John Cena didn't get the nicknames "Big Match John" and "Super Cena" by losing. So when he has gone down for the three count, it's been a shock almost every time. These Ls left fans almost as flabbergasted as his recent, unexpected heel turn.
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00:00John Cena didn't get the nicknames Big Match John and Super Cena by losing, so when he
00:05has gone down for the three counts, it's been a shock almost every time.
00:09These L's left fans almost as flabbergasted as his recent unexpected heel turn.
00:14Though he was WWE Champion at the time, Cena wasn't quite yet at the height of his power
00:19as 2006 became 2007.
00:21Even so, fans did not expect to see him eat a loss from a guy who only ever got famous
00:26for being briefly married to Britney Spears.
00:28This was the celebrity guest host era of Raw, and wannabe rapper Kevin Federline appeared
00:33a few times in late 2006.
00:36After several run-ins involving Cena rapping at KFID, despite having retired his Doctor
00:40of Thuganomics gimmick by then and Federline eating an attitude adjustment, the two faced
00:45off in a no-disqualification match on the New Year's Day episode of Raw.
00:49Though it was a no-DQ match, and it didn't really matter, Johnny Nitro distracted the
00:53referee so Federline could get in a low blow.
00:56Cena quickly recovered, though, and got Federline up for another double-A. That's when the next
00:59competitor up for Cena's title, Umaga, hit the ring and clobbered Cena with the WWE Championship
01:05belt, leaving Federline with easy pickings for the pin.
01:08Cena eventually got the last laugh, hitting Federline with a double-A later that night,
01:12but that loss to a Z-Less celebrity is still on his record.
01:16It was, uh, it was, it was an event.
01:19Cena spent late 2007 into 2008 out of action, not from embarrassment due to his loss to
01:24Federline, but an injury, specifically a torn pectoral muscle.
01:28Cena was thought to be on the shelf through WrestleMania, but this is John Cena we're
01:31talking about, so he was back way ahead of schedule, with a shock return as entrant number
01:3630 in the Royal Rumble in January 2008.
01:39That timeline is based on the construct that you do physical therapy three times a week.
01:45I would do physical therapy three times a day.
01:47He didn't just return at the Rumble, he also won it, tossing Triple H over the top rope
01:51and earning a title shot.
01:53Cena initially cashed that shot in before WrestleMania and No Way Out in February.
01:58WWE Champion Randy Orton intentionally got himself disqualified in that match, and Cena
02:03argued he deserved another shot in light of that.
02:05Cena beat Orton on Raw to earn a second chance.
02:08Meanwhile, Triple H won the Elimination Chamber match for his own WrestleMania title shot.
02:12What resulted was a three-way WWE Championship match at Mania.
02:16And then after all that build-up, Orton retained his title by stealing a pin.
02:20Triple H had Cena down on the mat, and Orton gave Triple H a punt, delivering the pin to
02:24Cena.
02:25Not only was it a shock given the built-in story of Cena's early return from injury,
02:29it was also Cena's first-ever WrestleMania loss.
02:33Only a very select few rookies have had the distinction of getting an early career win
02:36over John Cena.
02:38Getting one in 2009 when Cena was becoming all but invincible, well, that's extra special.
02:43One of a kind, really.
02:44And the guy who got that rub was Sheamus, who only had 166 days of WWE TV experience
02:49by the time the TLC pay-per-view rolled around that year.
02:52The two faced off in a tables match for the WWE title, and ended so abruptly that some
02:57fans thought it was a botch.
02:59Cena had the Celtic Warrior up on the top turnbuckle, in position for a superplex into
03:04a table.
03:05But Sheamus shoved him off.
03:06Cena fell back through the table in the middle of the ring, and Sheamus tumbled off the turnbuckle
03:10to the floor below.
03:11That was the planned ending of the match, but Sheamus himself admitted it was a late
03:15decision.
03:16Apparently, Cena himself played a big role in the young Irish brawler going over.
03:20"...was there talk about you winning maybe the United States title first?"
03:23"...No.
03:24There was nothing.
03:25I just…
03:26The Randy Cena thing had just done its rounds."
03:29In an interview on the Out of Character podcast in 2022, Sheamus said that nobody was very
03:34excited about his win because so many of the wrestlers in the back were hungry for an opportunity
03:39like the one he got.
03:40It really, really didn't happen very often.
