Awesome / John Cena

He's back.

John Cena in his decade spanning career has had ups and downs, successes and failures, but one can't deny he's pulled off some awesome stuff.

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• When he was the Pretty Fly for a White Guy "Doctor of Thuganomics".
• Most WWE Superstars only have one Cool Car, if at all. Cena and his partner Nikki Bella have AN ENTIRE COLLECTION of them. A full list of his cool car collection as of July 2015 can be found here
  • The coolest one of all is a custom made car built for him by Parker Brothers Concepts called the "Incenarator".
  • He owned one of Eddie Guerrero's lowriders for a few years as well, but gave it for free to Chavo after Eddie died.
  • Lest we forget that two of his WrestleMania entrances involved one in some way or another.
• His match with CM Punk at Money in the Bank 2011. While mostly the definitive Crowning Moment of Awesome for Punk (which covers a lot of ground), credit must be given to Cena for delivering a stellar performance for over half an hour.
  • Respected wrestling critic Dave Meltzer rated this match 5 Stars, the first match to get this rating since 2006 and the first WWE match to get this rating since 1997^note For those of you out there, the match that got that five stars was The Undertaker vs. Shawn Michaels in the first ever Hell in a Cell match (which was also, surprisingly, Kane's debut in the WWF).
  • And then there's at the end when Vince tries to repeat the Montreal Screwjob. Cena instantly runs out and decks John Laurinaitis to stop him from telling the timekeeper to end the match in Cena's favor. Sure, Cena lost because of it, but doesn't distract from the awesome.
    • One of the IWC's biggest complaints about Cena's character is his tendency to turn into The Cape. Then again, it did cost him the match, which no doubt did please the IWC a bit.
  • In fact, this match is so good, it's considered by many to be the greatest match of Cena's career, beating out both his matches with Shawn Michaels.
• His matches with Shawn Michaels in 2007.
  • One of his matches was a back and forth match that lasted 57 minutes (which is around 4 to 5 commercial breaks), with Shawn ultimately getting the pin.
  • This is the match which Chris Jericho credits with making him want to return later that year.
• Cena's Judgment Day '05 "I Quit" match with JBL. The match was brutal, with Cena's head completely covered in blood. However, by the end Cena took the win by threatening to kick JBL's ass with an exhaust pipe. Even after he won, Cena still hit him with the pipe.
• He Really Can Wrestle: Seems to have an incredible habit of pulling these whenever he has a brief slump.
  • After his title win at Wrestlemania 21, has the above-mentioned 'I Quit' match with JBL.
  • After he holds the title for a long stretch, jumping shows during it, has the One Night Stand vs Rob Van Dam.
  • Right after that, goes into his great feud with Edge, culminating with their brutal Tables, Ladders, and Chairs match.
  • Starts to slip again until he clashes with HBK that culminates in essentially an unannounced Iron Man Match in London.
  • Goes into a feud with Randy Orton, that ends in another, much more brutal Iron Man Match.
  • After an unsatisfying end to The Nexus, runs into CM Punk which started with the first Dave Meltzer 5-Star match for WWE in about a decade and basically hasn't stopped, with each match being quite superb.
  • His match with CM Punk on Raw in Febuary '13 was almost universally acclaimed, going over twenty minutes and ending in a clean pinfall finish without any of the chicanery or interference one would expect in an important main event. It was very refreshing and especially notable with the lack of smarks complaining that Cena was "carried" to a great match by a more talented opponent; in this case, both men put in a stellar effort and both were recognized for having one of the top ten Raw matches in the last decade.
  • 2015 was basically a whole year of this for Cena. Special mention goes to his feud with Kevin Owens and his show-stopping matches with Cesaro.
  • His matches against AJ Styles in 2016 and 2017.
• People remember that Punk during his feud with Cena gave some of the best promos possible but how can we forget some of Cena's impressive mic work on a particular night. On the 8/8/11 Raw, after Punk states that he will walk out WWE Champion and Cena will still have his legion of fans and WrestleMania match, Cena can only grin and offer Punk some advice.
  Cena: Fine speech. Do you realize how much pressure is on you this Sunday? No, no, no, no, no... You have no idea. Congratulations, Punk. You won one match, in Chicago, at Money in the Bank. You did a hell of a job. You beat me, straight out. You have every right to be called the WWE Champion. You ever thought about what happens if you just might lose at SummerSlam? Your little diatribe about me going on and facing Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson at WrestleMania is exactly correct. Win, lose, or draw, I'm headed to WrestleMania to face The Rock. You... You need this match. You need this more than anything in your life, because you now have people watching you. You have explained that that *points to the mic in Punk's hand* is a pipe bomb, and you speak your mind, and I commend you for that... But if you don't back it up when the bell rings, especially this Sunday, you know what you are? You're a loud-mouth one-hit wonder. You... You. You will be known as Buster Douglas, Yahoo Serious, Milli... *asks the crowd* What's the other guy? Vanilli. If you don't produce on Sunday with everything on the line, for you... All of this? *snaps his fingers* Gone, just like that. (signs the contract) Good luck.
