When Randy Orton had his 20 year anniversary of joining the main roster in April I made a post for us to discuss his impact, legacy (no pun intended), etc.
I thought John Cena deserves the same thing. If not more-so. What can be said about John Cena that hasn’t already been said? 16 time world champion. Face of the company. Defined the PG era. By the late 2000’s it’s not a stretch to say he was the most hated man in professional wrestling. But has also completed more wishes with the Make-A-Wish foundation than anyone else.
Looking back now over 20 years what are your thoughts about John Cena? How have they changed over time?
Do you have a favorite Cena match? Favorite feud? Underrated moment worth remembering?
It’s very interesting the sort of rose coloured glasses you can look back on John Cena with.
no doubt he was the biggest star for a number of years, helped carry the brand and had some very good in ring matches. But he was also the prototype for what was later the Roman reigns, Cody Rhodes etc. and that he was a baby face that the fans rejected largely because of how fast and hard he was pushed down their throat.
The WWE became convinced by pushing through with John and not turning him that they were right and the fans were wrong. They may have been right - he moved tickets and merch despite being booed. So a lot of what we see down there line with the WWE ignoring fans responses is from that (similar to DB and getting a face over by burying him).
In terms of impact he’s clearly one of the biggest stars of all time, and although not a personal favourite of mine he seems like a decent human being and had some reasonably good matches.
My favourite raw match for him versus Shawn Michaels, which blew away their wrestlemania match I thought. Overall, my favourite matches of his outside of that are against CM punk MITB, the TLC versus edge, and of course Royal Rumble vs AJ (another match like Taker vs Shawn that didn’t get 5 stars for some
Reason).
I remember that match, it was the one that went an hour and took place in the UK, right? Great, great, match! I always thought Cena was an underrated worker. Between Angle, Shawn, Owens, AJ, Taker, Hunter etc. he had some great matches.
Yup that was the one. They had to cancel the other matches after it went an hour. Also at that time Cena rarely if ever lost clean. Just an amazing match
Cena was never my favorite but I always appreciated him, especially ear the end of his prime when he was pretty decent in the ring.
Loved his one night stand match against rvd as well.
I’ve listened to way too many wrestler podcast and shoot interviews and I’ve never once heard any other talent badmouth him. That’s gotta count for something.
Great career but I think his run led to WWE moving away from listening to the fans and worrying more about sponsors and corporate partners. He should have had a big run as a heel and put over the next big face but never did. As a result he ran off fans sick of him and it’ll be hard to get someone else at his level.
Total company guy and did whatever they wanted, which is a good and bad thing too.
Loved his wars with Edge but I’ll always remember the ECW title match against RVD.
I think that was an all time ball drop. You’d always hear the excuse that nobody else was ready to take his place and he was like the number one make a wish request. I get the pressure not to mess with that but you’re also not going to get anyone up to that level if you don’t give them the full spotlight.
I also want to give a shout out to his match with Umaga from the 2007 Royal Rumble. An incredible and violent “Last Man Standing” match. One that turned me around on Cena (although I wasn’t watching week to week at that time, that match really made me see the quality of talent he was".)
Also, Cena vs. Brock vs. Rollins from Rumble 2015 is one of the best three-way matches ever.
Oh, and his match with Brock from Extreme Rules 2012 was a jaw dropping master piece that, aside from Cena winning, was perfect.
Extreme Rules 2012 was an excellent PPV that seems to be underrated. It had great Bryan vs Sheamus and Jericho vs Punk matches that were better than their WM matches a month prior. And then the brutal Cena vs Lesnar match which was unlike anything we had seen in WWE for years. The questionable booking at the time of Cena winning left some fans mad but I think we can look back years later and say that Lesnar is fine and the loss didn’t hurt him at all.
But back to John Cena. My favorite Cena match is Cena vs CM Punk on Raw in February 2013 to determine the #1 contender to face the Rock at Wrestlemania. It’s a personal favorite because I was there! And even though I’ve been to a lot of great wrestling shows since 2013 this match is still one of the best I’ve seen live. The fans were going nuts as each of them dug deeper than ever to beat each other. With CM Punk even using the banned piledriver which stunned the audience and teased his eventual match with Taker. Without a doubt one of the best matches in Raw history.