As a long time chronicler — and sometime critic* — of John Cena’s style, I figured the millions dozens of my loyal readers would want to know what I thought when I saw the picture Cena posted with his head completely shaved.
While we’ve had our fun with the Never Seen 17’s struggles with his hairline over the years, especially when he was trying his version of a combover in the late 2010s. We tried to keep it good-natured, and mostly did it because Cena himself seemed to be in on the joke. History
will judge us (me) for that, but it’s honestly been refreshing to see the WWE legend being open about his androgenetic alopecia, or pattern baldness, something a lot of people deal with.
Yesterday’s bald pic was John publicizing that he’s getting his latest round of Follicular Unit Excision (FUE) treatment, one of two methods for treating pattern hair loss.
Outside of the obvious “why is that doctor just pointing at the air” invisibility jokes, the picture also lends itself to a couple jokes. But our always hilarious Cagesiders already had those handled in the comments of Geno’s Feed post about the above tweet, as well:
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FuddRuckus, besmircher, EJawz, HatontheBed" />
So I began to peruse Cena’s timeline looking for inspiration. After years of following his career, a lot of the therapy-speak and self-help talk on John’s X/Twitter doesn’t even register with me. But for some reason, I read past Cena’s caption…
A true pleasure to speak with Pete, not only as a colleague but a friend. We had a lot of fun during this conversation but hopefully learned a lot more about each other and ourselves.
… and clicked play on the clip below of Cena talking to Pete Davidson about Make-A-Wish on Davidson’s new Netflix hangout talk show.
And I was enthralled by it.
As a Cena chronicler, I’ve written about his record-setting number of wishes granted to young people with critical illnesses many times. But I honestly never thought about what that required of Cena, or any wish granter. Davidson is someone who’s work I’ve enjoyed on and off over the years, and whose life story and mental health battles I’m aware of — but who I honestly mostly think of as a goofy dude who dates celebrities and other women who seem out of his league. So when he tells John that doing one Make-A-Wish visit left him “fucked up” for a month, I didn’t expect the Peacemaker star to stare into his soul and say, “talk about that.”
He does though, and Pete does, and I couldn’t stop watching. Davidson opens up about his self-esteem, and how the experience of publicly losing his father at a young age (his dad was a New York Firefighter who died on 9/11) gave him some insight into what being a Make-A-Wish Kid is like, and specifically that the recipient of the wish knows they’re getting this special treatment because something bad happened/is happening to them.
Both men seem legitimately moved by what Davidson shared. And Cena, who always appears to so effortlessly be the John Cena character we boo/cheer-ed on television for decades whenever he meets a Make-A-Wish recipient (or any respectful fan, really), reveals that he’s fully aware of the significance of those moments. He understands that the job takes a toll on both the wisher and the wish-granter, but it’s a job he’s capable of, good at, and fortunate enough to be in a position to have young people ask him to do it. So he does it.
Enlightening as that was for me, I was honestly also impressed by Cena’s prompting of the conversation. “Talk about that” coming from a muscle-bound action star and wrestling legend is kind of a command, but John listens intently and seems genuinely in, well, learning more about Davidson “not only as a colleague but a friend”. I rolled my eyes when I typed it, but watching just this clip I do believe the two “learned a lot more about each other and ourselves” in the process.
Give it a watch. You might have your perspective changed.
Great, now I even sound like Cena…
* I wouldn’t have picked out that purple pinstripe number for his visit to Pete Davidson’s garage, but it’s a great fit and Cena pulls it off.
