WWE Executive Responds to Allegations John Cena Held Wrestlers Down as Cena Nears Retirement

In the history of professional wrestling, there have been very few performers who've been even close to as successful as John Cena has been. The definition of a first ballot WWE Hall of Famer, Cena was the company's flagpole star for many years.

While Cena has received a lot of deserved praise for everything he has accomplished, he has also been the subject of just as much, or maybe even more, criticism. Probably the most noteworthy critique of Cena has been the allegation that he stayed on top for years by holding other wrestlers down. Now, as Cena prepares to retire from wrestling, one of WWE's executives has stood up to defend him from that common allegation.

Bruce Prichard Defended John Cena From Allegations He Held Other Wrestlers Down

During the late-1980s and early-1990s, Bruce Prichard performed on WWE television as his villain manager alter-ego, Brother Love. While Prichard has made a handful of appearances as that character since then, he has worked backstage for the WWE in a variety of roles off and on over the last three decades. Since 2019, Prichard has had a steady WWE role since he was promoted to be the Executive Director of Smackdown, one of the company's weekly shows, in October 2019.

On top of his role as a WWE Executive, Prichard co-hosts the "Something to Wrestle with Bruce Prichard" podcast when his schedule allows. In December 2025, he returned to the podcast to speak extensively about John Cena's incredible wrestling career. That conversation was published on YouTube in the days leading up to Cena's retirement match, that will take place on December 13, 2025.

During Prichard's lengthy WWE career, he has often been in the position to be the person who told wrestlers about the plans for their onscreen characters. As a result, it certainly seems like he would have witnessed Cena trying to hold other wrestlers down if that happened. With that in mind, it is interesting that during his podcast episode about the wrestler, Prichard insisted that he never saw Cena try to sabotage his peers' careers.

“Never experienced it... at least during the time I was there and, even now I will say. I’ve never experienced John Cena doing that to anyone. And to the contrary, John Cena has always been the type of performer [to say], ‘Tell me what you want me to do, and I’ll do it. What if we did it this way? Okay, how about if we did it this way? What do you think of this?’ John’s always going to try and make it better. But I have never experienced John, ever coming and trying to hold anybody down."

Not only did Prichard dispute the perception that Cena held other performers down, he went further by stating that he witnessed the wrestler arguing to give some of his peers an opportunity to move ahead.

"To the contrary, I’ve seen John go, ‘God, what if we did something with him? What if we did something with her? What if we did something with them.’ Coming up with plenty of ideas for other people to try to elevate. Because he was always looking for the next person to work with.”