WWE Hall of Famer Gushes Over John Cena—The Rock—Stone Cold Steve Austin

NEW YORK, NY - APRIL 04: The Rock and John Cena attend the WrestleMania 29 Press Conference at Radio City Music Hall on April 4, 2013 in New York City. (Photo by Taylor Hill/Getty Images)

John Cena is one of the best to do it.

In fact, Cena is a five-time United States Champion, four-time world tag team champion, and a 16-time world champion. He is tied with Ric Flair for the most world championship reigns in WWE history.

Million Dollar Question: Is John Cena the modern day Hulk Hogan in WWE forklore? Or does he tread the line of being the modern-day Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson?

“You have to put [Stone Cold] Steve Austin in that conversation when you’re talking about,” WWE Hall of Famer, Mark Henry told me on the Heavy Live With Scoop B Show.

“Steve Austin and John Cena both, and The Rock… all three of those guys, they changed the way wrestling business was done. From a contract standpoint, they got a greater percentage at the gates and so forth; made contracts not guaranteed at that time even though I was the first wrestler in history to have a guaranteed contract but, they took it to another level and created what we considered called the ‘downside’ – if you get hurt then you live off that money; and that money might be $100,000. It might be $500,000. It might be $1,000,000; just to have you as a contracted wrestler for that company and those guys put that in place. But the whole world of pro wrestling owes a debt to those guys; and there’s other guys.”

Will Stone Cold be at WrestleMania? (WWE.com)

Mark Henry didn’t stop there in crediting those guys; he added more to that list. “Triple H that was really, really good at that time,” Henry told the Heavy Live With Scoop B Show.

“The Undertaker who in my opinion is on that Mount Rushmore of pro wrestling. Like if you start going back to Dusty Rhodes and Andre the Giant and Ric Flair and the people like you know…we’d be here all day. But, we’re talking about the guys that you just mentioned and those guys with Steve Austin in there are responsible for the way that the fans look at wrestling now; not just the way fans look at it, by the way they buy merchandise. Steve Austin would have a different shirt every Monday and Monday Night Raw is the LONGEST episodic television show in history and every Monday he got a new shirt? Every Pay-Per-View? Seven Pay-Per-Views a year? Like, the money that those guys were making just for merchandising was ridiculous and they made that – it’s kind of how like it is now everybody’s got this… we got T-shirts and coffee cups and license plate covers and like, those guys changed the game.”