John Bradshaw Layfield (JBL) has lent his support to John Cena after the 16-time WWE World Champion referred to Taiwan as a country.
Cena, who began learning Mandarin Chinese a decade ago, made the comment in an interview with Taiwanese broadcaster TVBS earlier this month. Speaking in Mandarin, Cena said Taiwan would be “the first country” to watch his latest film, Fast & Furious 9. The comment caused a backlash in China, which views self-ruling Taiwan as part of its own territory.
JBL, Cena’s former WWE in-ring rival, took to Twitter to remind people about the charity work that Cena is involved with. He also praised the 44-year-old’s “incredible track record of making the world better”.
John Cena’s comment about Taiwan has made headlines around the world over the last few days. According to Google Trends, more people have searched for John Cena’s name this week than any other week in the last seven months.
John Cena’s apology to China after Taiwan comment
With 13 million Twitter followers and 15.1 million Instagram followers, John Cena is one of WWE’s most-followed superstars on social media. He also has over 600,000 fans on Chinese social network Weibo.
Speaking in Mandarin, Cena said in a video on Weibo that he is “very sorry” to the people of China.
“I made a mistake, I must say right now,” he said. “It’s so so so so so so important, I love and respect Chinese people. I’m very sorry for my mistakes. Sorry. Sorry. I’m really sorry. You have to understand that I love and respect China and Chinese people.”
As the tweet above shows, CM Punk attempted to make light of the situation on Twitter. John Cena’s former WWE opponent had changed his Twitter bio to “Taiwan is a country”.