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• Greg WyshynskiSep 9, 2025, 07:56 AM ET

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  Greg Wyshynski is ESPN’s senior NHL writer.

John Cena’s entrance theme announces that “my time is now.” But his time is fleeting.

Cena, 48, announced last summer that 2025 would be the end of his time as an active WWE wrestler. Each match brings him closer to hanging up the jorts on Dec. 13 — including at the WWE’s inaugural Wrestlepalooza in Indianapolis on Sept. 20 (7 p.m. ET on ESPN Unlimited).

For those joining the farewell tour late and those looking to take a journey back through a remarkable career inside and outside the ring, we now present the John Cena Eras Tour.

The Prototype

John Cena’s 23-year WWE career will come to a close at the end of 2025. Getty Images

In 2001, the WWE signed John Cena — a former NCAA Division III All-American football player at Springfield College, aspiring bodybuilder and son of an independent wrestling manager “Johnny Fabulous” — to a development deal in Ohio Valley Wrestling.

There were no jorts. No chains. No “you can’t see me.” There was a crew cut, except it was bleached a piercing blonde. There were biceps. Large biceps. Cena was billed as “The Prototype,” proclaiming that he was “50% man and 50% machine” during intentionally robotic promos. At best, he looked like a video-game character from a “Street Fighter” knockoff. At worst, he looked like Ludvig Borga.

The Prototype would win the OVW championship in February 2002 and earn his call-up to the WWE main roster, where he thankfully ditched the dye job and immediately became … ruthless.

Ruthless Aggression

On a June 2002 edition of “SmackDown,” Kurt Angle walked to the ring while fans chanted “you suck” during his entrance theme — years before they’d hijack Cena’s theme to do the same.

Former WWE owner Vince McMahon had recently commenced an era of “Ruthless Aggression” for the roster, encouraging wrestlers to conquer all adversaries. In that spirit, Angle issued an open challenge to the locker room — but only for an opponent he hadn’t wrestled before.

Wearing red and black trunks and matching boots, Cena strode to the ring, oozing confidence with eyes locked on Angle.

Angle smirked. “Who in the hell are you?” he asked into the microphone.

“I’m John Cena.”

John Cena confronted Kurt Angle in his WWE debut in 2002. WWE/Getty Images

“John Cena, huh?” Angle responded. “Well, you tell me: What is the one quality that you possess that makes you think that you can walk out here and come into the ring and face the very best in the business?”

Cena sneered and spoke with a guttural growl not unlike McMahon’s cadence: “Ruthless aggression!” Cena then sucker-punched Angle and jumped him.

The crowd rallied behind Cena in his impromptu match with Angle and jeered when Angle pulled out a desperation pin. But the result didn’t matter. A star was born.

The Doctor of Thuganomics

Over the next several months, Cena wrestled steadily in singles and tag team matches but hadn’t fulfilled the promise of that iconic “Ruthless Aggression” moment. In fact, Cena said on an episode of WWE Network’s 2020 series “WWE Ruthless Aggression” that he was told he believed that the WWE was going to be cut from the roster in late 2002.

Cena was enjoying what he believed would be his final European tour when one night, a group of wrestlers that included Rikishi and Rey Mysterio were freestyle rapping in the back of the tour bus. Cena, who had a hidden talent for rhyming, joined in. Unbeknownst to him, there was someone else listening to his bars from the front of the bus: Stephanie McMahon, the future WWE CEO who was on the creative team at the time, asked Cena to add freestyling to his character. Gradually, the next iteration of Cena evolved: a Boston-born white rapper who fans immediately mocked with signs referencing Vanilla Ice, whom Cena dressed as on a Halloween episode of “SmackDown.” He wore oversized sports jerseys, baggy jorts and a chain with a lock on it.

During John Cena’s first heel turn in 2003, he portrayed a Boston-born rapper. John Shearer/Getty Images

His catchphrase? “Word Life.” His entrance theme? “Basic Thuganomics,” which Cena wrote and performed. (Sample prose: “Never survive this, get forgot like Alzheimer’s/Two-faced rappers walk away with four shiners.”)

Perhaps even more shocking: Cena was a heel! He was a repugnant antagonist for fan favorites ranging from Rikishi to Brock Lesnar, whom Cena would wrestle in his first WWE championship match.

But as we’d see decades later, the problem with turning John Cena heel is that he’s John Cena. It’s like trying to turn free pizza heel. Despite his chaotic alignment, the freestyle dissing of opponents and his undeniable charisma eventually got the crowd behind him.

