John Cena analyses Vin Diesel and Dwayne Johnson’s ‘Fast & Furious’ feud
The action genre has always been a hotbed for macho posturing, but despite looking like a kilt sock stuffed full of ball bearings, John Cena avoided getting dragged into any behind the scenes tensions when he boarded the Fast & Furious franchise.
The series is still going strong almost a quarter of a century after its first instalment, the never-ending and increasingly preposterous saga hasn’t been without its issues. Most notably, the simmering bad blood between figurehead Vin Diesel and Dwayne Johnson, a heated feud that saw the latter exit the Fast family altogether.
While Diesel tried to mend fences in interviews and on social media, Johnson saw right through his transparency and repeatedly called the long-time Dominic Toretto out on his actions. He alleged the behaviour of Diesel included invoking the name of the late Paul Walker in an attempt to convince Johnson to end his self-imposed exile.
Based on the post-credits scene of Fast X, though, it’s safe to assume that either fences have been mended or a dump truck full of cash has been backed up to Johnson’s home. After he backtracked on his own intentions to pop up for a surprise cameo appearance, it was swiftly followed by the announcement he’d headline a second spinoff as Luke Hobbs.
Cena was already plenty familiar with The Rock from their WWE days, but even though he didn’t debut as Diesel’s estranged brother Jakob Toretto until the ninth chapter, he was already well aware of the tension between the two chrome-domed colossi.
“There’s certainly rumours about that. I can’t deny that. You have two very alpha, driven people,” he said on Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert podcast. “You get two, there can only be one.” Having worked his way up the ladder in professional wrestling from snot-nosed rookie to respected veteran, it’s a scenario Cena was already very familiar with.
“Man, you gotta remember I got dropped into a locker room where we have generational vets,” he continued. “‘What’d your dad do?’ ‘Wrestle’. ‘What’d your granddad do?’ ‘Wrestle’. I’ve been in that environment; know the room and just kind of adapt to what’s going on.” A diplomatic response from Cena, but he knows better than to rock the boat when the waters have only recently calmed down.
With Fast & Furious still having at least one more main entry and one spinoff still to come, the possibility remains that Diesel and Johnson will end up sharing the screen together eventually, something that seemed a far-fetched proposition until very recently.
Listen to Cena on the Armchair Expert below.
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