In my time as a wrestling fan, I have watched probably thousands of matches. But given the company I mostly watch is WWE, given my age of 30, and my peak periods of watching being around 2007, and then again from 2014 onwards, I think it’s safe to say that if there’s a wrestler that I have watched more of than any other, I am pretty certain that it is John Cena.
And WWE can call him the GOAT all they want, you can agree or disagree all you want, for me, I have more memories of John Cena in wrestling than any other, and with that in mind, he’s probably one of the biggest influences on my fandom. So him retiring from in-ring competition, that’s a pretty huge deal to me.
I didn’t really want to do a regular retelling of his career, I am sure if you’re reading this, you know all about the WWE career of John Cena anyway. So my idea is simply to write what I want about the man, and see what comes out. It could be an un-structured mess, it could be emotional, but my one main hope, is that it’s FUN!
When I think of John Cena, I think of this guy. Short trim, jacked as heck, spinner WWE title, and on Raw. 2007 is a year in infamy in the annuls of WWE history, an ‘annus horribilis’ one could say. But for the large majority of it, in fact for most of the time between early 2005 and late 2007, John Cena was the WWE Champion. It was around this sort of time that the ‘Lol, Cena wins’ ideology came in to the WWE’s booking. The kids loved him, the male adults did not seem to generally. But WWE positioned Cena in the same spot as Hogan, Austin and Reigns in other eras. And we all had to get used to it; as did: JBL, Chris Jericho, Kurt Angle, Edge, Triple H, Umaga, Shawn Michaels, The Great Khali and Bobby Lashley. All of whom fell to ‘Super Cena’ during that time, and even the few that did go over Cena either went back and did the favours in the end, in RVD’s case he… did stuff… and that was the end of his title run, and Randy Orton got the title in late 2007 because of a Cena injury (if Orton was going to win it anyway is unclear). I remember at the time, aged 12, I was probably the prime age group that WWE wanted to draw in by putting Cena in the top spot, but I always wanted Cena to lose. I remember wanting HBK to beat him at Mania that year, I was desperate for Lashley to beat him (knowing full well he would not), and I may have even wanted Khali to win the title (good god what was I thinking, stupid kid). I think I just wanted something different, yet in more recent times, I saw a Roman Reigns title run that went over 1000 days that I only really wanted to end when it actually did (we don’t talk about WrestleMania 39’s Night 2 Main Event). But regardless, it was a huge part of my childhood and Cena on Raw was the centre piece of it (albeit I was always more of a SmackDown fan at that time, with Undertaker as my favourite, closely followed by Batista).
I will say, going back as an adult, even though I had it on DVD (can you believe), I don’t think I appreciated enough his match at the 2007 Rumble against Umaga. Last Man Standing, WWE title. An absolute classic.
I would be remiss if I didn’t talk about 3 happenings from this era of ‘Super Cena’, all that had different impacts on me for different reasons; the Mania main event vs Mania main event tag match, the hour-long match with HBK, and of course… THAT return at the 2008 Rumble.
I remember seeing this DVD cover and being absolutely amazed at how cool this looked. 4 of the biggest stars in WWE at that time, and the idea of the opponents in the world title matches at the upcoming WrestleMania having to TEAM UP, was something so magical to a young Josh. As much as I detest Vince McMahon as a human and I hope he dies soon, his idea of imagining posters when thinking of who he should put in big matches on shows, I think comes true with this DVD cover for the No Way Out show in 2007, and John Cena is of course a huge part of that.
The Raw match with HBK and Cena was cool to me, because that Raw was in London, and just had a very different feel to the regular Raws I would watch from America. And as best I recall, they announced Randy Orton vs Edge for this Raw as well, which of course was never going to happen, because Cena and Michaels were going to go an hour. Quite a clever idea and a fun way not to give away that Cena and Michaels were going as long as they did. There has been some talk in years since that the match being an hour was actually because Cena had been drinking with Ric Flair the night before, but a young Josh had no idea of this, and was just happy that I had FINALLY seen Shawn Michaels beat John Cena!
https://youtu.be/KqHHh4blQLo?si=XAhloAMH95V_YD25
Fast forward a few months, and Cena was hurt, and seemingly ‘Super Cena’ was no more. Until January of the next year came, and out of absolutely nowhere, he RETURNED. And for a brief moment, everyone forgot how much they didn’t like him, as we witnessed one of the all time great WWE returns of all-time. John Cena has had an incredible career, all the titles and WrestleMania main events, I’d argue that this was his defining moment right here… magic!
