The Biggest 'What Ifs' of John Cena's WWE Career Ahead of Retirement
On Dec. 13 at Saturday Night's Main Event in Washington, D.C., John Cena's illustrious in-ring career will come to an end when he wrestles his final match.
Few, if any, performers in pro wrestling history achieved the same heights of success and popularity as Cena did, placing him firmly in the conversation among the greatest of all time.
Cena holds the record for world title reigns with 17, and he even became a Grand Slam champion when he beat Dominik Mysterio for the Intercontinental Championship last month.
However, even the greatest of careers include moments and matches that may have been better and changed the course of history had they played out differently.
Cena is no exception, so here is a look at some of the biggest "what if" scenarios from his nearly 24 years as a WWE main roster Superstar.
What If Cena Never Came Up with His Rap Gimmick?
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Cena had one of the most memorable debuts in WWE history when he answered a Kurt Angle open challenge on the June 27, 2002, episode of SmackDown.
Famously, Cena told Angle that he possessed "ruthless aggression" before pushing the Olympic gold medalist and multi-time world champion to the limit in a narrow defeat.
For as well as his debut went, neither Cena nor WWE did much to build upon it in the months that followed, and his WWE career was almost over before it really started.
In an interview with Buzzfeed (h/t 411Mania.com's Blake Lovell) in 2021, Cena said that in 2002, he had "the most stale, un-entertaining character you could imagine," and that he was "just about to be fired."
Cena secured himself a lifeline when he impressed WWE officials by doing some freestyle rapping in the back of the bus during an overseas tour. That resulted in Cena being given the opportunity to bring his raps to WWE programming, and he never looked back from that point forward.
While the rapper gimmick only existed for a short period of time relative to Cena's lengthy career, becoming the Doctor of Thuganomics is what helped him connect with the fans and become a main eventer.
Had Cena never gotten the chance to show his personality, he may have indeed gotten fired.
Perhaps he could have gone elsewhere, such as TNA or Ring of Honor, and blossomed there before returning to WWE and still becoming the star he is today.
But it may be just as likely that he would have fizzled on the independent scene and never been heard from again in pro wrestling.
What If Cena Lost to Nexus at SummerSlam 2010?
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Before The Shield took WWE by storm in 2012 as a group of young, hungry Superstars, Nexus did the same two years earlier.
Prior to becoming the beloved third brand it is today, NXT debuted as a worked competition show that featured some of the top prospects in the WWE developmental system vying for a spot on WWE's main roster.
Wade Barrett won the first season of NXT, but all eight participants on the show ended up making a massive impact on the June 7, 2010, episode of Raw.
During the main event between Cena and CM Punk, an eight-man unit of Barrett, Daniel Bryan, Justin Gabriel, Heath Slater, David Otunga, Darren Young, Skip Sheffield and Michael Tarver stormed the ringside area.
They attacked Cena, Punk and the announcers, and they completely dismantled everything around them.
Dubbed The Nexus, the group seemed poised to take over WWE for years to come, but that never happened due largely to the events of SummerSlam 2010 just two months after their debut.
In the main event of that show, Nexus faced a Cena-led Team WWE in a seven-on-seven elimination match.
It was widely assumed that Nexus would win in order to continue their momentum, but Cena shockingly eliminated both Gabriel and Barrett to win the match for Team WWE.
By January 2011, CM Punk had taken over as Nexus' leader, while Barrett, Gabriel and Slater moved to SmackDown to form an ill-fated group called The Corre.
Barrett still went on to have a successful WWE career, becoming a five-time intercontinental champion, but he never became world champion or a consistent main eventer.
Changing the result of the SummerSlam 2010 main event likely would not have impacted Cena's career much, if at all, but it could have launched Barrett and some of Nexus' other members into sustained superstardom, which would have been good for WWE as a whole.
What If Cena Turned Heel in 2012?
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Cena shocked the wrestling world earlier this year when he turned heel for the first time since early in his WWE tenure, but that wasn't the first time a villainous version of Cena was considered.
While it had been speculated upon and discussed by third parties in the past, Cena publicly confirmed last year that he came close to turning heel in 2012.
In an interview with Chris Van Vliet, Cena said he heard "rumblings" of a heel turn in 2012, which prompted him to get a new theme song created and seven singlets with "boxing-type robes" made within 48 hours:
Cena noted that he was "ready to go," and thinking of all the ways he could alter his character in order to be a successful bad guy.
Some of the changes he intended to make were to stop selling merchandise, stop doing appearances for WWE and stop granting Make-A-Wishes for sick children.
When it became apparent that those things could hurt WWE's bottom line, the decision was made to pull the plug on the heel turn.