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At Survivor Series 2003, Cena had the crowd in his hand while cutting down Lesnar and his team, with fans waving signs bearing a new Cena catchphrase: “You can’t see me.”

It’s a tale as old as time for the WWE: Shawn Michaels, Steve Austin, The Rock. It doesn’t matter where the storylines are trying to go take them. If fans fall in love with a superstar, they will demand a rewrite.

A few months later, Cena would fasten a WWE championship belt around his jorts for the first time.

The “Spinner Belt” reign (first world title run)

Fun fact: WWE Studios has produced nearly 60 movies, ranging from “The Scorpion King” to “Leprechaun: Origins,” which somehow didn’t earn Hornswoggle an Oscar nod. Six of those were from “The Marine” series, the first of which starred Cena in 2006. It marked the nascent start to Cena’s acting career, which would end up quite successful. The Hollywood Reporter ranked him as the third-best wrestler-turned-thespian behind Dave Bautista and Dwayne Johnson.

Cena defeated The Big Show to open WrestleMania XX at Madison Square Garden in 2004, his first major title in the WWE. He’d win the U.S. title twice more before WrestleMania 21 in Los Angeles in 2005, when Cena wrestled for the SmackDown championship against John Bradshaw Layfield, who was in his “Million Dollar Man, except cowboy hat” era.

Cena hit JBL with this finisher — then called the “F-U” in response to Brock Lesnar’s “F-5” — to become a world champion for the first time.

The next step: Making that title spin, baby.

The third time Cena won the U.S. title, he customized the belt to his own aesthetic: Creating a “spinner” on the front plate like the rims on a tricked-out Chevy Impala. Traditionalists gasped. In fact, when Cena lost that belt to JBL stablemate Orlando Jordan, JBL literally placed the belt in a trash can and blew it up.

But it’s not as it that was going to deter Cena from transforming his world title into a spinner. It became an essential part of the Cena iconography and a best-selling replica belt for fans.

Face of PG era

Cena was pretty popular at this point. He had The Rock’s magnetism and Steve Austin’s antagonism. He had lengthy title reigns and engaging feuds against Chris Jericho and Edge. You might be wondering how a charismatic rascal dropping diss tracks on opponents and defeating foes with a move called the “F-U” could eventually have half the crowd chanting that he sucked.

Which brings us to July 22, 2008.

That’s when WWE programming went from its TV-14 attitude to the family (and sponsor) friendly TV-PG rating. In-ring violence was muted, from chair shots to blood. Profanity and sexuality were all but removed from the discourse, and Cena’s “F-U” was rechristened the “Attitude Adjustment.”

Cena was positioned as the babyface who runs the place. His edges were sanded off until he was a kid-friendly goofball in colorful merch-stand-ready T-shirts and hats. Two decades after Hulk Hogan powered the then-WWF by telling fans to take their vitamins and say their prayers, Cena was the “PG Era” superhero preaching “Hustle, Loyalty and Respect.”

The backlash from cynical fans eventually arrived. They mocked Cena’s in-ring ability, calling his skillset “The Five Moves of Doom.” They rolled their eyes at the inevitability of his victories, eventually spawning the “Cena Wins LOL” meme. But their loathing wasn’t universal. Cena had very vocal supporters, many of them younger fans. This led to a routine chant that echoes through arenas today: Cena fans chanting “Let’s Go Cena!” and haters responding with “Cena sucks!”

The Nexus

John Cena played a key role in the WWE’s Nexus angle in 2010. David Gunn/Getty Images

In 2010, the WWE created a new show called “NXT.” The premise had veteran superstars mentoring young wrestlers in their developmental territory, with the goal to secure a WWE contract, which Wade Barrett won in the first season.

On June 7, 2010, Barrett walked down the entrance ramp as Cena wrestled CM Punk. Suddenly, six runners-up from NXT wearing matching armbands with the letter “N” stormed the barricades around the ring and assaulted everyone in sight, from wrestlers to announcers, whose absence lent the scene an eerie silence. They ripped the canvas from the ring and tore down the ropes. They all hit their finishers on Cena, who left on a stretcher.

The arrival of the Nexus in WWE was the single coolest debut by a stable since the heyday of the New World Order. They were disrupters targeting the establishment, and that establishment’s name was John Cena. They targeted him with attacks, putting the WWE’s white-meat babyface in serious peril, for a few months at least.

The most memorable thing about this era for Cena was how much more memorable it could have been. Two months after their debut, the Nexus faced “Team WWE” at SummerSlam in an elimination match that saw Cena overcome a 2-vs.-1 deficit to make Barrett tap out to his “STF” submission hold.

