It was July of 2024 when John Cena told us that he’d end his legendary in-ring career in 2025.
17 months later, and after a record-breaking 17 WWE World title reigns (not to mention five United States,
one Intercontinental, and four Tag Team championship runs, and two Royal Rumble wins and a Money in the Bank briefcase claimed), Cena will face Gunther in his final match this weekend (Dec. 13) in Washington, D.C. at Saturday Night’s Main Event, streaming exclusively on Peacock.
We’re not sure exactly how to say goodbye to someone who’s been in the pro wrestling business for more than two decades, and at the center of the pro wrestling universe for the better part of that time. But in addition to sharing some of our favorite Cena things since he demonstrated his “ruthless aggression” to Kurt Angle in June 2002, as a fan blog, we didn’t think it would be right to send Cena off into retirement with nothing but cheers. A lot of folks, especially those who discuss their wrestling fandom online, had nothing but boos for Cena for years.
So in the spirit of the dueling chants Cena’s been soaking in since rough 2006, here are some of the things we thought sucked about the Never Seen 17’s unparalleled WWE career. We encourage you to share yours as well, either in the comments below or with a post in The Feed.
“Pooping” on Dolph Ziggler and AJ Lee, Dec. 31, 2012
Sean Rueter
I was torn between this moment, and the one six months earlier where Cena stripped Michael Cole in the middle of the ring before dousing him in BBQ sauce in the main event of another Raw. But heel commentator Cole was insufferable. Dolph Ziggler and AJ Lee were pretty annoying too at the time, and her heel turn had just cost him a TLC match against The Show-Off, but this one pissed me off a lot more.
Dropping “crap” on Ziggler and Lee (and with a really smug look on his face as he signaled for the “poop”) wasn’t just another one of those moments where you hope the relative or friend who makes fun of you for watching wrestling doesn’t walk into the room. Cena was in the middle of a lot of those over the years. This one was also a big part of WWE’s efforts to turn AJ’s character into an unstable harlot… which was a real bummer as her emergence on the scene had helped pique the interest of a few wrestling-skeptics in my life — t”Purning her into a boy-crazy psycho drove almost all of them away.
It’s difficult to not read even more into Cena being presented as a bullying hero during this era of WWE and his career, considering what we’ve heard about the man who was in charge of the company and its creative at the time. I try not to hold it too much against Cena… it’s the downside of the willingness to try anything that I praised him for in the post that accompanies this one. But it’s definitely part of why it took me another 3-4 years and a U.S. title open challenge run to get me to leave the “Cena Sucks” crowd.
The retirement year heel turn
Geno Mrosko
Honestly, and I’m not sure the man himself wouldn’t agree, but his heel turn during this very retirement run. The moment itself was awesome, and there was real potential there with The Rock calling the shot and Cena and selling himself out, but the execution immediately after the big moment was downright awful. They dropped Rock’s involvement completely, hardly even mentioned him, and Cena never once felt genuine.
It wasn’t some meta commentary either. He just wasn’t very good at being bad. The story sucked, yes, and he didn’t have the most to work with, but there was never a single time he was believable after the turn. There was real potential, and never came close to being realized.
What makes it worse is they only had one shot to make it work, and they didn’t even come close. There’s blame to go around, so I’m not dumping it all at Cena’s feet, but I can’t think of a shittier way to play finally turning Cena heel. Honorable mention to the time the beloved Rey Mysterio won the WWE championship in a tournament after CM Punk ran off with it and Cena just beat him for it later in the night anyway.
Facing Johnny Ace in a PPV main event
Cain A. Knight
Roughly half of You Can’t See Me (The Album)
Marcus Benjamin
Rather than look at his storied wrestling career and pick from any number of those moments, I’m venturing into uncharted waters: John Cena’s rap album. I cared not one iota about this joint in at the end of my freshman year in college and only think about it now when I need song titles for my recaps (I’m very partial to “Bad, Bad Man”). But Cena mentioning it recently made my rap spidey senses tingle. So I dug in.
Without giving a full review, the album is well-executed for the most part. Cena sounds comfortable on most of the tracks while out of his element on others. Truth is a big part of artistry. The way I never feel like I know who John Cena truly is when I peep his interviews makes even his most heartfelt moments here feel a bit hollow. I don’t always know his truth because he never sounds truly convicted when he goes deep. But when he’s talking trash or just kicking raps? I dig it. This is a nice first go round that showed promise. Unfortunately that’s a dream deferred because Christopher Smith has no time for the rappity raps anymore.
