John Cena revealed the origins of one of his most famous moves during his wrestling days at WWE. Better yet, he explained it while donning a symbol of his current part of his career, the chrome-helmeted Peacemaker outfit from the forthcoming HBO Max series of the same name.
This was all explained on an episode of The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, in which the talk show host grilled Cena on the origins of his “You Can’t See Me” taunt. The Playing with Fire star first had to explain to his younger viewers what Fallon was talking about in the first place.
“Okay, for those of you who don’t know, get the damn Internet! I became a superhero long before donning the Peacemaker costume,” he said. “I developed a special maneuver in the WWE called the ‘You Can’t See Me.’ In which, I put my hand in front of my face and say ‘You can’t see me.'”
It all apparently started when Cena recorded the album on which the wrestler’s theme song appeared. To judge whether the music was on the right track, Cena would periodically play the album for his younger brother, Sean, whom Cena called “our litmus test.”
“He kind of liked the same music, and he would never go to the studio with us, so we’d come home with our tracks, and we’d play it for him, and he was ruthless, man. He would never be satisfied with any song,” he said.
Upon hearing Cena’s song, “The Time is Now,” however, Sean began dancing in a manner he had seen G-Unit’s Tony Yayo do in a music video. Yayo had put his hand in front of his face, bobbing his head up and down behind it.
“And I was like, ‘Man, what are you doing? That looked ridiculous,'” Cena recalled telling his younger brother. “He’s like, ‘No, no, man. This is some Tony Yayo dancing, doing his thing.’
After Cena joked, “I’ll do it on TV,” Sean then upped the ante, telling his older brother, “I dare you to do it on TV.” And the rest is history.
You can catch Cena in The Suicide Squad spinoff show, Peacemaker, on HBO Max on Jan. 13.