John Cena's Record-Setting World Title Win Nearly Happened Four Years Earlier

John Cena made history when he defeated Cody Rhodes in the main event of WrestleMania 41 to win the Undisputed WWE Championship.

That history was long held by Ric Flair, who held the all-time world championship record for multiple decades. Flair was the world champion 16 times, which was more than anyone in wrestling history. At WrestleMania 41, John Cena broke that record and won his 17th world championship.

The stars aligned for Cena to win the title and break the record at that event. First, Cena had just turned heel for the first time since becoming the face of WWE. Cena won the championship in a very heelish way in an attempt to maintain heat as the bad guy he was trying to play.

More importantly than that, Cena won the belt in 2025, which was his final year as an active pro wrestler in WWE. In 2024, Cena announced he would go on a worldwide retirement tour in 2025. Throughout the year, Cena wrestled around the world, wrapping up his career with a loss to Gunther at Saturday Night's Main Event in December.

John Cena shares surprising story about SummerSlam in 2021

Cena nearly won his record-setting world championship four years before he actually did. During an interview with No-Contest Wrestling, Cena revealed that he was originally scheduled to win the title from Roman Reigns at SummerSlam in 2021, but that a last-minute change altered those plans.

“In the last moment, we had a surprise guest booked. He came out after the match was over. Brock. They didn’t secure Brock until 5 pm that day. I was going to win 17. We were going to have someone come out and restart the match, Roman was going to take it back. This is the creative. The way we were going to put together the match, we were going to give them a hell of a match."
John Cena

Cena continued:

"Then, we secure Brock. They come and say, ‘I need to see you. We’re switching the finish.’ ‘To what?’ ‘Roman over. Clean.’ ‘Okay. Let me talk to Roman and Paul.’ We go in, ‘You got the news? What do we do?’ I said, ‘One spear. That’s it. Whatever match you want to have, that’s fine. You beat me with your finish once ... An hour before. It happens to everyone. I didn’t flip out. It happens all the time. I was supposed to win 17 that night.”
John Cena

Since losing to Gunther at WWE Saturday Night's Main Event and retiring, Cena has maintained that he would not be lacing up the boots to wrestle again. Cena has said he is fully retired and would not return to in-ring action.

Cena spent nearly two decades at the top of the WWE and is a surefire WWE Hall of Famer. In addition to holding the record for most world championships, Cena is also a grand slam champion for WWE.

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