• When Cena attacked Randy Orton in 2007.
• His first Wrestlemania with a win over The Big Show showed an early example of Cena's ability as a WWE Superstar.
• His car-park brawl with the late Eddie Guerrero.
• On the July 18, 2011 edition of RAW, Vince McMahon calls Cena to the ring to fire him. Cena doesn't let Vince get a word in edge wise, telling Vince to save his tirade for when he's finished. He then proceeds to lay into Vince with a picture perfect "The Reason You Suck" Speech, calling Vince out for trying to recreate the Montreal Screwjob and for the black mark said screwjob left on Shawn Michaels' career as a result. He goes on to tell Vince that he'd rather be fired than have the same happen to him. Even better, despite the fact Vince banned the saying of CM Punk's name due to his rage, Cena practically spits in Vince's face by thanking him for the great match directly in front of Vince! For the first time in a long time, the crowd was firmly behind Cena without one boo directed his way the entire promo!
• On the August 8, 2011 edition of RAW, he and CM Punk have a face off. Punk airs a video of the Rock bashing Cena over his Broken Base, then proceeds to do the same thing himself. Cena turns it around in a way that's completely in-character for him by pointing out the fact he likes being a Base-Breaking Character who can get that kind of reaction out of people because he enjoys seeing people really get into his matches. He then goes on by thanking Punk for his "you've become the New York Yankees!" insult after giving it some thought a couple of weeks back, he realized he was right, but in a way that Punk hadn't thought of, that he and the Yankees share their ability to get the crowd to be extremely vocal and involved. This got a huge pop from the crowd as well.
• Punk/Cena II from Summerslam 2011 suffered a bit of Sequelitis and probably would have never been as good at the first one, but objectively speaking, it was one of Cena's better matches by a long shot.
• In 2006 When he attacked Edge and threw him in the Long Island Sound.
  Cena: I AIN'T GOIN' NOWHERE!
• Cena coming to Rey Mysterio Jr.'s rescue by storming the ring and going berserk on Alberto Del Rio. It wasn't so much that moment as Cena's acting for it. He looked truly furious, which added to "The Reason You Suck" Speech that followed. The best part, the sighted reason for his rage was that Del Rio had kept trying to screw the new champion out of the title after a hard fought win, then turning tail and running the moment he sees they can still fight him until he finally found CM Punk in a position were he couldn't defend himself, then acting like he'd actually accomplished something. This perfectly fit Cena's angle in the past weeks, where he'd showed complete disdain for someone trying to take the easy way out to win the WWE title. It makes perfect sense for Cena to be furious that Alberto is acting like he actually earned the WWE title by waiting for someone to be completely defenseless and running off if he found out they weren't.
• John Cena vs. CM Punk III was another awesome match, which Cena managed to win this time.
• A lesser example; just about any time he's involved in a match with a particularly large opponent. If he doesn't hit his Finishing Move, he will at least get said large wrestler up onto his shoulders. The normal reaction to this is pretty predictable.
  • For example, the late Nelson Frazier, aka Viscera, was very well known for his massive, 500lb frame. And John went for it anyway, just to show you who the hell John freakin' Cena is.
  • One even more memorable moment was at WrestleMania 25, where he was in a Triple Threat match against Edge and The Big Show, where he lifted both of them on his shoulders for his AA. Edge was in the middle of trying to choke out Big Show and and jumped off before Cena AA'ed Big Show. In case you didn't notice, Cena had 700 pounds of human flesh on his shoulders before Edge ducked out of the way.
  • According to his My Life DVD, he got into a body building contest when he was around 15-16; he got second place because he looked too good.
  • Similarly, at Night of Champions 2011, Alberto Del Rio, who's roughly 240 pounds, locked Cena in his Crucifix Armbar, only for Cena to stand up while in the hold and give him a one-handed powerbomb. Especially awesome since the powerbomb is an actual Mixed Martial Arts counter to the juji-gatame.
• His debut against Kurt Angle. Kurt Angle was being his usual cocky self, claiming that he had beaten everyone there is to beat in the SmackDown locker room, and he was letting anyone from the back, who he hadn't went up against before, challenge him to a match. John Cena, looking like a local jobber coming out to jobber music got in the ring with an angry look on his face. Kurt Angle asked who he was. Cena responds by saying his name, and the crowd couldn't be more dead. Angle then asked what he thought it took to get in to the ring with "the very best in the business". Cena then yelled "RUTHLESS AGGRESSION!" (a Call-Back to Vince McMahon's speech which opened up that week's Raw) and proceeded to beat the crap out of Kurt Angle. Of course, Angle won, but the match proved that Cena wasn't just your everyday jobber.