Everyone, from the fans to the wrestling media to the participants in that match, claimed that Cena’s win suffocated any momentum for the Nexus invasion angle. Their feud continued with the requisite melodrama — Cena was at one point both forced to join the Nexus and fired from the WWE by the Nexus — but the sense of danger created by their memorable debut was lost.

Whether or not Cena was the driving force behind that booking, the Nexus angle helped fuel a growing criticism that Cena would “bury” opponents and torpedo careers to keep himself looking strong.

There would be an interesting second chapter to the Nexus rivalry as CM Punk took over the group. Punk would feud with Cena for multiple years, including some championship matches. But not at WrestleMania. That was reserved for going one-on-one with the Great One.

Twice in a Lifetime vs. The Rock

John Cena and The Rock headlined back-to-back WrestleManias in 2012 and 2013. Ron Elkman/Getty Images

The Rock returned to the WWE in 2011 after seven years away and was announced as the host of WrestleMania XXVII. He and Cena began verbally sparring remotely, and when they got in the ring together on an episode of “Monday Night Raw” in March, Cena hit The Rock with an Attitude Adjustment.

Fast-forward to WrestleMania, where Cena wrestled The Miz for the WWE championship. That match ended in a double-count out until The Rock used his authority as host to restart the match, hitting a Rock Bottom on Cena to hand the win to Miz.

The next night on “Raw,” Cena challenged The Rock to a match. He accepted and then said it would take place a year later at WrestleMania XXVIII — easily the longest build for a match in WWE history.

While biding their time, Cena made The Rock his surprise tag team partner at Survivor Series to get revenge on Awesome Truth (The Miz and R-Truth), who had interfered in a Cena title match. The Rock helped Cena to a win, then promptly gave him a Rock Bottom.

Their match at WrestleMania XXVIII in Miami in April 2012 was billed as “Once in a Lifetime,” as the face of the Attitude Era battled the face of everything that came after it. Cena had been getting a split crowd reaction leading up to ‘Mania, but The Rock, who played college football nearby at the University of Miami, was cheered heavily with the home-field advantage. Cena was winning this match before losing in a rather poetic way. After a career of mocking his opponents, an exasperated Cena tried to finish off The Rock with a satirical “People’s Elbow” before the Brahma Bull came off the mat, delivered a Rock Bottom and pinned Cena.

The next year was a certified funk for Cena. He hadn’t held a title since October 2011. He lost high-profile matches to Punk, Dolph Ziggler, and most embarrassingly, “Raw” general manager John Laurinaitis. His fortunes changed when he won the 2013 Royal Rumble, giving him the right to challenge for a WWE title at WrestleMania. As The Rock held the WWE Championship, Cena chose to wrestle him, blaming the loss to The Rock at WrestleMania in Miami for his own career spiral.

So, twice in a lifetime, then.

The rematch was good, not great, and as expected, Cena got his revenge — and the WWE title for the 13th time.

The John Cena U.S. Open Challenge

Cena would drop the world title at SummerSlam in 2013 to Daniel Bryan and in 2014 to Brock Lesnar. With the championship picture now focused on wrestlers like Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins, Cena wrestled down the card at WrestleMania XXXI, winning the U.S. championship against Rusev. In the process, he began a new era, with a callback to his WWE debut when he answered an open challenge from Kurt Angle.

He began issuing “The John Cena U.S. Open Challenge,” inviting all opponents to challenge for the title by declaring, “You want some? Come get some.”

This led to some fun weekly theater, as fans anticipated which entrance themes would hit. Among the eclectic challengers were: Cody Rhodes in his “Stardust” phase, Jon Moxley in his “Dean Ambrose” phase and Sami Zayn in his “fan favorite still chasing his first WWE world title” phase, which is now in its 12th year.

This era was notable for one of Cena’s U.S. title losses at SummerSlam in 2015. He faced WWE world champion Rollins in a thrilling title vs. title match that ended after Cena took a chair to the stomach from [checks notes] “The Daily Show” host Jon Stewart, as one does.

Tying the record

John Cena defeated AJ Styles in 2017 to tie Ric Flair’s record for most world championships. Michael Marques/Getty Images

The emotions tied to history-making record chases have a funny way of superseding how fans normally feel about certain athletes.

Case in point: Not everyone around the NHL was an Alex Ovechkin fan during his career, but you couldn’t find a hockey fan who didn’t want to see him shatter Wayne Gretzky’s all-time goals record last season. Even Gretzky said he wanted to see it.