https://youtu.be/bNlObJjzoyk?si=_6blqBy2ySChPuEk
Although, 17 World titles is absolutely insane. And I think Cena winning them over the course of TWENTY YEARS speaks volumes for the career longevity he has had, and how he has transitioned from each period of WWE to the next, and stayed on top. To give you an idea of just that, here’s Cena 17 world title wins, who he won them from, when and what was going on around that time leading up, and where it went afterwards:
https://youtu.be/pY8vB8aPxGI?si=_W9hgAxHGdElHPrQ
World title number 1 came for Cena at WrestleMania 21 (2005) against JBL. It was a classic story of the hardworking, uber-popular babyface up against the evil, long-reigning and seemingly unbeatable world champion. Huge pop for the Cena win, but it was NOT the Mania main event. Cena wasn’t the company’s top babyface just yet… however within a few months, with the newly created (and now infamous) spinner custom belt to hand, Cena was swapped over to Raw (seeing World Champion Batista going the other way) and we had our new top WWE babyface.
World title win 2 came at the 2006 Royal Rumble PPV. In fact, it came not long after he lost the title initially. Edge made history the same month (no, not the sex with Lita on Raw), by completing the inaugural Money In The Bank cash-in at the end of New Year’s Revolution, not long after Cena had just gone through a gruelling Elimination Chamber match. But the ‘Cenation’ had no reason to worry, and his road to WrestleMania was back on track.
Cena’s 3rd run as WWE Champion began after an unbelievable TLC match in Toronto against hometown hero, Edge. Cena had lost the title to RVD in an all-time great wrestling moment, RVD lost it to Edge cause of… reasons… and Cena here got it back once more, gaining revenge for SummerSlam prior to this PPV, when Edge had beat Cena in Boston. The match ends with an absolutely incredible spot with Cena giving Edge an FU off the ladder, and through TWO tables!
There was actually a decent amount of time between World title 3 and 4 for Cena. Injury brought to an end his long reign as WWE Champion, and it wasn’t until almost a year later that he would hold gold again. This time, it was the first time Cena would hold the famous ‘big gold belt’, as Cena returned from another injury, immediately went right into the main event of Survivor Series, and walked out as the World Heavyweight Champion! ‘Super Cena’ was in full force!
Almost 6 months later, at WrestleMania 25, Cena claimed the big gold belt once more, defeating Big Show and the former champion in his old rival Edge in a triple threat match. In an era where short world title reigns were common, it occurred once more, as Cena followed up another short reign, by dropping the title once again just three weeks later… to Edge of course…
As we moved into 2009, Cena would once again renew acquittances with another former foe, but after two failed attempts at winning back the WWE Championship, Cena finally got the better of none other than RANDY ORTON, in a brutal ‘I Quit’ match at the Breaking Point PPV. The reign would last just 3 weeks…
Although, the WWE Championship flipped once more the next month, as Orton and Cena went at it again at Bragging Rights in an ANYTHING GOES 60 MINUTE IRON MAN MATCH, with Cena emerging the victor by 6 falls to 5.
It was February the next year when number 8 came Cena’s way. Having lost the title in shocking fashion to relative WWE-rookie Sheamus, Cena reclaimed the gold inside the Elimination Chamber… and held it… for just over… 3 and a half minutes…
Cena got his revenge for Batista’s shocking title win on the grandest stage of them all, WrestleMania 26. He would hold the title for 84 days, beating Batista twice more along the way.
The wait for the magic number 10 for Cena was over a full year after his previous world title win. By the time we got to Extreme Rules in May 2011, THE MIZ was not only the WWE Champion, but he was off the back of a WrestleMania main event win over Cena himself! This time around, with John Morrison also involved in a triple threat STEEL CAGE match, Cena was the one who walked out with the gold once more!
The one I hate the most. If you ever needed a show of what ‘Super Cena’ was in this era, this was it. A tournament to crown a new WWE Champion (after CM Punk took the belt home to his fridge) saw REY MYSTERIO win the title for the first time! Immediately after backstage, Cena asked Rey for a match, Rey said yes, later THE SAME NIGHT, LOL Cena wins…
After they decided to kill the ‘Summer of Punk’, Cena won the title once more from Alberto Del DICKHEAD. He held the title for TWO WEEKS, before dropping it back to the prick. It would then see Cena go on another ‘dry spell’, as we had the record reign from Punk begin in late 2011.
