John Cena on CBS’s “Late Late Show” – jokes about injury recovery, wrestling fans trying to fight him, “Marky Mark” of WWE

WWE top star John Cena was interviewed on the “Late Late Show” hosted by talk show host/wrestling fan James Corden Wednesday night on CBS.

Cena was joined by actress Anna Paquin for a multiple-interview segment where both Cena and Paquin appeared together playing off each other and trading interview time.

In the first segment, Cena was in jokey mode deadpanning about everyone picking on him in wrestling, being an idiot for rushing back from shoulder surgery in five months, and his relationship with Nikki Bella this year being built on a destroyed shoulder and broken neck.

Cena said he and Nikki tried to lean on each other throughout the process. Corden joked back that they probably shouldn’t be leaning on each other since they were so broken down physically.

The interview started with Paquin noting a past boyfriend had a row of wrestling action figures in his room. Was Cena included? She didn’t remember. Cena sold sadness for the rest of the interview as part of a running gag of the show.

Corden also brought up Cena’s early WWE run as the “Marky Mark” of wrestling. He then brought up The Rock’s co-star in “Central Intelligence,” Kevin Hart, recently taking digs at Cena. Corden did not have information on what Hart said, but Cena played being hurt by the comments. It appeared that Corden was referencing Hart’s recent chat with Miami TV entertainment reporter Chris Van Vliet, where Hart dogged Cena for his jean shorts on WWE TV. Cena closed the bit by joking about having a special set of skills to find Hart, trying to turn from the “Marky Mark” of WWE to the “Liam Neeson” of WWE.

Cena was also asked if he regularly gets into fights with wrestling fans who don’t like him. Cena said that’s more likely to happen in the U.K., where Corden is from. Cena joked that the drinking starts in the morning and goes until the evening, where guys get tough and want to fight him. So, how does he solve it? Cena said he pays for everyone’s bar tab.

In total from the interview, there were more mentions of the word “wrestling” in the half-hour interview segment than perhaps an entire year’s worth of WWE programming. Corden regularly referred to Cena’s line of work as “wrestling,” and Paquin referred to Cena as a “wrestler.” Cena did not partake, though.

The first segment was jokey, they cut to break, and the second segment featured Cena giving a serious break down of his “American Grit” TV series on Fox.