Why Won’t John Cena Dip His McNuggets in Sauce?
McDonald’s is promising better deals with its new McValue ‘platform,’ and tapped John Cena to explain why he’s so excited about the launch.
Photo courtesy of McDonald's
Did you resolve to spend less in the new year? Or perhaps you are simply recovering from all that holiday spending? Either way, McDonald’s is looking to save you money in 2025. Starting today, January 7, McDonald’s new McValue meal — offering “all-day savings, every day,” according to the brand — lands at all U.S. locations.
In addition to savings, the new McValue “platform,” as the brand calls it, aims to provide customers with options and flexibility. Along with the current, popular $5 Meal Deal, it will include a new component, announced in late November, a “Buy One, Add One for $1” offer that includes a selection of breakfast, lunch and dinner items.
The new Buy One, Add One for $1 offer allows customers to mix and match their favorite items by buying one full-priced menu item from the McValue menu and then adding another one of their choice for $1. Breakfast menu items include Sausage McMuffin, Sausage Biscuit, Sausage Burrito and Hash Browns, while six-piece Chicken McNuggets, Double Cheeseburger, McChicken and Small Fries are among the dinner and lunch items.
The new platform will also feature local, franchise-specific food and drink deals and in-app offers. As for the latter, the chain is now offering free medium fries with a $1 purchase every Friday in 2025 and a free McCrispy chicken sandwich for new McDonald’s app users.
Photo courtesy of McDonald's
To promote the launch of the new platform, McDonald’s will partner with a variety of brands and has made actor and pro wrestler John Cena the face of its new deal.
In an exclusive interview, Cena tells Food Network he’s a genuine McDonald’s devotee, eating it frequently when he travels across the globe.
“I absolutely love McDonald’s. For me, it offers a chance to get reliability, comfort, convenience and global familiarity,” he says. “I can be in Hungary or Australia, Tokyo or the UK, Massachusetts or Florida, and I know exactly what I’m going to get. As a creature of habit and routine, that’s important to me. So usually, McDonald’s is my late-night go to.”
A self-identified “drive-through guy,” Cena says that, for the last 20 years, his go-to order has been “simple” and straightforward: “Two double cheeseburgers, as they make them, two six cheese McNuggets, no sauce” — because he feels McNuggets are savory enough on their own and need “no accoutrement.”
He does, however, love to mix things up with seasonal items like the Shamrock Shake. He recalls that he once convinced a McDonald’s employee at a town along the road to restart the shake machine after having cleaned it at the end of the night in order to satisfy his craving for one, asking the worker what it would take to make it worth their while. He won’t say how he rewarded the accommodating employee, but he will say that “as the consumer of the Shamrock Shake, I was super happy. And the person who made the shake, I can tell you that they were super happy as well.”
He also likes to try out regional specialties — the beetroot McDonald’s serves on some burgers in Australia, for instance, or the McPop now on offer in Canada. (Cena is currently in Vancouver, visiting family.)
Set to embark on a WWE farewell tour and with plans to retire from the wrestling ring at the end of 2025, Cena says he was drawn to the partnership with McDonald’s because of the chain’s emphasis on authenticity, value and getting the most out of every day. “I always try to earn my sunset,” he says.
In a nod to his “You can’t see me!” catchphrase, we asked Cena what he would do at a McDonald’s, if no one could see him. He says he’d want nothing more than to sit and watch. “I love observing people, and I don’t get that option a lot. It’s more the other way around — folks observing me,” he says. “I couldn’t think of a better spot to do it than at McDonald’s — to just sit back and watch a cross section of the world.”
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