During a recent episode of his weekly ‘ARN podcast’, Arn Anderson was asked about working with John Cena during his time with WWE. Arn discussed an incident of Kurt Angle beating up Cena for real in a match.

"I started with John when John was really green. He didn’t know anything, he was fresh out of the school of psychology and all the intricate things, ring presence, selling, all the things that go into being a top notch performer, you have to learn. It takes a lot of trial and error. I’ve never seen that, [someone who] learned this business without making mistakes and that you learn more from a mistake than something that you do well.

He was wrestling Kurt Angle, as we know Kurt Angle is the real deal, he’s an assassin. All of a sudden I see John, out of nowhere during a random time in the match he roles out of the ring, goes over the rail about 15 rows deep, grabs one of those big foam hands and folds it into a bird and points it at Kurt Angle.

The audience popped, but as he gave it back and came over that rail to rejoin the match, guess who was waiting on him and not too happy about what just happened? That would be Kurt Angle and he proceeded to beat John half to death.

He got a little stiff and snug with him because it was something that did not work in the match. It was unprofessional, it was just a foolish thing to do during that point in the match. It’s just one of those things that goes through the learning process.

If you learn from those mistakes you can accelerate and move forward."