  • And to everyone's amazement, he actually was able to get out of both the Ankle Lock and the Angle Slam, and lost to a basic roll-up. And remember, this was his first TV match in WWE.
  • The aftermath of the match cannot be understated, either. Despite losing Cena presents himself a good sport and offers a handshake to Kurt, who blows him off and mocks him for it. When Cena gets backstage he’s greeted by a few wrestlers (such as Ron Simmons, Rikishi, guys who are legitimate tough guys) who shake his hand and tell him he did a good job. Then the Undertaker walks up, offers Cena a handshake, and compliments his performance. It should be noted that handshakes are serious business in the wrestling business. It’s etiquette for wrestlers to offer handshakes to veteran wrestlers. So for the Undertaker to offer a handshake to Cena —the veteran offering a handshake to the rookie — was huge.
• Turning Awesome Truth's Breaking Speech back on them with a "The Reason You Suck" Speech, successfully using their own egos to turn them on one another. To put it in perspective: Cena successfully brought an end to one of the most dangerous alliances in WWE currently without even laying so much as a finger on either Miz or R-Truth.
• Cena has superhuman recovery. His first major injury required surgery and at least six months of no wrestling. This was in October 2007, just before his match against Orton at No Mercy. Fast forward to the Royal Rumble, which took place on January 27, 2008. Guess who's both No. 30 and winner of said rumble?
  • Also, when he broke his neck in a match at SummerSlam against Batista. It was the week after that the announcement was made, that he broke his neck. Cena was back in time for Survivor Series. Also, the day after the surgery, he was up and walking and went to see the other wrestlers at the SmackDown tapings.
• After weeks of psychological attacks, physical beatdowns, and having to witness his friend Zack Ryder get destroyed by Kane, Cena finally got a measure of retribution on the Big Red Monster during the 1/30/12 edition of Raw, delivering a satisfying No-Holds-Barred Beatdown, causing Kane to go into retreat for the first time since he made his return in December 2011. The only question that remains is whether or not Cena will actually give into hatred just like Kane wants him to.
• 2/20/12 Raw: Eve Torres explains to the Bella Twins—in the opening segment of RAW—how she's gonna use John Cena the same way she used Zack Ryder. This even unnerves the Bellas, and just as she plans on putting her scheme into motion, she turns around...and Cena is right there, having heard the entire thing. Cue Cena going out to the ring, and taking Eve to task for her atrocious behavior, telling her "I lost a Broski to a Hoeski!", and driving her to an utter Villainous Breakdown while the crowd, firmly behind the Man Scorned Ryder, boo her into oblivion. And then she tries to throw herself at Cena:
  Cena: For your information, I'm disease-free; I'd like to keep it that way!
• The night before, Cena fought Kane in an Ambulance Match during the Elimination Chamber pay-per-view, and decisively defeated the monster, more than likely rising above the hate, rather than embrace it, as Kane has constantly been preaching to Cena during the feud.
• What we didn't know at the time was Cena's promo with Eve was his warm-up, because later that night he delivered a promo that many consider the best of his career or at least the best promo of 2012 to date. With his Wrestlemania opponent The Rock in his crosshairs, Cena came out to his usual mixed reaction and chants of "ROCKY! ROCKY! ROCKY!" when he brought up that the Rock would be live on RAW next week to talk to him. Cena immediately went on the offensive, claiming that at one point, he was a Rock fan too, until the Rock transformed into "Dwayne Johnson" and made it all about his movie career. Cena reminded the fans that just like when the Rock returned to announce he was hosting Wrestlemania 27 and said he was "Never going away again" and left, that that was exactly what was going to happen after Cena/Rock at Wrestlemania 28, because originally "he had only come back to promote Fast Five and launch his twitter account." Reminding the crowd that he was here to stay, Cena delivered perhaps the most shocking moment to smarks everywhere when he said he was looking forward to this match for the dream of every person in the back who had a dream of making a career being not a "WWE Superstar" as the talent is expected to call themselves, but a PROFESSIONAL WRESTLER, then concluded with a guarantee that the headline will read John Cena defeats the Rock in his hometown at Wrestlemania 28. He then said "I'll see you next week, movie star." into the camera, and walked out of the ring. And then Smark Wrestling marks everywhere looked at each other and said "Wait...I think I might like John Cena..." Watch the promo here.
• When he slapped Triple H in 2006.
• Four words: "Carry on. Continue trending."
