Cena also shared the ring with some names who weren’t established main eventers. For some people, those confrontations with The Champ elevated them to the next level in WWE. Without any further ado, let’s take a look at five wrestlers who benefited from wrestling John Cena on the big stage. Enjoy!<\/p>\n
Edge<\/h2>\n
When John Cena made his SmackDown debut, Edge was already an established veteran who\u2019d held the Intercontinental and World Tag Team Championships multiple times. However, it was Cena who moved up the card and became a main eventer first, winning his maiden WWE Championship at WrestleMania 21. The reign ended at the hands of Edge, who cashed in his Money in the Bank contract<\/a> at New Year\u2019s Revolution 2006.<\/p>\n This was Edge\u2019s first taste of the main event scene. Although the Canadian dropped the spinner belt just a few weeks later at the Royal Rumble, their feud was far from over. Edge eventually won the WWE Championship for the second time in the summer, and the rivalry with Cena only intensified from there.<\/p>\n Edge went as far as to slap John Cena\u2019s father in his own house<\/a>, setting up a spectacular TLC Match at Unforgiven. For all intents and purposes, this was Edge\u2019s first true main event program, and The Rated-R Superstar never looked back.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Daniel Bryan was already a former World Heavyweight Champion when we worked with John Cena in the summer of 2013. Still, there’s no doubt management didn’t look at D-Bry as a top guy. John Cena deserves a lot of credit for helping Bryan get to that level, especially since Cena himself convinced Vince McMahon to book the match<\/a>.<\/p>\n They main evented that year’s SummerSlam and had a fantastic matchup that ended with Bryan finally winning the WWE Championship. That was the feud that essentially\u00a0made<\/em> Bryan, as he started feuding with The Authority immediately afterwards and became the company’s top face.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The same can be said about CM Punk. He was already a former three-time World Heavyweight Champion before Money in the Bank 2011, but he was not on the level of stars such as Cena or Randy Orton. But then the famous Pipebomb promo on the June 27, 2011, edition of Monday Night Raw<\/a> changed Punk’s career forever.<\/p>\n Then, Punk defeated Cena in the main event of Money in the Bank and walked out of Chicago as the new WWE Champion. This rivalry with Big Match John launched Punk into the stratosphere, and they had many more awesome matches against each other over the years.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Kevin Owens attacked John Cena in his very first night on WWE’s main roster<\/a>, starting a feud between the two. They first met at Elimination Chamber 2015, and Owens shockingly pinned Cena clean in the middle of the ring! That moment instantly put The Prizefighter on the map.<\/p>\n While Owens went on to lose to Cena at the following two PPVs, KO still came out of the program looking great. Kevin Owens became the Intercontinental Champion shortly after the rivalry with Cena ended, and just a year later, he captured the Universal Championship.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It definitely feels weird to say John Cena elevated AJ Styles, as The Phenomenal One was nearly 40 years old when he first feuded with The Champ; however, when you look back at Styles’ first year with WWE, the win over John Cena in their fantastic match at SummerSlam 2016 elevated Styles to the WWE Title picture.<\/p>\n Styles capitalized immediately, winning the WWE Championship just one month later with a win against Dean Ambrose at Backlash. Styles and Cena had a few more matches over the years, and they never failed to deliver inside the squared circle, including during Cena’s farewell tour at Crown Jewel Perth 2025<\/a>.<\/p>\n 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","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" John Cena was the face of WWE for well over a decade. Cena won his first WWE Championship at WrestleMania 21, while his record-breaking 17th world title began at ‘Mania 41. During his prime, John Cena faced the biggest stars WWE had to offer in some of the most memorable matches in company history. RELATED: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5694,"featured_media":147956,"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":[2,7205,2192,4,3],"tags":[165],"class_list":["post-147810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-history","category-wrestling","category-wwe","category-wwe-universe","tag-john-cena"],"modified_by":"Michael Joseph Sugue, Manager","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147810","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\/5694"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147810"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147810\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":147957,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147810\/revisions\/147957"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/147956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Daniel Bryan<\/h2>\n
CM Punk<\/h2>\n
Kevin Owens<\/h2>\n
AJ Styles<\/h2>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2025\/12\/11-3-1024x566.jpg\")