Wrestlemania 29. TWICE in a lifetime. LOL Cena wins… again…
Another ‘SUPER Cena’ mega quick return from injury saw Cena return to win the big gold belt once more, from Alberto DICKHEAD. After winning it in October 2013 at Hell In A Cell, Cena would actually be the final holder of the single World Heavyweight Title in it’s ‘big gold’ belt form, as the title would be unified with the WWE Championship later that year, which Cena lost against Randy Orton.
June 2014’s Money In The Bank saw Cena win the WWE World Heavyweight Championship in a multi-man ladder match. This came about after previous champion Daniel Bryan had to vacate, and they shifted course and gave Cena number 15. He would reign for about a month and a half, until the infamous SummerSlam 2014 loss to Brock.
An absolute all-time classic match saw Cena become the joint record holder for world title reigns at the 2017 Royal Rumble. Cena and AJ Styles had an amazing series of matches up to this point, but this was an absolute masterpiece.
After the most shocking heel turn for decades, Cena went on to break the record and get the magic number 17 by defeating Cody Rhodes in the main event of WrestleMania 41. We will chat more about that one later… The never seen, 17 run was… odd… but we did get Cena defending the title against the likes of Randy Orton and CM Punk, before dropping it back to Cody (as a babyface once more) in a match that felt like it was a personal redemption mission by both men, at SummerSlam earlier this year. 17 and out, some good, some bad, but all of them, historic.
With the in-ring career of Cena coming to its end, people have discussed the best of the man’s run, best matches, and mainly his best rivals. For me, when I see John Cena, I see him up against 4 men mainly, for different reasons of which I will go into. But starting with the first one, for me their is only one answer to who is John Cena’s greatest rival?
Randy Orton and John Cena seemed to keep coming back to one another consistently between 2007 and even as recently as earlier this year, almost 20 years later. Numerous world title matches, blood feuds, one time even Orton kicked Cena’s father in the HEAD, they have had all manner of different stipulation matches against one another, and if you ask people born between 1995-2005 to name some WWE wrestlers, there’s a good chance they name these two. The ying to the other’s yang, everything the John Cena character stood for was opposed to by Orton, and even after Cena turned heel, his first feud was with his old rival (who was now a beloved legendary babyface). It’s with no doubt in my mind that these two should induct the other into the WWE Hall Of Fame when the time comes about.
There is one other John Cena rivalry that changed an entire generation of wrestling fans. It was during this feud that a large amount of disgruntled and disillusioned fans returned to watching, as one pipebomb changed the wrestling world.
John Cena, and DEFINITELY in 2011, was Mr WWE. So his perfect foil would be someone who was about as anti-WWE as you could get, and he let it be known too. CM Punk was just that guy. Some say he still is THAT guy. But he represented everything that fans who didn’t enjoy the ‘SUPER CENA’ era, and these two men coming together representing the Jesus and the devil in WWE terms, they created absolute magic. The 2011 Money In The Bank feud, build up, entrances, match itself, aftermath and even the Punk return afterwards, all of it was pure magic. As much as I love CM Punk, I do not think that the CM Punk character works as well in WWE, and definitely not in that time period, without someone who personifies the opposite stance to his own, and for that, I think we have to be grateful to Cena.
I think if Punk was a good character for that version of John Cena to bounce off, then the FKA ‘Leader of the Cenation’ or whatever the fuck he was known as from 06-09 ish, couldn’t have had a better foe, than The Rated R Superstar!
I mean this was just Batman vs The Joker, it was everything a great good guy vs bad guy feud should aspire to be. ‘Hustle, loyalty, Respect’ up against ‘The Ultimate Opportunist’. These two just had magical chemistry together in basically everything they did. Incredibly memorable moments a plenty, and as I have said, It has to be Orton as Cena’s greatest rival, I would have Edge as a close second.
And the last Cena feud that comes to my mind, is the feud that largely got me back into wrestling in 2014, along with Daniel Bryan and my friend Stefan…
I mean, where do I even begin with what John Cena had and did with my guy? The first feud in 2014, then being the immediate follow up after the disaster of The Fiend losing to Oldberg, and whilst we didn’t get that match, we got something even more magical, as John Cena entered the FIRELY FUNHOUSE!