• March. 12. 2012. It wasn't enough that the Monday Night RAW broadcast started with Jerry Lawler announcing the return of "Thuganomics" and Cena coming out in his original theme and wearing the chain, cap, and throwback jersey combo of his original gimmick. No military salute, and wearing an obvious snarl on his face. But then Cena lived up to billing, winding back the clock nine years and delivering one of the classic battle rap promos that helped catapault him to superstardom..not to mention leaving the PG image (of which he has become a symbol) battered, bruised, and bloodied in his wake - all in less than five minutes. Short as it was, it had everything. Visual Puns, (he threw his nuts at the camera), words that couldn't air on television, and even a few words that did air on television that were downright shocking for anyone who know what they meant. (And if you don't, do NOT google "Cleveland Steamer." You Do Not Want To Know.) The kicker of the night was Cena's Badass Boast: And no, I don't have balls, but I got something in their place. I'mma beat your ass at Wrestlemania and put my nuts dead in your face!
  • Even the fans who had loudly booed him when he came out were either applauding the promo by the end or stunned into silence by it.
• Cena interrupted John Laurinaitis and Brock Lesnar, walked right up to the middle of the ring and slapped the latter in the face. Without prior provocation (at least on that night). He then persisted in seeking him out during the almighty brawl that followed - all while sporting a bloody mouth. That took guts and he was still smiling. After being Low blowed and later F5'd, he tweets after it ends "that was an interesting Raw."
• Whatever people think of Cena's workrate, let it never be said he won't take a real ass-whoopin for the company. Case in point: Brock Lesnar's return match at Extreme Rules. 30 seconds and 3 clean elbows in, Cena is busted open hardway from the head. He then eats more elbows, stiff clotheslines, getting dumped off the turnbuckle upside down while his feet were chained...and still pulled a win out of his ass thanks to an opportune chain shot to the head of Lesnar followed by an Attitude Adjustment ON the steel steps. Even the Chicago crowd, which had the usual Cena split, were firmly behind Cena at the end with the damage he was wearing at the hands of Brock's No-Holds-Barred Beatdown that blurred the line of stiff work and shooting. The best part of Cena's win over Lesnar? Not only did he defeat a man brought in with the sole purpose of taking him out, but he got the most venomously smarky crowd in the US on his side. He finally did what he had set out to do, he had finally risen above the hate.
• On May 14, 2012, he verbally tears John Laurinaitis apart. He starts with calling Laurinaitis a loser, and listing how every plan he's had since Wrestlemania had utterly failed, and calling him out on his It's All About Me mentality and on firing Big Show for mocking his voice. It gets better as when Laurinaitis tries to cheat and add some unfair stipulation to the match, the board of directors cut him off at the pass, cutting off every conceivable way for him to cheat, the announcement of which John pulls out of his hand and reads to the entire crowd. The entire crowd was behind him on this one.
  • Three words: (to Laurinitis) Go puck yourself.
  • The SmackDown before No Way Out, Cena finally got his physical revenge and laid Laurinitis out despite (or perhaps encouraged by) threats of being fired.
• Crosses over with Heartwarming. According to Brodus Clay, they were gonna cut his dance sequence at WrestleMania, John Cena who were nearby heard, and said if Brodus weren't going out for his bit, neither would he. And thus Brodus got to dance.
• Finally getting rid of John Laurinaitis by defeating The Big Show at No Way Out.
• The following night on Raw, we got a repeat of No Way Out, with Cena giving Laurinaitis one final send off of three Attitude Adjustments at the end of the night's main event.
• Every single one of his entrances at WrestleMania post 21. Every year he puts on something unique.
  • Wrestlemania 22: Had a Mafia-style entrance complete with suits, a car, rifles and even an uncredited CM Punk (22 took place in Chicago, the hometown of both Punk and the criminal empire of Al Capone, on whom Cena based the entrance). Note that the Tommy gun Cena fired was real. Loaded with blanks, but real.
  • Wrestlemania 23: Drove a Mustang at high speed through the streets into the arena blasting through the Wrestlemania 23 glass panel.
  • Wrestlemania 24: Had the Jones High School Marching Tigers perform his entrance music.
  • Wrestlemania 25: Had a legion of people dressed like him line up on both sides of the aisle to his Thuganomics entrance music. His actual music hit and he ran down the aisle between them as they all performed his "You can't see me" gesture. As well as a possible Shout-Out to The Real Slim Shady it was described by Jerry Lawler as perhaps the best entrance he'd ever seen.
  • Wrestlemania 26: The US Air Force honor guard drill team performed a rifle-trick routine where the captain marched up and down the rows of twirling, loaded, bayonetted rifles before Cena entered as they all saluted.
    Matt Striker: WOW!!!
  • Wrestlemania 27: Had a choir sing just before he entered.
  • Wrestlemania 28: Machine Gun Kelly performed Invincible before John entered with a video of the career highlights of John Cena behind Kelly.
