John Cena debuted new merchandise at WWE SummerSlam when he came out wearing a shirt that paid homage to Super Mario 3.
Fans seemed pleased with the shirt design and wondered how they could get their hands on the latest Cena shirt. Unfortunately for them, the shirt was only available through a limited edition NFT kit that was priced at $1,000.
According to Cena, the kit was an absolute failure.
"WWE wanted to put together a once-in-a-lifetime fan experience. This kit is not just this kit, it's the belt, the clothing, an autograph picture, an autographed canvas picture, and an NFT. When it came up with the face value for what it cost, it came up around $500-$600 retail value and then threw in the value of the NFT. I talk a lot about failure. This idea failed. Why is it $1000? Because myself and the folks at WWE thought $1000 was a fair price point. We were wrong. We were absolutely wrong. (This shirt) is number zero of 500. I thought, 'with a value like that, the 500 will be gone.' We sold 37 of them. It was a catastrophic failure. I design all my stuff. I was super proud of this. I love the design. It's one of those instances where I put my heart and soul and did the design and was really close with the work and pieces and market research. 'Yes, it seems fair, I think it will be good.' It sucked. It absolutely failed. I took a chance and missed. I'm sorry because it's obvious that people like the design, but it's way too much," Cena said during a Florida Comic-Con Q&A.
Cena was wearing the full Super Mario kit during the Q&A session.
The next @JohnCena NFT drop is live RIGHT NOW on https://t.co/6vCaEYoL9I! @bitski pic.twitter.com/XGCQ0aWnCo
— WWE (@WWE) August 22, 2021
It is unknown if the shirt design will be put up for sale as a single item in the future. Cena said he learned a valuable lesson from the failure and appreciated the feedback from fans.
Cena was defeated by Roman Reigns in the main event of WWE SummerSlam. He returned to wrestle a dark match on the September 10 episode of WWE SmackDown from Madison Square Garden.
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