Within WWE kayfabe, Ric Flair held one of the most “unbreakable” records in wrestling, having won the world championship 16 times. (Just like Gretzky’s goals in the World Hockey Association were ignored, the actual total number of world titles for Flair was immaterial.) Cena’s opportunity to potentially break that record not only has defined his latter years in wrestling but helped curry favor with fans. Those “Let’s Go Cena!” chants got a little louder than the “Cena Sucks!” chants when history was on the line.

Look no further than the 2017 Royal Rumble, when Cena faced SmackDown World Champion AJ Styles in San Antonio. They had feuded for months, and this kiss-off was a terrific back-and-forth affair that ended with Cena delivering multiple AA’s to win and tie Flair’s record.

The crowd loudly celebrated the achievement, which Cena sold by embracing referee Charles Robinson. Cena soaked in the adulation and then went into the crowd, where he located a young fan wearing a Make-A-Wish Foundation shirt. Cena draped the belt around the fan’s shoulder and posed with him.

The Make-A-Wish Foundation is an indelible part of Cena’s legacy. In 2022, he entered the Guinness Book of World Records for granting the most wishes in the organization’s history, with 650 and counting. It was the unspoken counterbalance to every criticism levied against Cena in his career. There’s a point at which even the most jaded and cynical fan has to give it up for the guy who helped hundreds of sick kids.

Cena goes Hollywood

After tying Flair’s record, the next seven years saw Cena go from a wrestling superstar to a capital “S” Superstar.

Like 2017’s WrestleMania 33, for example, when he celebrated a mixed tag team win over The Miz and Maryse by proposing to his tag partner, Nikki Bella. Their relationship was chronicled on her reality show “Total Bellas” as was their breakup one year later, which thrust Cena into the world of celebrity tabloid fodder.

At the same time, his acting career was blowing up. In 2018, he starred in the comedy “Blockers” and then had a major role in the “Transformers” spinoff “Bumblebee.” But things really took off in 2021 when Cena joined the Dominic Toretto-verse in the ninth movie in the “The Fast and the Furious” franchise, “F9,” and when he donned a metal helmet to play obscure DC Comics anti-hero Peacemaker in “The Suicide Squad.” The foul-mouthed, hyperviolent character was then spun off into his own HBO series.

Peacemaker was a role 15 years in the making for Cena. It subverted the muscular bluster he’d perfected in WWE by not only becoming the butt of the jokes, but by having a streak of anxiety and melancholy that director James Gunn brought out in the spinoff series. Wrestlers were always underrated actors — in a just world, Paul Heyman would have at least one supporting actor Emmy by now — but Cena revealed layers that had never been glimpsed before.

Perhaps that’s why Cena’s in-ring work during this era also got a bit more surreal and introspective.

In 2020, he took on the late Bray Wyatt’s “The Fiend” character in a “Firefly Fun House” match, a trippy cinematic battle that spanned several eras of WWE history and served as a deconstruction of the Cena persona. That included one iconic, mind-blowing image: Cena dressed as a member of the nWo playing a spray-painted belt like a guitar as “Hollywood” Hulk Hogan once did.

Because John Cena had gone Hollywood, even if he hadn’t turned heel. Yet.

The retirement tour

After assisting Cody Rhodes in his WrestleMania XL main event against Roman Reigns in April of last year — and getting another Rock Bottom from The Rock for his efforts — Cena made a surprise appearance at Money in the Bank in July. He had an announcement to make: At the end of 2025, he would retire from being an in-ring performer.

Cena’s last reign as WWE world champion ended in 2017 so he was still tied with Flair at 16 title wins and the clock was now ticking. Could Cena break the record before saying farewell? Did he still have what it took to become a champion again at 47 years old?

Cena declared he would compete in the 2025 Royal Rumble to win a title shot. He entered at No. 23. Many assumed he’d win once he and Jey Uso were the final two competitors. But Cena was the last wrestler eliminated. In his post-event news conference, Cena declared he’d seek another title shot in the men’s Elimination Chamber match with an ominous justification: That winning the title is what’s “best for business,” which is as heel-coded a phrase as you’ll find in wrestling.

Cena was again in the final two in the Elimination Chamber, facing his old rival CM Punk, who had returned to WWE several months earlier. Cena won the match when Rollins, previously eliminated by Punk, returned to interfere with a stomp. As Jey Uso had already declared he would face Gunther for the World Heavyweight Championship at WrestleMania 41, meaning Cena would take on Rhodes for the Undisputed WWE Championship.

The heel turn

John Cena turned heel at Elimination Chamber and eventually won the WWE championship for a 17th time. Andrew Timms/Getty Images

At the end of Elimination Chamber, Rhodes came out to the ring to meet face-to-face with his WrestleMania challenger and to address whether he would give his eternal soul to The Rock.

