A lot of the buzz surrounding John Cena heading into WrestleMania 41 revolves around his heel turn. It’s true, fans may well be looking at a different version of Cena from the one they have come to know over the last twenty-plus years. However, in casting an eye back to 2005 and Cena’s initial rise to the top of the card with his first world title win, there are actually some striking similarities in play. Yes, Cena will be chasing the very same title that he won at WrestleMania 21 and that he’s been largely synonymous for two decades. That’s not where the similarities end though.
A Lot Has Changed For John Cena In The Last Twenty Years
John Cena Went From A Rising Star To An Institution
- John Cena first rose to prominence as a heel, but ascended to become a credible WrestleMania title contender after a face turn in late 2003.
- John Cena remained a babyface all the way to 2025, and in so doing became the face of WWE.
- Cena is now heel again and has more buzz behind him than he’s had in a very long time.
Naturally, John Cena walks in to WrestleMania 41 with a very different public persona than he had at WrestleMania 21. In 2005, Cena was a rising star who’d found his footing a heel, then leveled up as a babyface. He entered the show of shows in a dead heat with Batista to become the new top babyface as each man awaited his coronation, challenging a top heel for a world title.
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Fast-forward to 2025, and Cena had a historic two-decade-plus babyface run. Rather than challenging to win his first world title, he is a sixteen-time world champion, challenging for the right to become sole record holder as the most decorated world champion of all time. Moreover, between his wrestling stardom and his forays into Hollywood, Cena is a bona fide household name whom casual, lapsed, and even non-fans alike generally know. Despite these differences, Cena also finds himself staring down a fair bit of history, oddly enough, repeating itself.
John Cena’s Road To A WrestleMania Title Shot Was Similar
John Cena Main Evented WrestleMania Without Winning The Royal Rumble
- John Cena was the top runner-up to Batista in a controversial, messy 2005 Royal Rumble.
- Cena was again the last man eliminated from the Rumble when Jey Uso upset him in 2025.
- Both times, John Cena won his WrestleMania title shot at the last PLE before WrestleMania.
The most traditional route to winning one’s first world title at WrestleMania is to win the Royal Rumble and earn that title opportunity. It was the road traveled by Shawn Michaels, Steve Austin, Batista, Rey Mysterio, Drew McIntyre, and Cody Rhodes. In hindsight, it’s actually kind of strange that Cena didn’t walk this path—probably the biggest star in wrestling history to win his first world championship at ‘Mania without having won a Rumble first (only Randy Savage and The Ultimate Warrior really have a credible case against him).
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Cena didn’t win the Rumble this year either. And yet here he is, twenty years later, chasing a Plan B and still finding his way to the big dance. In both 2005 and 2025, Cena was the Royal Rumble first runner-up who came within a hair of winning. The first time around, he and Batista had a memorable double-elimination before The Animal won after a re-start. This year, Cena had Jey Uso up on his shoulders standing on the apron, only for the underdog to narrowly escape elimination and prevail.
Notably, Cena is now a two-time Rumble winner, from his triumphs in 2008 and 2013. His record of converting those Rumble wins to world titles at ‘Mania is .500 as he failed against Randy Orton (and Triple H) at WrestleMania 24 and beat The Rock in 2013. Cena may then be just as well walking into WrestleMania 41 as a Rumble runner-up and Elimination Chamber winner, just as he was a Rumble runner-up and tournament winner twenty years ago, who last beat Kurt Angle in the tournament final during the last PLE before that year’s WrestleMania.
John Cena Is Facing A Champion With Some Similarities
JBL And Cody Rhodes Have More In Common Than Fans Might Think
- JBL was a brash heel, but also portrayed a patriotic character who headed his Cabinet faction.
- Cody Rhodes carries the nickname The American Nightmare and regularly wears red, white, and blue gear.
- Both JBL and Cody Rhodes came to defend their first world title against John Cena as long reigning champs.
John Cena walked into WrestleMania 21 going up against reigning champion JBL. The brash, big-mouthed Texan was a heel. He was also prominently patriotic, though, including leading a faction called The Cabinet, casting Orlando Jordan as his Chief of Staff, The Basham Brothers as his Co-Sectretaries of Defense, and alternately Amy Weber as his Image Consultant or Jillian Hall as his Publicist. The implication was clear that JBL’s character was associated enough with his brand of national pride that he saw himself, as champion, also serving as president.
WrestleMania 41 is set to see Cena challenge babyface Cody Rhodes. There are a lot of differences between the young face champion and JBL, his heel ancestor. Common threads emerge too, though. After all, Rhodes goes by the moniker The American Nightmare and comes to the ring in red, white, and blue entrance gear and tights.
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On top of that, JBL’s 280-day title reign made him the longest reigning WWE Champion in a decade. While Rhodes hasn’t come close to matching the man he unseated as WWE Champion, Roman Reigns, for a marathon reign, he will still walk into WrestleMania with a year-plus reign under his belt, marking another longstanding world champion for Cena to overcome. Additionally, it’s true for both JBL in 2005 and Rhodes now in 2025 that it’s a first-time world title reign.
WrestleMania 41 Marks The Return To A Major West Coast City After A WrestleMania Drought
Las Vegas Hosts WrestleMania For The First Time 32 Years
- Los Angeles hadn’t hosted a WrestleMania in many years when Cena got his first ‘Mania world title shot.
- The last time Las Vegas hosted WrestleMania was in 1993.
- Both Los Angeles and Las Vegas are tourist destinations.
In addition to the Road to WrestleMania and the reigning champion looking somewhat similar for John Cena twenty years apart, there are also some interesting commonalities in the city he’s challenging for the title in. In 2005, Los Angeles garnered its first WrestleMania since 1991 (or since 1996 if one were to consider Anaheim close enough to count as the same metropolitan era).
In 2025, Las Vegas will recover from an even longer WrestleMania drought as the first and only preceding WrestleMania in Sin City came all the way back in 1993 when bizarre booking around Hulk Hogan and Yokozuna capped an all-time lackluster show. So, both WrestleMania 21 and 41 will occur in major west coast cities and tourist destinations that have been hungry to get WWE’s biggest show back.
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The biggest question for Cena will, of course, come down to whether he can reproduce his championship success, winning a record seventeenth world title and his first as a heel. The Road to WrestleMania 41 has proven unpredictable, and as much as fan theories abound, nothing will be certain until the closing bell rings on Cena’s last WrestleMania.