Jim Cornette has had his say on the controversy surrounding John Cena making an apology to the Chinese after stating that Taiwan was a country during a press tour for Fast And Furious 9.
Cena made the comment while he was being interviewed by TVBS, a television broadcast company from Taiwan. Following the outrage from many Chinese fans on social media, Cena himself posted a video on the Chinese Sina Weibo platform to apologise and clear up what happened.
John Cena stated in Mandarin:
“Hi China, I’m John Cena. I’m in the middle of Fast and Furious 9 promotions. I’m doing a lot of interviews. I made a mistake in one of my interviews. Everyone was asking me if I could use Chinese – [movie] staff gave me a lot of information, so there was a lot of interviews and information.”
“I made one mistake, I have to say something very, very, very important now. I love and respect China and Chinese people. I’m very, very sorry about my mistake. I apologise, I apologise, I’m very sorry. You must understand that I really love, really respect China and the Chinese people. My apologies. See you.”
During his interview with TVBS Cena had said that Taiwan would be ‘the first country to watch the film,’ before making his unabashed apology.
Now legendary wrestling manager and outspoken podcaster Jim Cornette has given his verdict on the events on the ‘Jim Cornette Experience’ in his own inimitable style.
John Cena apologized in Chinese on Sina Weibo after calling Taiwan a country during an interview promoting Fast & Furious 9 pic.twitter.com/dzRKIYgEzL
— Joe Yizhou Xu, PhD (@JoeXu) May 24, 2021
Cornette stated:
“Apparently John Cena has p*ssed everybody off all across the world. His first promo p*ssed the Chinese off and now his apology promo has p*ssed off everybody else.”
“[…] He actually goes to the trouble to learn the language to speak to these people that nobody else would do and they all get p*ssed at him. […] If I’d have been Cena I’d have said ‘Are they a country? Does the United Nations say they’re a country? If they say they’re a country then I didn’t make a f*cking mistake.’ […] F*ck China! Who wants to go to f*cking China?! Besides that, he didn’t say anything bad about anybody. This sounds like one of those apologies that [Dave] Lagana would come up with. He didn’t say anything bad about anybody and he made the effort to speak the language of the f*cking local people. He had nothing to aplogise for so in his apology he didn’t really apologise for anything, he just told other people that he loves them. But couldn’t they have just issued a statement ‘Oh, translation error, sorry’?”
“I’m sorry but I would have to side with John Cena on not giving an apology if what he said was not incorrect and just because the Chinese government’s got their panties in a wad or whatever. I can’t agree with an apology for that. […] I’m sorry I have a f*cking genetic inability to apologise for sh*t that I’m not sorry for or that I was not wrong about.”
“In this case, if this was the thing, I’d have called Taiwan a f*cking country too. I think John should have applied my principal when I told Lagana ‘F*ck you’ because now instead of just having China half way around the world mad at one guy in a f*cking movie, ok then don’t show the f*cking movie, f*ck you I’m not gonna goddamn apologise when I didn’t say anything wrong but now the Americans are mad at him because he made a bullsh*t apology for sh*t that he didn’t do wrong. So a lesson for everybody, don’t apologise for sh*t you ain’t sorry for.”
The relationship between China and Taiwan is a tricky one. The People’s Republic of China lays claim to the island nation officially known as the Republic of China. Officially the People’s Republic of China refuses diplomatic relations with countries and organisations that recognise Taiwan as its own nation-state. Taiwan is also either not granted or granted with a change of name to be involved with organisations that include the People’s Republic Of China. It is for this reason that Taiwan competes at the Olympic Games under the name ‘Chinese Taipei.’
Credit: Jim Cornette Experience