• On the 9/10/2012 Raw, Cena was in the main event giving a promo with Bret Hart and CM Punk, in Canada. Cena not only gets the notoriously fickle Canadian crowd on his side, he manages to out-shoot CM Punk. Cena even managed all this the night of Jerry Lawler's heart attack, which is really a CMOA for all three men.
• On October 15, 2012, Cena shuts CM Punk's mouth by roaring a very loud "ENOUGH!" And after that, he slams his words down and encourages Ryback to accept the challenge in the Hell in a Cell match.
• In a fun promo, John Cena calls out Mark Henry and Christian for their continuous begging for title shots by showing them 'real whining.' There's some extra amusement for fans of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, who saw something similar happen on the show.
• He wrestled CM Punk yet again on the February 25, 2013 edition of RAW, for the #1 contendership to the WWE Title, and thus a shot at The Rock at Wrestlemania. They wrestle yet another classic and an instant favorite for TV match of the year, and both dug deep into their arsenals of moves. Punk proved he knew Cena so well that he countered his trademark shouldertackle to send him flying out of the ring and resurrected the pile driver, and Cena brought out a Batista Bomb (sitout powerbomb), a Benoit-style crossface, and even (for the second time ever) a flying headscissors takedown. Cena capped it all off by getting his first win against Punk since MITB shortly after SummerSlam 2011, and is now looking to redeem himself against The Rock. And the Fridge Brilliance of how the match was wrestled made it even more awesome. Cena's usual techniques didn't work because he and Punk had wrestled so many matches against each other, most of which have seen Punk counter Cena's usual routine on a regular basis, so it was as if Cena realized that it would take using a couple of moves Punk hadn't seen used against him before in order to finally beat him.
• The Legends Q&A with Bret Hart, Booker T, Mick Foley and Dusty Rhodes on Raw 3/25/13, They asked Cena and The Rock a bunch of questions, but the real kicker was that Cena was speaking in a more aggressive voice and said The Rock knows that he is better then him and that at Wrestlemania he wants to dominate The Rock. Instead of his usual cheerfulness, he was very visibly upset and terse, looking and stopping just short of actually saying he would do or give up anything to win...
• The 04/08/13 Raw immediately following WrestleMania shows us why Cena is one of the very best mike workers in the industry. To begin with, he was in the ring following his winning the WWE title the night before and standing in front of a very hostile crowd filled floor to ceiling with Smarks giving him deafening chants of "Bor~ing! Bor-ing!" after about thirty seconds. He kept his cool, telling the crowd, "No, the Raw after Wrestlemania is anything but boring!", a line that got a bit of a chuckle. He said he wanted to dance to celebrate, going through a few moves and ending with a "heel turn", literally turning his ankle in a dance move. By now the crowd was shifting over. By the time Mark Henry came out to make his interruption and Cena insulted him a few times and played along with a few more crowd chants, the crowd was fully on his side. That all ended by the time he got back backstage of course, but there probably doesn't exist anybody else in the business who could take a crowd from full hostility all the way to laughing and support as completely as he did.
• Cena has done this several times since then. Quite often, he'll perform on Raw to a hostile crowd with little to no interest in anything he has to say. More often than not, he'll win them over or at least make them benevolently neutral with a masterful display of showing just enough anger and/or intensity to be interesting, but not so much that he completely breaks his heroic persona. He has even done this while feuding with Daniel Bryan, who in terms of drawing interest from the educated fan is the absolute worst person to be paired against; Bryan is the technically savvy indy darling while Cena in many eyes represents the worst of the "main event" wrestling culture. In one August '13 promo against each other, Bryan tears Cena down for being a parody of "pure" wrestling. In turn, Cena acknowledges his critics and their reasons for disliking him, even using the phrase "Five Moves of Doom" to describe his own style and telling the crowd that those complaints have merit. He goes on to show that he is not like other vanilla faces who are deaf to their critics, but brings up a sizeable portion of the crowd that does support him, and that if he can't win over one, he'll keep on wrestling for the other; again, showing just enough intensity to be interesting, but not so much as to break character. In short, it's a easy for someone like The Rock to come in and get deafening cheers nowadays without having to try all that hard, but Cena consistently wins over crowds while working with a handicap.
• Not something Cena himself did, but the way a monster heel was able to singlehandedly turn a divided crowd in favor of Cena by being such a colossal jerk. On the April 24, 2012 Raw, Brock Lesnar presented John Laurinaitis with his list of demands, including being flown around in Vince McMahon's private jet, being named "the new face of WWE" and having the show renamed Monday Night Raw Featuring Brock Lesnar. At the start of the segment, the crowd was clearly in its usual "Let's Go Cena"/"Cena Sucks" mode. By the time Lesnar was fully into his ego trip, the crowd was firmly booing Brock and supporting Cena.