OK, let’s explain. The Rock had been a tangential part of Rhodes’ feud with Reigns and the Bloodline, billing himself as “The Final Boss.” In a way, The Rock was the boss. Dwayne Johnson had joined the board of directors of TKO Group Holdings, holding considerable sway inside the company that owns WWE and UFC. In February, The Rock made a surprise appearance on “SmackDown” with a vaguely defined offer to make Rhodes his corporate champion in exchange for an even more vaguely defined payment. He said he wanted Cody’s “soul.”

With Rhodes and Cena in the ring after Elimination Chamber, The Rock appeared with rapper Travis Scott (sure) to demand an answer on that whole “give me your soul” thing. Rhodes told The Rock to do something to himself that certainly illustrated the WWE is not in the “PG Era” anymore.

Rhodes and Cena hugged. Cena looked over Cody’s shoulder at The Rock, who made a throat-slashing gesture. Cena’s face went stoic. He hit Rhodes with a low blow then led an attack on the champion with The Rock and Travis Scott (OK).

The seemingly impossible had happened: John Cena had turned heel again after two decades as a babyface.

The weeks leading up to WrestleMania had Cena cutting promos on the fans, using those decades of divisive crowd reactions to accuse them of taking him for granted. On March 17 at “Raw” in Brussels, Belgium, Cena uncorked an all-time promo, blasting the fans for what he called “an abusive relationship” for most of his career. “All you ever do is steal from me,” he said. “You steal my personal moments. You steal my time. You’ve made me your freaking toy. I’m an object to you. You have made me the butt of a stupid, invisible joke for 15 years, and you still think it’s funny. It’s not funny. It’s pathetic.”

While there was some scathing catharsis there, Cena would only take the heel act so far. He didn’t dramatically change his look or presentation.

Once again, crowd reaction shifted when history was on the line at WrestleMania. Cena entered as the villain but ended up with more crowd support than Rhodes. Thanks to interference from Travis Scott (never to be seen again in the WWE to date), Cena defeated Rhodes and broke Flair’s record with his 17th world championship.

The logic of this heel turn was fraught. The mechanics of it didn’t really work, including The Rock having no role in it after being its catalyst. The timing of it was weird, as Cena turned on the same fans that he praised during his retirement announcement. We’re still not sure about the whole soul-selling thing. But with all that established, Cena’s heel turn ranks among the most transcendently shocking moments in wrestling history.

Short-lived as it was.

The face turn

John Cena’s brief heel turn ended before his rematch against Cody Rhodes at SummerSlam. Elsa/Getty Images

Cena defended his title against Randy Orton, a classic rival from earlier in his career, and Punk before being confronted by Rhodes for a rematch at SummerSlam. And by “confronted” we mean “bullied into signing a contract that included a clause that it would be a street fight.”

On the “SmackDown” before SummerSlam, Cena went face-to-face with Rhodes … to thank him for finally knocking some sense into him.

“For 25 years, day in and day out, I have forged a reputation of hard work, honesty and respect. And I now realize that, five months ago, I flushed it all down the toilet chasing false glory when I bought into somebody’s crazy idea to make shocking TV,” Cena said.

“And we did. We shocked the world. We made great TV,” he continued. “But then the dust settles, and everybody goes back to their normal lives. And the people that were supposed to be on my team? They left. And they left me alone, trying to pretend that I’m something I’m not.”

Cena then declared that was the night when “John Cena came back to the WWE.”

He was right: The lack of involvement from The Rock, who was the catalyst for this storyline, left Cena having to do things like calling out the kids buying his T-shirts and threatening to “ruin” the sport that he loves. It had become fairly obvious that the heel persona was like Cena wrestling in jeans instead of jorts: ill-fitting.

Rhodes pinned Cena for the title at SummerSlam after a match that earned raves. Cena handed him the belt and hugged him — this time with no nefarious chicanery. After that, Cena lingered in the ring to say goodbye at his final SummerSlam … until Lesnar’s music hit to the shock of the crowd. One F-5 later, and Cena had a villainous beast to play the underdog against at Wrestlepalooza.

With the retirement tour nearing its end, a return to being the face that runs to the place was the obvious move. He was The Prototype. He was the Doctor of Thuganomics. He was a champion when the WWE was for mature audiences and when it cleaned up for the kids. He was a heel and he was a face during what will one day become a Hall of Fame career. Now, in the final matches of his final era, John Cena will retire with the only persona that really matters: As John Cena.

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