John Cena looked back on the period when WWE went to a PG-TV rating and talked about chaning up his character at that time. Cena dropped some of the edgier parts of his Doctor of Thuganomics character around that time before eventually letting it entirely go, and he spoke about the decision on the Armchair Expert Podcast. You can see highlights below, per Wrestling Inc:
On moving away from his edgier stuff: “WWE moved towards PG, they weren’t quite PG yet but they wanted to move in that direction … you see little kids wearing your stuff and your stuff is pushing the boundaries and then I was like, you know what? I want to stop doing this … It was my choice.”
On making the change gradually: “I had built a relationship with the audience enough where they kind of knew my value system too … so my thing became like, take a bunch of punishment, never give up … I wanted to put hustle, loyalty and respect, which really, hustle, loyalty and respect are right in my value lane. So as a young man I got to take my background, and it was a slow change.”