• Before SummerSlam 2013, John Cena was informed that he had a torn triceps that would need surgery. He was told to go home, get the surgery, and they would cancel the WWE title match at SummerSlam. Cena refused, and went through with the match. And it was another classic in a long career of classic matches by Cena. Even though he lost to Daniel Bryan, he did not use the arm injury as an excuse. Instead, he came on Raw the very next day (with a swelling the size of a softball on his elbow) and informed the WWE Universe that he could no longer put off the surgery, and would be gone for four to six months. He may have lost the title, and he may not be on WWE Programming for a few months, but he definitely went out on a high note.
• Cena once again returns months ahead of schedule, and beats Alberto Del Rio for the World Heavyweight Title at the 2013 edition. To make things more awesome, the very next night, Damien Sandow cashes in Money in the Bank... and loses after an epic clash. "THIS IS AWESOME" indeed.
• Cena pulling off a bunch of new moves against The Real Americans and Damien Sandow on the 11/4/13 edition of Raw, proving his haters wrong of only doing five moves all the time.
• Cena attacking Alberto Del Rio on the 11/18/13 Raw.
• At Survivor Series 2013, him and Randy Orton having a epic staredown while Cena holds the World Heavyweight title and Orton holds the WWE title. It's just, EPIC.
• On the 12/2/13 Raw, after a contract signing for the Champion VS Champions match at TLC, Cena and Orton starting fighting, after putting Orton through Two tables, Cena stands over Orton holding both the WWE and World Heavyweight Championships.
• In 2009, after fighting Chris Jericho and Big Show in a gauntlet match, Orton's the last one to come out after Cena got beat up and laying on the ground, and then Cena points up and the cell comes down. Orton tries to escape before the cell came down but Cena stops him. Then Orton was so close to escaping but he was too late and he had a Oh, Crap! look. he tries to escape again through the door but Cena stops him again. Orton then climbs up on top of the cell with Cena doing the same. After trading punches Cena FU's Orton on top of the cell.
• The speech he gave on the December 9th episode of Raw against Randy Orton.
• 12/23/13: He, CM Punk, and Big E. Langston team up to fight against The Shield, finishing with the first two using the Attitude Adjustment and the Go To Sleep on Ambrose and Rollins. The speech they gave earlier is like what the Shield would often do on camera, and they do the fist bump they usually did.
• 1/20/14: Cena destroying Orton and throwing him into the crowd and even outside with Orton escaping in a car.
• In 2006, Cena OWNING all of his haters by telling them to kiss his ass. Watch it here in all its glory.
• A non-wrestling related one, but this is him voice-acting for the first time as Hunter Cain, Playing Against Type.
  • On a similar note, this WWE 2K15 commercial that has Cena reciting a poem by Dylan Thomas, out of character and completely straight. It is surprisingly and effectively chilling, with bonus points for the appropriateness to Cena himself, as a character and a person.
  • Playing himself in Scooby-Doo! WrestleMania Mystery. While not as dynamic, he still does a damned decent job.
  • And here's him singing a parody of the Major General Song as Baron Draxum from Rise of the TMNT. Who knew this guy could sing?
• 3/10/14: John Cena and Hulk Hogan being in the same ring!
• 3/24/05: John Cena owning JBL by cutting off his tie, pouring water in his hat then dumping it over JBL's head, spray painting "FU" on his shirt and spraying "JBL SUCKS" on his limo. Watch it here.
  John Cena: There are those who talk about it, and there are those who, BE, ABOUT IT!
• 3/10/05: John Cena coming out furious and with a pipe because JBL destroyed his US spinner belt. Then Teddy Long comes out and says JBL and his gang are not coming out then Cena did the FU to him. And his Pre Ass Kicking One Liner is extremely epic.
  John Cena: Either you part of the solution or, you part of the problem... And sense you ain't lettin' JBL come out... YOU PART O' THE PROBLEM!
• 3/31/14: John Cena owning the Wyatt Family by wearing a sheep mask then taking it off for a surprise attack.
• John Cena defending his legacy by beating Bray Wyatt at Wrestlemania 30.
• His rebuttal to Dolph Ziggler and Vickie Guerrero calling him and AJ 'two weak losers'.
  "No! No, Dolph, you two deserve each other, because you're the exact opposite: one enjoys eating a lot of nuts, and the other is still looking to find his. Good day to you, sir."
• On May 26, 2014, Cena and The Usos manage to save Jerry Lawler from the Wyatt Family in an awesome Big Damn Heroes moment. In fact, much of the audience had started cheering for them after what the Wyatts did to JBL and almost did to Lawler.
• 6/9/14: John Cena teams up with Dean Ambrose and Roman Reigns for the first time ever against the Wyatt Family.