In 2011, The Rock returned to WWE and it was announced one year in advance that he would face Cena at WrestleMania 28 in 2012.
The Rock won that match, but they had a rematch one year later at WrestleMania 29, and Cena beat The Rock for the WWE Championship.
From 2011 into early 2012, Cena was embroiled in a rivalry with Kane, during which Kane tried to get Cena to "embrace the hate." That could have been the perfect vehicle for a Cena heel turn to set up a heel Cena against a babyface Rock.
Had Cena turned heel in 2012, there likely would have been no reason for the 2025 heel turn since the shock factor would not have existed, and that may have been a good thing given some of the missteps that occurred after Cena turned heel this year.
A 2012 heel turn may also have quelled the "Cena fatigue" many fans had at that time, much like what happened with Hulk Hogan when he turned heel and became "Hollywood" Hogan, the leader of the nWo, in WCW in 1996.
What If Cena Never Became an Actor?
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A handful of WWE Superstars have parlayed their success in pro wrestling into legitimate acting careers, and Cena is near the top of that list.
Through the early-to-middle part of his wrestling career, Cena had appeared in a few movies, primarily those produced by WWE Studios such as The Marine and 12 Rounds.
However, Cena finally got his big break in 2015 with appearances in Trainwreck, Sisters and Daddy's Home, and from that point forward, he was in high demand in Hollywood.
His most notable role has been that of the DC superhero Peacemaker, as Cena even secured his own HBO Max show thanks to that character.
After priding himself on being the go-to guy and the face of WWE for much of his career, things truly started to change in 2018, as Cena barely wrestled that year after his match against The Undertaker at WrestleMania 34.
Cena then had only two matches in 2019 and one in 2020, making it abundantly clear that he was an actor first and a WWE Superstar second.
By that point, Cena had already accomplished nearly everything possible in WWE, so his desire to explore another career path was quite understandable.
Still, it is hard not to wonder what might have happened in WWE had Cena maintained his full-time wrestling schedule for the entirety of his career.
From 2018 to present, many significant things happened in WWE, such as the rise of Roman Reigns into the tribal chief and Drew McIntyre's ascent into being a top guy by winning the 2020 Royal Rumble.
Perhaps those things still happen if Cena is around more frequently, but that is far from guaranteed since Cena almost certainly would have been occupying a main event slot.
Ultimately, it may be for the best that Cena found another passion since it allowed things to breathe and gave fans reason to appreciate him more.
The extended absences kept Cena fresh over the past several years and prevented fans from getting burnt out, and that could be part of the reason why he has been embraced to such a significant degree during his retirement tour.
What If The Rock Participated More in Cena's 2025 Heel Run?
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At Elimination Chamber 2025, one of the most shocking moments in wrestling history occurred when Cena turned heel by attacking Cody Rhodes.
The Rock was on hand to get an answer regarding whether Rhodes had agreed to sell him his soul, but when Cody declined, The Rock looked at Cena and made a throat-slashing gesture, which prompted Cena to pummel The American Nightmare.
Both The Rock and rapper Travis Scott joined in on the attack, and the event ended with a villainous Cena standing tall similar to "Hollywood" Hogan at Bash in the Beach 1996 when he formed the nWo with Scott Hall and Kevin Nash.
Since The Rock was the one who seemed to order the attack on Rhodes, it was widely expected that he would be a huge part of the build toward Cena vs. Rhodes at WrestleMania 41.
However, The Final Boss didn't make any appearances, instead leaving Cena and Rhodes to tell the story on their own.
Rather than Cena explaining his heel turn by saying he had sold out to The Rock due to his desire to achieve the same level of money, power and success, Cena simply blamed the fans for treating him poorly, which didn't resonate.
While the fans had a love-hate relationship with Cena at times, he was fully embraced when he announced his retirement tour, so the timing of the turn coupled with that reasoning simply didn't make much sense.
Things got even worse when The Rock didn't even show up at WrestleMania to help Cena beat Rhodes. Instead, Scott got involved, and he was directly responsible for Cena becoming a 17-time world champion.
Cena had some good matches and moments as a heel, including clashes with Randy Orton and CM Punk, but the run was nowhere as successful as it could and should have been.
By the time Cena went back to being a babyface prior to SummerSlam, fans were more than ready for it, and they immediately went back to cheering him, which seemed to further prove that the rationale for the turn was weak.
Cena's retirement tour was likely always going to end with him seeing the light and going back to his babyface roots, but the journey to that point could have been so much more compelling had the relationship between Cena and The Rock been a central part of the heel run.
Instead, Cena's time as a heel will likely be remembered as ill-fated and a blip on the radar when it could have been so much more than that.
