WWE Reported To Have Knowingly False Advertised John Cena For The Royal Rumble In Order To Move Tickets

WWE had been advertising John Cena heavily for the 2019 Royal Rumble, then two weeks before the event WWE announced that Cena had suffered an injury to his ankle, and that his status for the PPV was now “questionable”.

WWE continued to promote Cena locally for the Royal Rumble even through the weekend’s Axxess events, despite knowing all along apparently that Cena was not going to be available or the PPV. WWE eventually announced the day of the Rumble that Cena was now officially ruled out due to injury and that Braun Strowman would replace him in the match.

However, it is being reported that John Cena was never actually injured, that it was all a work and that WWE knew all along that he would not be working the Royal Rumble in Phoenix. Cena was scheduled to begin filming his next movie “Playing With Fire” on the same day, so his availability for the Rumble was never even an option.

On the latest episode of the “Oh, You Didn’t Know” podcast, Brad Shepard reports that a source within WWE confirmed to him that the company knowingly falsely advertised John Cena for the Royal Rumble to boost ticket sales.

Regarding WWE falsely advertising John Cena for last Sunday’s Royal Rumble PPV, Shepard said:

“So there was the story of John Cena being advertised for the Royal Rumble and then right before the Royal Rumble they announced that he was injured and would not be in the Royal Rumble match.”

“There was a lot of speculation on was this a work, was this a shoot? You know was it a work to sell tickets, etc I spoke to a source in WWE and the confirmed that Cena’s injury was not only never legit, he was never legitimately injured, but it is dead on that WWE false advertised Cena knowing he would never show up to the Royal Rumble just to move tickets. That is confirmed.”

Shepard went on to mention that in wrestling it’s said that the card is always “subject to change,” however it’s different when something comes up unexpectedly compared to what WWE did which was advertise Cena for the event knowing all along that he would not be there.

It was said that there is a considerable amount of heat on WWE for this type of shady marketing tactic. It was pointed out the difference between a situation like Becky Lynch being removed from the Survivor Series, compared to this one where WWE knew prior to advertising the appearance that they were not going to deliver on somebody that they had promoted for the event.

You can listen to the entire episode of the “Oh, You Didn’t Know” podcast below.

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(Thanks to our friends at Ringsidenews.com for the transcriptions.)