Paul London Confirms John Cena Got In Trouble For Their WWE Velocity Match

Paul London faced John Cena in a match on Velocity before his official WWE run, and he recently recalled how Cena got in trouble for giving him too much offense. London faced Cena on the December 7th, 2002 episode of Velocity, after Cena’s main roster debut but before London signed with the company in mid-2003. The match went about four and a half minutes, with Cena getting the win.

During his appearance on Insight With Chris Van Vliet, London spoke about how he first got WWE’s attention. He also confirmed that Cena got in trouble for letting him get too much offense in. You can see the highlights below:

On What Initially Got Him On WWE’s Radar:

“Selling and being a generous worker. I credit Dory Funk Jr. for giving me the opportunity to even get to WWF at the time, that’s the first time I had a trial was for WWF. I was able to be in the WCW locker room because of Dory Funk Jr. I was a plant in the crowd on the last WCW Pay Per View ever, Greed, where I’m in the crowd wearing my Funk t-shirt, and we had these plastic pie plates or something. And so it’s DDP and Steiner, and both super cool. I’m cheering, and Steiner’s beating up DDP in the entranceway, and I’m right at the corner, and Steiner comes over to me, and he, like, pulls my pie plate thing away, and he pie faces me, and he’s like, ‘Sit down, you white trash!’ It’s still a highlight of my career to be called white trash by Scott Steiner. Then something happens, and then DDP turns it around, and I get another pie plate, and he smashes it. Then I was a security guard for a contract signing, I want to say between Booker T and Scott Steiner on that Thunder. It was maybe the last Thunder or the second-to-last Thunder ever. But anyway, so Dory had set up these tryouts for Adam Windsor, who was his kind of project franchise guy, which was a whole other kind of situation. Rest in peace, Adam Windsor. But he was a kid from England who weighed about 170 and his parents basically funded Bang TV in order for his kid to get signed, because that’s what they guarantee. ‘We’ll guarantee we’ll get your kids signed, just fund our TV show.’ So that went not as planned. I don’t even know if that show still exists, but Dory is a fabulous trainer. He’s incredible, but he got this kid a tryout on house shows, and I was the third last guy. So that’s what put me on the radar initially, my first tryout was at a WWF house show in Fort Myers, Florida.”

“Had a look all three nights against a different guy from the camp, so I was able to see what each guy did that got massive critiques, like a guy doing a spear on the same show as Rhyno. Some guy was lathered up in hot stuff or something that burned somebody’s eye. Yeah, just ridiculous. But I came to the back, and I want to say Pedro Morales was there at the time as an agent, and Jack Lanza. Everyone was super complimentary. Long story short, I ended up getting in touch with Kevin Kelly, my first real look that they were like, oh, okay, was against Perry Saturn in Austin for a show called Jakked Metal back in the day, was still WWF, and Perry gave me a ton. But the thing was, I was brought in by big, tough guys, Ivan Putski, Dory Funk Jr., even Terry Funk, you know, took a few licks and stuff. And even Rudy Boy Gonzalez is a big guy. He’s like if a baked potato lifted weights. So my thing was selling. You have no story if there’s no selling.”

On Cena Getting In Trouble For Giving Him Too Much Offence:

“Yeah, that was in Dallas, Texas, when he had B Squared ringside. Super cool guy. John’s amazing, by the way. I think he’s the Mick Jagger of pro wrestling, and he was just super cool. Mind you, I went out to UPW in California after he had left, so I was very familiar with him. I knew he was The Prototype, and I’d watched that documentary on Discovery Channel or something like that. That’s how I found out about UPW, and that’s what led me out to California. But they had already gotten their developmental deal taken away from them, but they didn’t tell me that before I moved out here, and then they told me that they still had it. I moved out here, and I was like, What the f*ck?! But John was amazing, and the funny thing with John is, so we went out to the ring, and he said, ‘What do you want to do?’ We start talking. I’m like, ‘I do this slingshot…’ Because he’s asking me. I was always taught when the veteran, or who the match is engineered for, when they’re asking you questions, you just shut up. For any vet, you just stop and listen when they ask you questions, then you answer, but you give your input when they ask you for it.

“One of the things for most academies is etiquette is not taught, because lot of these mixed schools are taught by people who taught themselves, or they couldn’t get booked elsewhere because they sucked. So now they’re teaching people, and they’re the champion of their promotion, and they’re like, ‘You can’t work anywhere else, or you’re never coming back.’ It’s garbage. It’s all crap. But it was hard to get back in it. So selling, I was taught to make yourself available. So that’s what happened with Perry Saturn, which allowed him to give me a ton of offense in that match. That’s what really put me on the map, was that match with Saturn. Because he came to the back, he was like, ‘Oh, kid, I was so awesome.’ [He’s] hugging me. Perry? Who did you work with? He’s in a good mood. And Heyman’s running down the hallway. ‘Sign this kid. Sign this kid, I swear.’ What the hell is happening here? I think I wasn’t signed for another year and a half later, but that match with John was another tryout match, dark match, or it was on Velocity, but it was for him. I wasn’t signed, but he said ‘What do you do?’ I do this slingshot head scissors. [He said] ‘Show me.’ We get in the ring. This is before the fans get in the building. I’m parallel to the ropes coming over. He’s supposed to catch my ankles here and go this way. But it went [crash]. I was like, oh sh*t, I’m f*cked. I’m done, I’m done, I’m done. He’s like, ‘It’s not ballet. Come on, let’s do it again.’ And we hit it and it worked in the match, so just super generous. I didn’t find out until later at OVW, when John came to work out with us, he’s like, ‘Why are you here?’ He was like, ‘They got mad at me for giving you what I did.'”