As seen during the 2025 WWE Royal Rumble PLE, TNA world champion Joe Hendry made a surprise appearance in the men’s Rumble match. At WrestleMania 41, Hendry was Randy Orton’s mystery opponent but ended up losing the match.

While speaking to Chris Van Vliet, Hendry commented on how advice he received from Cena at the Rumble event helped him for WrestleMania…

“So I remember going up to John and again, this is how this is how cool John is. So I said, ‘Hey, it’s great to ask your advice sometime.’ This is Rumble, where he’s got a huge spot here. He’s like, ‘Well, why don’t we go talk right now, and you can ask me anything you ever wanted to ask me.’ I was like, All right. So I was like, ‘What am I going to ask you that’s going to yield the greatest return? I’m in there with Roman. How do I take what I’ve got and make the most of it? How do I make it more?’ John said this on Pat McAfee, so you know I’m not kind of peeling back the curtain here, beyond what’s out there. He said, ‘You don’t.’ He paused, and he explained to me, and he was 100% correct. The viral moment at the Rumble for me was the entrance, looking around, coming in and hitting my moves on Miz and then being eliminated by a Roman. After Roman comes in, that’s his moment. So it’s like, what John was trying to say is it’s like your moment is coming out there, and now you’re a cog in a bigger machine. It’s not about you getting what you can out of this moment with Roman, it’s like, how do you prop up Roman’s moment? That kind of taught me to instead of think selfishly about these moments.

If I hadn’t had that conversation with John, I don’t know that I’d have been thinking about the best way to do the RKO. It’s like that got me thinking about it from that perspective. I really feel like me and Randy were just on this same page. He was awesome. I can’t tell you how thankful I am to have all the moments that I’ve had.” (quote courtesy of ChrisVanVliet.com)