WWE Daily

Kevin Eck of the Baltimore Sun participated in a conference call on Tuesday with John Cena. Here are a few highlights:

The logistics of doing a show in Iraq: “What our format usually is, is anywhere from a three-to-five-day trip. We travel on a C-17 military aircraft. That is cast, crew, gear, everything. If you’re not familiar with it, the C-17 is the second largest cargo plane in the military library, a C-5 being the biggest. And that is just pretty much an airborne aircraft carrier. A C-17 can fit, I believe, 110,000 pounds worth of cargo. So we pretty much pack up our ring, the Titantrons, the ramps, the barricades, all the HD production stuff, our entire crew, all the superstars. We get on one plane. We fly over there. We spend anywhere from three to five days over there. The first two to four days are virtually the superstars trying to meet as many of the troops as we can while our crew is building the set. So we only do film one show, usually from a central camp. This year it was Camp Liberty. We’ve also filmed in the past from Camp Speicher. And that’s a place where we know we can get the show out to as many troops as we can. It’s a central operating base where troops can come in from forward operating bases or scouting posts on leisure time and a lot of troops are stationed at Liberty in general. So we have from anywhere — on the day of the show — I would say 6,000 to 10,000 troops attending the performance, which is the goal. But for the days leading up to the performance, we break our group of superstars down into about four mini-groups and try to meet as many of the men and women that defend this country as we can.”

How it’s decided who from WWE goes on the trip: “Completely volunteer basis, and you don’t have to go if you don’t want to because obviously it is a conflict area, and there are some risks involved. But the list has become so hard to get to be a part of. It’s like we have to turn people away every year.”

What the troops think of the divas: “The divas hold the number one spot. I don’t care how many championship belts I could bring over there. I could bring fireworks. I could bring anything. Those girls certainly hold the number one spot. They are saints for going over there. They are so beautiful and so great to the troops. And the guys just absolutely love them. They are the superstars on that trip.” More on the conference call>>>>>