{"id":147809,"date":"2025-12-06T08:00:30","date_gmt":"2025-12-06T13:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/?p=147809"},"modified":"2025-12-06T05:26:03","modified_gmt":"2025-12-06T10:26:03","slug":"5-wwe-wrestlers-john-cena-surprisingly-never-faced","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2025\/12\/06\/5-wwe-wrestlers-john-cena-surprisingly-never-faced\/","title":{"rendered":"5 WWE Wrestlers John Cena Surprisingly Never Faced"},"content":{"rendered":"
John Cena’s legendary 23-year WWE career is finally reaching its conclusion, with the 17-time World Champion set to face Gunther in his final match at Saturday Night’s Main Event on December 13th. Throughout his storied WWE career, Cena has faced a multitude of wrestlers and been part of numerous memorable matches.<\/div>\n
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As WWE’s top star and franchise player for the majority of his tenure, Cena squared off against almost every major star on the roster. However, he did miss out on a few as well. While some dream matches were impossible due to wrestlers being from different eras, there are a few obvious ones which were possible, but surprisingly never happened.<\/div>\n

Shane McMahon<\/h2>\n
Shane McMahon was never a full-time wrestler, but he consistently delivered entertaining matches whenever he stepped between the ropes. Throughout his various WWE stints spanning multiple decades, the risk-taking McMahon faced top stars from every generation, but surprisingly never collided with John Cena.<\/div>\n
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Shane was recently spotted in attendance for Cena’s final Monday Night Raw appearance, and it felt like we missed out on what could’ve been a memorable contest. Both wrestlers know how to tell a captivating story, and a program between them would’ve been pretty fun to watch.<\/div>\n

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Drew McIntyre<\/h2>\n
Drew McIntyre is among the top stars of the WWE today, and he has firmly established himself as a main eventer, despite his several stop-and-start pushes. The Scottish Psychopath has delivered countless memorable moments and feuds, but never found himself facing Cena.<\/div>\n
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During McIntyre’s initial WWE run, he lost his momentum completely and became a jobber, and thus never got the opportunity to face Cena, who was working main event programs. However, during his part-time run, Cena should’ve definitely faced McIntyre. A program with Cena would have hugely benefited McIntyre, and their match would have been an absolute banger.<\/div>\n

Mick Foley<\/h2>\n
Mick Foley elevated plenty of stars in the WWE and was often the first major feud for rising talent on their path to the main event. WWE was clearly high on John Cena since his days as the Dr. of Thuganomics, and eventually pushed him as a main eventer for years to come. Thus, the fact that Cena never squared off against Foley is extremely puzzling. The two did share the ring a few times, but never in a one-on-one match.<\/div>\n
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The Hardcore Legend returned to in-ring action in 2004 and wrestled regularly through 2008. He even faced two of Cena’s greatest rivals, Edge and Randy Orton in epic star-making clashes. Foley and Cena wrestled very different styles, and a contest between the two would’ve been mouth-watering and would have been amazing with any of the three faces of Foley.<\/div>\n

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Ric Flair<\/h2>\n
John Cena recently surpassed Ric Flair’s legendary record of being a 16-time World Champion by capturing his 17th World Championship. Given this connection between two of wrestling’s most decorated champions, it’s shocking that they never faced each other one-on-one. Flair’s second WWE run spanned from 2001 to 2008, a time when Cena was on the rise.<\/div>\n
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Photo Credit: By Yagobo79<\/a> – Own work, Public Domain<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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The story of this match would’ve been very interesting and would have benefited Cena greatly. While Flair was past his prime during this run, he was still able to perform at a decent level, and Cena would have definitely carried him to a memorable encounter. The two wrestlers did team up a few times, and it is a shame it never resulted in a singles match.<\/div>\n

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Hulk Hogan<\/h2>\n
Both Hulk Hogan and John Cena dominated WWE as the biggest babyfaces of their respective eras, sharing similarities in their larger-than-life personas and fan connection. Yet surprisingly, these two iconic faces of professional wrestling never collided in a WWE ring. While Cena wasn’t an established wrestler to take on The Hulkster during his 2002-2003 run, they could’ve absolutely battled after Hogan’s return in 2005.<\/div>\n
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Hogan faced names like Shawn Michaels and Randy Orton during this run, but surprisingly didn’t share the ring with Cena, who had established himself as a top star by then.<\/div>\n
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According to Hogan himself, a match between the two stars was actually planned for WrestleMania 25 but ultimately fell through due to Hogan’s injuries. While the match between the two wouldn’t necessarily have been an in-ring classic, it would have been an iconic sight to watch these two legends collide.<\/div>\n
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More From LWOS Pro Wrestling<\/strong><\/p>\n

Header photo \u2013 WikiMedia Creative Commons<\/a> \u2013 Stay tuned to the <\/i><\/em>Last Word on Pro Wrestling<\/i><\/u><\/em><\/a> for more on John Cena and other stories from around the world of wrestling, as they develop. You can always count on LWOPW to be on top of the significant news in the wrestling world, as well as to provide you with analysis, previews, videos, interviews, and editorials on the wrestling world.<\/i><\/em><\/p>\n

You can check out WWE programming on\u00a0<\/i><\/em>Netflix<\/i><\/u><\/em><\/a>\u00a0(Raw),\u00a0<\/i><\/em>USA Network<\/i><\/u><\/em><\/a>\u00a0(SmackDown),\u00a0<\/i><\/em>The CW<\/i><\/u><\/em><\/a>\u00a0(NXT),\u00a0<\/i><\/em>Tubi<\/i><\/u><\/em><\/a>\u00a0(WWE Evolve),\u00a0<\/i><\/em>A&E<\/i><\/u><\/em><\/a>\u00a0(WWE Superstar Sunday \u2013 Rivals, WWE LFG, and Greatest Moments), and\u00a0<\/i><\/em>Peacock<\/i><\/u><\/em><\/a>\u00a0(WWE Main Event, as well as archives and premium live event streaming). Follow WWE on social media to relive top moments and matches on\u00a0<\/i><\/em>YouTube<\/i><\/u><\/em><\/a>, and catch fast-paced action on X (<\/i><\/em>WWE Speed<\/i><\/u><\/em><\/a>).<\/i><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John Cena’s legendary 23-year WWE career is finally reaching its conclusion, with the 17-time World Champion set to face Gunther in his final match at Saturday Night’s Main Event on December 13th. Throughout his storied WWE career, Cena has faced a multitude of wrestlers and been part of numerous memorable matches. As WWE’s top star […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5707,"featured_media":146649,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7205,4,3],"tags":[686,587,165,201,469,166],"class_list":["post-147809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-history","category-wwe","category-wwe-universe","tag-drew-mcintyre","tag-hulk-hogan","tag-john-cena","tag-mick-foley","tag-ric-flair","tag-shane-mcmahon"],"modified_by":"Michael Joseph Sugue, Manager","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5707"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147809"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147809\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":147983,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147809\/revisions\/147983"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}