That said, these are the tracks I designated worthy of a “Cena sucks” chant:
“Just Another Day”
“Summer Flings”
“We Didn’t Want You to Know”
“Running Game”
“Beantown” (feat. Esoteric)
“This Is How We Roll”
“What Now”
The Nexus program
Kyle Decker
There was a period where I was pretty anti-John Cena. In retrospect, some of it, maybe it a lot of it, really wasn’t his fault. He didn’t make the final call on his booking. (Though I’m sure his voice held sway no matter how much he may want to say otherwise.) He wasn’t the reason the product felt stale for the years. He was more the symptom than the disease.
That said, there were years where the John Cena character felt stale. Yes, kids always loved him, hence the higher pitched “Let’s Go Cena” that would be followed with more bass in “Cena sucks.” But as someone who enjoys stories and character development and seeing change, he represented a boring time in WWE.
To distill it down to one moment, I’d have to go with his program with the Nexus. Because it exemplifies all that was a program with the Cena character in WWE at the time. Here were a group of young guys, some who could (and would) have bright futures that came on the scene in a very exciting way. An actual breath of fresh air. Winds of Change as Barrett may say. And in no time they were booked with Cena in a program that killed their momentum and left the Super Cena character as super as ever.
They even had a chance to test John’s character’s resolve. He had to join the Nexus and do Barrett’s bidding. But that never really pushed his character. And then he was “fired” and was back in no time to literally bury Wade Barrett in chairs.
Again, he didn’t book it (though we know the story how he lobbied for a Super Cena spot in the SummerSlam tag match), but this emblematic of why have the crowd felt he sucked for years.
Facing Rusev in a Flag Match
Claire Elizabeth
Battleground 2017.
The stage is set, the battle is joined.
The United States of America, represented by John Cena, is to do battle with… Bulgaria? As represented by Rusev?
Bulgaria. Tiny little Balkan country? Gained its independence from the Ottoman Empire in the Treaty of San Stefano in 1878 only to be scaled back to a third of the size in the Congress of Berlin later that year? Lost in both World Wars as a minor player but somehow managed to come out of the second with more territory than it entered?
We have a problem with Bulgaria now?
Ohhh it’s a proxy for Russia because of Lana, okay. That kinda makes sense, Bulgaria has often been tight with Russia over the years (even semi-apocryphally offering to join the Soviet Union at one point), sure alright.
It’s… it’s a flag match.
Oh no. Oh no no no, mama mia no.
So yeah, that godawful match was one of the absolute worst experiences I’ve ever had liveblogging. Like okay to begin with almost any match with nonstandard finishing rules kinda sucks to write— the drama on a kickout on a standard three-count pin is easy to convey, the struggle for a submission finish can be fun to dig into, but a standing ten count or climbing a ladder or, yes, raising a flag? You just end up feeling like you’re repeating yourself over and over and over again.
But then you add in the slow grinding pace Cena and Rusev worked the match at and the veneer of jingoism permeating the entire affair and it was just absolutely no fun at all. (And I had forgotten until I looked up my liveblog writing this just now that it was the same show as the Mahal/Orton Punjabi Prison match and yeesh I shoulda gotten hazard pay for that one.)
Will the Real John Cena Please Stand Up?
M. G0MEZ
When John Cena debuted his rapper gimmick in 2002, it felt fresh. But over time he became more Vanilla Ice than Eminem — fake, overly rehearsed, and impossible to take seriously.
One minute, he’d talk trash like he just walked off the set of 8 Mile. In the next, trying to get emotional, he’d slip into Shakespeare mode — proper English, crisp annunciation, zero grit.
That inconsistency always took me out of it. While stars like Jacob Fatu and Steve Austin feel like heightened versions of themselves, Cena never fully picked a lane.
Maybe that’s why his 2025 heel turn resonated with me. It felt closest to who he really is: an articulate wise-ass who knows exactly how smart he is, delivering harsh truths with sting. Strip away the jorts and neon tees, put him in a suit, let him talk that talk? Fire.
Instead, we got Hamlet meets B-Rabbit, resulting in years of missed potential.
Your turn! Tell us about your least favorite Cena things from the past 23-ish years… or tell us why our least favorite things don’t actually suck… in the comments or The Feed!