03:43By 2011, John Cena was arguably as big a star as The Rock was in his heyday, and Dwayne
03:48Johnson had been gone from WWE for years, pursuing his Hollywood acting career.
03:52But The Rock came back to host WrestleMania 27, which was headlined, believe it or not,
03:57by a match between Cena and then-WWE champion The Miz.
04:00After The Rock and Cena exchanged some promos in the build-up to the show, it paid off with
04:04The Rock interfering in the main event, hitting Cena with a Rock Bottom to secure the pinball
04:08victory for The Miz.
04:10But that unexpected loss was just the appetizer.
04:13The build to WrestleMania 28 started almost immediately, with the marketed once-in-a-lifetime
04:18match between Cena and The Rock as the main event.
04:20The promo battles got personal.
04:22Cena commented on notes The Rock had written on his hand, leading to a later real-life
04:26apology for going too far.
04:27The Rock went after Cena's real-life divorce during his Rock concert segment.
04:31When the two finally faced off in the ring at WrestleMania 28, the fans' speculation
04:35was that Cena would win, and The Rock would ship off back to Hollywood.
04:38But instead, Cena caught a Rock Bottom when he was attempting to do a People's Elbow on
04:42that move's originator.
04:43The Rock pinned Cena, and Cena looked as defeated as ever as the show went off the air.
04:48That wasn't the end, either, though.
04:50Once-in-a-lifetime was anything but, and The Rock and Cena capped off their three-year
04:53storyline at WrestleMania 29, that time for the WWE Championship.
04:58Cena notched the win there, and started his 11th reign as champ.
05:02After Cena's loss to The Rock at WrestleMania 28, Cena's storyline largely focused on him
05:06going through a career rough patch.
05:08He still won plenty of matches throughout 2012, but he lost a few more than was typical.
05:13One particularly embarrassing loss that year came to the long-retired John Laurinaitis,
05:17who by that time was a WWE talent executive and an on-screen general manager.
05:23The whole thing started when Brock Lesnar, returning after an eight-year absence from
05:26WWE, attacked Cena with the support of Laurinaitis.
05:30After several more attacks from Lesnar and Lord Tensai, Laurinaitis announced that he
05:34would himself be Cena's next opponent at that year's Over the Limit pay-per-view.
05:39The WWE Board of Directors ruled, in storyline, that if anyone interfered on Laurinaitis'
05:44behalf in their match, they would be fired, and Laurinaitis himself would be canned if
05:47he lost.
05:48Laurinaitis ended up scoring a victory in their No Disqualification match through some
05:52sneaky skirting of the rules.
05:54Someone did interfere on his behalf, but that wrestler had already been fired, so he couldn't
05:58be fired again.
05:59See, Laurinaitis had fired the Big Show weeks earlier, ostensibly for mocking his voice.
06:04That meant there were no consequences for Big Show smashing Cena with a knockout punch,
06:08thus giving Laurinaitis the easy pin.
06:11Super Cena was back after he won the WWE title from The Rock at WrestleMania 29.
06:16"...hand in front of your face, and you just go, you can't see me!"
06:22But the ground in WWE was shifting in another direction.
06:25Fan support for scrappy underdog Daniel Bryan was reaching a fever pitch, and every attempt
06:30by the company's high-ups to send him back down the card, both in storyline and out,
06:34only stirred up more of the groundswell of the Yes Movement.
06:37Cena clearly had a sense of the changes taking place, and faced Bryan at SummerSlam 2013
06:42in a match dubbed Wrestler vs. Entertainer, with Cena being the Entertainer.
06:46What resulted was one of Cena's best-received matches in quite some time.
06:50Pro Wrestling Illustrated even named it Match of the Year.
06:53Bryan overcame the odds to take down Cena, beating him with his signature running knee
06:57to win his first WWE championship.
06:59Cena even shook Bryan's hand after the match, giving him that rare Cena rub.
07:03Of course, Bryan's celebration was short-lived.
07:05Moments later, Randy Orton would emerge with his money in the bank briefcase and take the
07:10title off Bryan, with Triple H counting the pin.
07:12The Yes Movement story would go on for months more, culminating with Bryan winning the title
07:16back at WrestleMania 30.
07:19It isn't exactly a shock that John Cena lost to Brock Lesnar.
07:22If anyone was booked as strongly as Cena over the course of his career, it was the Beast
07:26Incarnate.
07:27The average fan at the time would probably have given even money to his win between them.