• Becoming a 15 time world champion.
• The Summerslam 2014 loss doesn't do much for his championship cred or his win/loss record. However, the sheer beating he took from Brock Lesnar deserves some credit. It's actually a little difficult to find people bagging his performance, that's how impressive it was. Lesnar's signature move during this match was the German suplex, a dangerous maneuver that can go horribly wrong if you land on your head. Cena took not one, not two, but 16 German suplexes. The fact that he was willing to take that much abuse and risk for a glorified squash won a lot of smark fans over.
  • Cena also won another unlikely person over with his SummerSlam performance....Paul Heyman! The night after, during Heyman and Lesnar's victory speech, Heyman put over Cena HUGE, pointing out that Cena's been a constant main eventer (and in Heyman's own words "the single greatest fighting champion in WWE history") for a decade, longer than the likes of the Rock and Stone Cold, and that most people (possibly including those two) would have likely quit after taking such an asskicking from Lesnar, but Cena NEVER QUIT. Heyman then followed all that up by saying Cena earned his respect and admiration, that his kids were John Cena fans and now he understood why, and that if he had the time, he would love to make JOHN CENA A PAUL HEYMAN GUY. You couldn't buy better praise than that.
  • Also, when Paul says "When John Cena says 'Never Give Up', John Cena means 'NEVER GIVE UP'", he looks right at Brock, and Brock appears to be silently agreeing (even if Paul later said he didn't).
• Winning a 3-on-1 handicap match against Seth Rollins, Big Show and Kane by smartly using Sting's unexpected appearance. While everyone's distracted by his entrance, Cena uses the opportunity to pin an unsuspecting Rollins, winning the match and winning back the jobs of Erick Rowan, Dolph Ziggler and Ryback. Everyone, audience included, doesn't even notice the pin until after the countdown finishes. After which, Cena disappears into the audience before any retribution can be delivered, while Triple H freaks out and Sting looks on.
• He played a pretty damn good role at Royal Rumble 2015, as he and Seth Rollins and Brock Lesnar put on what many consider to be a classic triple-threat match for the WWE title. When Cena can go, he can fucking go.
• In retrospect, that triple threat match was the beginning of an incredible in-ring renaissance for John Cena in 2015, that really kicked into high gear after his (particularly acclaimed in their own right) pair of matches at Fastlane 2015 and Wrestlemania 31 with Rusev where he ultimately won the US title. With his weekly US Championship Open Challenge on Raw, John Cena put on good-to-great matches with midcarders, main-eventers, Sami Zayn of all people, and even gave Zack Ryder one more night in the limelight. It culminated with his matches with Kevin Owens that absolutely tore the house down. At the time of this writing, Cena shows no signs of slowing down.
  • Money in the Bank. Cena vs, Owens. Not only was it an excellent match from both wrestlers where they both busted their ass off and giving their all, but for those who thought John Cena has limited movesets, the new moves he pulled off in this match had people wondering whether he had this in his repertoire all along. He managed to do such moves as: a reverse suplex, a frankensteiner, an electric chair suplex, a flying top rope DDT, and the most insane of all, a FREAKING CANADIAN DESTROYER/ CODE RED. Holy. Freaking. Shit.
• His two matches with Cesaro for the US Title - especially the second, which main-evented RAW on July 6, 2015 in Chicago. Cesaro and Cena put on a big PPV-quality, near-45-minute epic in which they threw everything including the kitchen sink at each other. Cesaro brought his biggest, deepest bag of tricks to Chicago with him and Cena did his level best to match him.
• His main event match with Seth Rollins on the July 27, 2015 episode of Raw. Not only do the two have an excellent match against one another where Cena retained his title, but Cena was able to finish the match in spite of getting a broken nose that was bleeding profusely after Rollins decked him with a kick.
