John Cena is arguably the greatest superstar of his generation, and one of the best of all time. The 16-time world champion has had a series of memorable moments throughout the course of his time in professional wrestling, with many of them coming at the highest level with World Wrestling Entertainment.
Nowadays he is joining the Hollywood lifestyle, but even with that being the case, he's still one of the most divisive figures in the business today. Some reasons are more understandable than others, but either way, we're going to run through the most notable of them here today.
10 HATED - The Rock Feud
One of the biggest feuds in the history of WWE was contested between The Rock and John Cena. These two men were the biggest stars of their respective eras, and getting the chance to see them go at it in a one on one environment was nothing short of remarkable.
However, from WrestleMania 27 all the way through until WrestleMania 29, the fans always took it upon themselves to side with The Great One. Cena was consistently booed, especially when it came to WrestleMania 28 when it went down in Miami.
9 LOVED - Bin Laden News
Speaking of The Rock, the first major pay per view since it was announced that the Once in a Lifetime match would happen at WM28 was Extreme Rules. While Cena may have won the WWE Championship that night, the big story came in the immediate aftermath of that match.
John stood on the announcer’s table and revealed to the crowd that US troops had located and killed Osama Bin Laden, the man responsible for the 9/11 attacks. He spoke with such confidence, elegance, and grace, to the point where he’ll forever be loved for that.
8 HATED - SummerSlam 2010
SummerSlam 2010 was supposed to be the crowning of The Nexus as the next great force in WWE, but as we all came to learn, John Cena had different plans. He led Team WWE in a historic seven on seven elimination showdown at the biggest party of the summer, with many believing that the NXT stars would get the win.
In the end, though, Cena overcame the odds to win the match for Team WWE. It completely killed the youngsters’ momentum, and in the years following the match, even John himself came to admit that.
7 LOVED - Post-Lesnar Win Speech
John Cena’s actual win over Brock Lesnar at Extreme Rules 2012 wasn’t that well received at all, with many fans being left feeling surprised that Brock would lose his first official match back with the company.
Afterward, though, Cena gave a fantastic speech about the Chicago crowd and why he loved them so much. It actually sounded like he might be going away for a while, which didn’t end up being the case, but he wound up getting cheered to end the night anyway which was actually nice to see.
6 HATED - Nikki Bella Segments
There is absolutely nothing wrong with Nikki Bella & John Cena’s relationship being showcased for the world to see on Total Divas and Total Bellas. However, when that consistently bleeds into WWE programming, it can quickly become a problem.
That problem escalates when you have Cena & Nikki bury Miz & Maryse all for the sake of a wedding proposal.
Sure, it was a nice moment, but very few people look back at these segments with a smile on their faces.
That, in itself, is a fact.
5 LOVED - US Title Revival
We all knew that John was going to beat Rusev for the United States Championship at WrestleMania 31, to the point where WWE themselves even made sure to make The Bulgarian Brute look as strong as possible with his first loss on the main roster being right around the corner.
What we didn’t expect, though, was the complete and utter career resurgence that came with John holding the belt. The US Title Open Challenge elevated the championship to phenomenal heights, and Cena’s popularity grew and grew because of that run.
4 HATED - Corny Jokes
There are many different forms of comedy and we can completely understand and appreciate that, but something we’ll never fully get is why WWE decided to make John into a goofy character around the 2009/2010 era.
The PG Era is probably the best reason for that, but regardless of who wrote it, the material just wasn’t that good. He was catering to all of his younger fans and we understand the need to do that, but it doesn’t mean we enjoyed it. Not even close.
Hell, even the Fruity Pebbles thing wound up working in his favor.
3 LOVED - Main Event Rise
When the Doctor of Thuganomics first burst onto the main event scene in the lead-up to WrestleMania 21, he was on fire – both in the ring and with the crowd reactions he was getting. Fans were ready to see the dawning of a new era, and they got that with his win over John Bradshaw Layfield in Los Angeles.
Even when he was eventually drafted to Monday Night RAW, it was clear to see that the fans still really enjoyed seeing him at the top of the pedestal in WWE. Over time that subsided, but when he was hot, he was red hot.
2 HATED - End Of The Wyatt Feud
The actual feud between Bray Wyatt and John Cena, when you look at it on paper, was really enjoyable. Both men brought out the best in each other, with some believing that it would lead to Cena eventually turning into a heel character (which we’d all been waiting to see).
By the end of it, though, Bray didn’t come out of it looking good at all. Cena won the series in decisive fashion, and he really didn’t need to.
He should’ve put Bray over, especially at WrestleMania when it mattered the most.
1 LOVED - Big Match John
Plain and simple: when it came to the big time matches, John Cena was a really, really good wrestler, and even that may be an understatement.
The people who claimed he couldn’t wrestle obviously didn’t know what on Earth they were talking about, because when Cena was in a big-time match-up, it was something we all had to see.
He wasn’t one of the best workers in the company and still wouldn’t be to this day, but he knew how to capture that big match feel and then some.