07:30What was so startling about Cena's loss to Lesnar at SummerSlam 2014 was how entirely
07:35one-sided it was.
07:37Cena got in essentially no offense over the 16-minute match, taking a truly punishing
07:4116 German suplexes and two F5s before Lesnar finally showed some mercy and pinned him to
07:47the WWE Championship.
07:48Cena by that point was a 15-time world champion.
07:51Lesnar squashed him.
07:53Fans had never seen Cena be dominated like that before, and haven't since.
07:57We don't know if Kevin Owens got any backstage heat like Sheamus did, but he was another
08:01of the very chosen few young stars who Big Match John decided to bestow with his blessing.
08:06Whilst upholding the NXT Championship, Owens debuted on Raw in May 2015, answering Cena's
08:11open challenge for the United States Championship.
08:14Instead of challenging Cena then and there, Owens said he wanted a match on his own terms,
08:18and hit Cena with a pop-up powerbomb.
08:20What resulted was a match at the Elimination Chamber pay-per-view two weeks later, where
08:24Owens hit Cena with two more pop-up powerbombs before scoring the shock pin.
08:28After the match, Owens got on the mic and told Cena that his time was way up.
08:32Two elements, though, detracted from Owens' win a bit.
08:35First, he oddly didn't win the U.S. title in the match, and two, Cena got his win back
08:39at Money in the Bank the following month.
08:41You can't help but learn from somebody who's been on top of the wrestling industry for
08:46ten years.
08:47By 2022, Cena had transitioned into the part-time portion of his WWE tenure, having moved on
08:52to start a Hollywood acting career of his own.
08:55He came back that June for a celebration of 20 years in WWE, and it was there that he
08:59was first confronted by United States champion Austin Theory, who basically said Cena was
09:04old news.
09:05They wouldn't have another run-in until the following March, when Theory made a WrestleMania
09:09challenge.
09:10Though Cena initially refused, he left the final decision up to the fans, and the match
09:14was on.
09:15Cena and Theory's match kicked off WrestleMania 39, and though it took a low blow for him
09:19to score the victory, Theory did, in fact, retain his U.S. title.
09:22Given that Theory wasn't exactly popular with the fans at that point, and many expected
09:26the show to start off on a high note, Cena's loss to the young star left some scratching
09:30their heads.
09:32Sending him home happy is often the name of the game at WWE's Saudi Arabia shows, but
09:36at least in 2023, storyline seemed to supersede fans at Crown Jewel.
09:40The Bloodline storyline was in full swing, and Cena was set to take on the then-newest
09:44member of the faction, Solo Sakoa.
09:47Cena had returned to WWE for a stint during the ongoing Hollywood strikes.
09:51He and L.A. Knight made their way into the Bloodline's business, taking on Sakoa and
09:55Jimmy Uso in a tag match at Fastlane.
09:57Knight and Cena came away with the win there, leading to the single showdown between Cena
10:01and Sakoa at Crown Jewel.
10:03The resulting match was reminiscent of Cena's SummerSlam showdown with Lesnar years later.
10:08Big Match John got him virtually no offense, instead taking multiple Samoan spikes before
10:12going down for the pin.
10:14Cena walked out to a standing ovation from the crowd in Riyadh.
10:18Cena appeared at Money in the Bank in Toronto in July 2024 to announce his retirement tour.
10:23In that promo, he said the 2025 Royal Rumble match would be his very last Rumble ever,
10:28leading many to believe that he had to win it, right?
10:30The odds are never exactly in any one person's favor in the Royal Rumble.
10:34There are 30 people in the match, after all.
10:36But Cena did actually manage to make it to the final two alongside Jey Uso, who had gained
10:41a lot of goodwill from fans thanks to his yeet catchphrase and association with champion
10:46Cody Rose.
10:47After a back-and-forth on the apron, Cena got Uso up for an attitude adjustment.
10:51Uso escaped and got back inside the ring, knocking Cena off the apron with a push on
10:54the back.
10:55Cena landed on his feet on the floor, and it was all over.
10:58Some fans loved the decision to put over the younger competitor, but others thought Cena
11:02deserved the big win during what he's touting as his final run in the business.
11:06But never count out John Cena.
11:08He punched his ticket to WrestleMania by winning the men's Elimination Chamber match on March
11:121st, and afterward attacked Rhodes for his first heel turn in over 20 years.