  • 08/17/15: Cena came back after this injury to challenge Rollins for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship, cutting a blistering promo that called upon the legacy of Triple H - and by extension, his mentor, Ric Flair - and the pressure that was on Rollins to continue this legacy:
  John Cena: I am a fifteen time. World. Heavyweight. Champion. *smirk* And you see where I'm going with this, you see: I designed this stuff months ago 'cause I figured there was no chance in hell I was ever getting close to that championship again, until Captain Morgan over here opened his BIG FAT STUPID MOUTH. Payback for me is the easiest thing ever - I show up Sunday, and I do what I do. I win. I win, and I become the World Heavyweight Champion for the sixteenth time. And this Sunday, when you lose, you lose. Because the all-time championship record is held by your mentor, a man that passed his legacy to you: Ric Flair. This Sunday, I'm gonna prove you wrong. You ain't the future, you're a footnote. You are the absolute answer to a trivia question. All you are ever gonna be is "Who did John Cena beat to become the sixteen time World Heavyweight Champion?" It's starting to sink in, isn't it? It's starting to weigh on you. You see, Sunday's not just a match, Sunday you fight to protect everything: the past, the present and the future of this man's legacy. Bestowed upon him by Ric Flair, he is trying to bestow it upon you. There is one major difference here. Triple H was never Ric Flair's bitch. This Sunday, I'mma make you mine.'' *mic drop*
• Raw, 7/11/16. John Cena was in LA earlier in the day, doing rehearsal for his role as host of the ESPYs. Raw, meanwhile, was in Detroit. The Club alluded to this in their promos, pointing out before Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson got into the ring with Enzo Amore and Big Cass that they had the numbers advantage — AJ Styles was in their corner, and Cena wasn't even in the same state, and went further trying to sow discord by using it as evidence that Cena doesn't care about them after they stuck their necks out for him the previous week. The match starts, and everything goes to hell as AJ gets involved, causing the ref to hand the win to Enzo and Cass via DQ, when Styles throws Cass into the crowd and the three begin to circle Enzo like buzzards. Then the music hits. Cena and Cass get back into the ring to bail Enzo out, and the three of them drive the Club out of the ring. And the kicker? The entire crowd was CHEERING. None of the typical mixed reaction Cena gets. Everyone was overjoyed to see him prove the Club wrong and help out his newfound allies.
• Royal Rumble 2017: HE DID IT. John Cena not only gets a win over AJ Styles, but he becomes the second ever SIXTEEN TIME WORLD CHAMPION. And nobody in the Alamodome booed him, because it was earned in a fantastic, roof blowing match.
  • And the cherry on top: congratulations from the Nature Boy Ric Flair himself.
• John Cena giving his promo for his Payback 2015 match against Rusev to a hostile Montreal crowd who'd rather sing "Ole, ole ole!" and cheer "Sami Zayn" shows how great he is on the mic. He was able to turn them around and start caring for what he's saying, showing how much he has grown from the guy who got booed off the building at ECW One Night Stand 2006 for his match against RVD.
• His much-anticipated match against Shinsuke Nakamura on the 1 August 2017 edition of SmackDown! LIVE. A botched Exploder suplex from Nakamura drops Cena on his NECK and he still manages to finish the match (which he lost). Nakamura apologizes for the accidental botch afterward, to which Cena replied in earnest "Don't be sorry." What a man.
  • On the other hand, one way to win clean against Super Cena would be to suplex him on the back of his neck Japanese strong style.
  • In fairness to Cena, he literally no sold the botch like it was nothing, living up to his own Kayfabe capabilities. It also helps that he has the thickest of neck muscles.
  • For comparison, here is the botched Exploder suplex done on John Cena and here is the correctly done Exploder suplex done on Dolph Ziggler. Cena apparently did not rotate his body well enough to make it into an Exploder.
• It's official. John Cena vs. Roman Reigns at No Mercy 2017. The contract signing promo between these two on the 8/28/17 edition of RAW must be seen to be believed as Cena completely destroys Roman while pissing all over Kayfabe at the same time.
  • While Reigns raised some decent points back at Cena, the showdown was considered such a brutal Curb-Stomp Battle in Cena's favour that when Gallows and Anderson were sent out to interrupt proceedings and get put into a tag match against Cena and Reigns, people joked that Cena was being put into a handicap match against them.^note Because he'd completely murdered Roman.
• His complete tearing into Maryse right before WrestleMania 33 was fantastic to watch. For context, Maryse had been pushed as Divas' Champion in 2009-2010 and had gone down as an infamous Faux Action Girl - visibly putting no effort into her matches while other Divas struggled for TV time (and as if to prove John's point she would serve the same role in the eventual mixed tag match). While the women's division evolved, and many of the 'Diva' types became good wrestlers, Maryse became a valet instead. To have her read the riot act by the company's top guy is satisfying for many who loathed her status as the Creator's Pet.
  "The reason they didn't want you back is because when you were here before, you didn't do jack. You don't believe me, get on the WWE Network right now and search for 'Best of Maryse'."
• His return to WWE at Money in the Bank 2021. John Cena has not been seen on WWE television since Wrestlemania 36, for fifteen months, and even longer since he's been in front of a live crowd. So its only fitting that he returns to the first pay-per view in front of live audiences to arguably the biggest crowd reaction of his entire career. And there's no "John Cena sucks" from the crowd either, the audience were absolutely ecstatic to see him return. And to put the icing on the cake, he completely overshadowed Roman Regins' successful title defense against Edge a few minutes prior.
  • Considering that the last time he was seen was losing to Bray Wyatt in the Firefly Funhouse match, this means that he overcame the Mind Screw and Mind Rape placed on him and returned, stronger than ever.

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