Thank You Cena, for everything you did for Bray Wyatt and his career. As a fan of his, I cannot explain how much your work with him means to me. And just for my own enjoyment, here’s the pre-match hype package for their match at WrestleMania 30, which is one of my all-time fave videos WWE have ever made.
https://youtu.be/y0v4J1JsJeI?si=vlmNpFkuyWFrQT_a
Another special Cena moment, was one I don’t know any of us thought we could see again, definitely we had no idea WHEN… The pandemic robbed fans of attending shows, and one of the key components of the business was totally removed. The essence of the being of pro wrestling, the fans. Specifically I am talking of those magic moments when the crowd roars, the POP! And at the end of the first WWE PLE back with fans in full voice, we got it. Roman Reigns had just retained his Universal Championship, and as he told the world to “ACKOWLEDGE ME”, then out came our superhero…!
https://youtu.be/wP-d8day9E8?si=mltmIta38L2OatSR
It’s the main moment I associate with the end of the pandemic, and the return of SOME normality! Life was SLOWLY getting back to normal, and my god did we need it. I will never forget this moment for as long as I live. I remember telling people that when fans came back, WWE needed to make that first big PLE back into essentially a second WrestleMania, in terms of the level of matches. And well, John Cena vs Roman Reigns? Yep, that’ll do it!
And speaking of Wrestlemania level matches, and moments, I guess we should talk about THE heel turn…
A moment that shook the world, a moment so big that I immediately wrote a blog all about it. This is something we had wanted for YEARS, and we got it during his RETIREMENT TOUR??? Insanity, but in the best way! And I liked his early promos post heel turn, but the Mania match with Cody, the lack of The Rock post Elimination Chamber, Travis fucking Scott, and just… yeah the “run” of Cena as a heel was a dud let’s be honest, the turn itself was all-timer but everything after was hot GARBAGE! And it was so bad, they gave it the ultimate white flag… they retconned it.
Back came the classic Cena entrance, the attire, the full shabang. JOHN CENA was back, and then him and Cody had a classic, and we were off to the races again with Cena. I for one am happy they at least TRIED the Cena heel run, but I guess we wrestling fans don’t always know best? Or maybe they should’ve simply… done it better…?
And a lot of people will have similar sentiments towards the day we say goodbye to John Cena as a wrestler. I am sure we all have our own ideas (Orton would’ve been mine personally), but I also don’t think the concept of ‘The Last Time Is Now’ tournament is a bad one. The execution has been… what it is… but seeing the likes of Dolph Ziggler and Zack Ryder get return pops was awesome to see. And Gunther had been the talked about name for some time as the man who would have the honour of being the opponent in Cena’s retirement match, so I have had plenty of time to get used to the idea (unlike John Cena’s father apparently…). I am neither here nor there on if he’s the right choice, of course he doesn’t “need” it (a 2 time world champion who already retired Goldberg, and has as many long-running title run records as you could imagine), but also I think giving this spot to one of the best wrestler’s around can’t ever be seen as a bad choice surely? And I have seen Gunther have a good match with just about all type of opponents, so I am sure the match itself will live up to the occasion. I think the concept of the show being WWE vs NXT matches is cool, as is Cena’s match OPENING the event, it’s different and its fun, its not formulaic and just like any other show. (UPDATE: Cena vs Gunther is now going on last, Cena himself said he wasn’t sure where that talk came from).
I don’t really know how to end this one to be honest… Which I guess isn’t the best thing to say when you are writing, but I had been gradually putting this blog together for some time, and I have been figuratively and literally looking towards this event on December 13th for so long, it feels utterly unbelievable that it’s finally here. I have been pretty anti-Cena at times as a WWE fan (I hated how he eviscerated Austin Theory that time in his promo, I hated the era of WWE where he was super-Cena, he was an absolute PRICK on the Total Bellas show, and his constant support of Vince McMahon makes me wanna vomit), but I also pop every time he returns, and I will never miss a John Cena match. I will say again, I do not think there is a wrestler I have watched more matches of in my life as a fan than him. A cornerstone of my wrestling fandom, and by proxy, a HUGE part of my life.
I guess only one thing left to say really…
Thank You Cena! … (CENA SUCKS!)…
Josh.