John Bradshaw Layfield believes that even if John Cena had not defeated him for the WWE Championship at WrestleMania 21 in 2005, his career trajectory would not have changed.
John Cena's career only continued soaring after he defeated John Bradshaw Layfield for his first WWE Championship at WrestleMania 21 in 2005. Today, as Cena's career is nearing the end, with his retirement looming at the end of 2025, he's now a 17-time WWE World Heavyweight Champion, holding the record for the most-recognized title wins in WWE history.
On the latest episode of Something to Wrestle, JBL was asked if he believes John Cena's career would have been any different if he had faced the same hurdle as Cody Rhodes and lost his first WrestleMania WWE Championship opportunity.
"I think they got it right. You look at history, they got it right. Cena is a 17-time world champion, a movie star, and just this incredible person. You're going into the PG era of WWE, and that would have been tough for me. It would have been tough for anybody. Cena had the hardest role of any champion, I believe, in wrestling history, to go from the Attitude Era where you can flip off your boss, drink beer on television, beautiful women are flashing themselves. You know, you had all kinds of crazy, crazy stuff going on in the show to a G-rated era. Very few people could have done that. I don't know if anybody could have done that, except for Cena. So yeah, it definitely was the right thing. But if it had gone another year, he'd still be a 17-time world champion. It's just you'd have to compress them a little more. He's still going to be the guy."
John Cena now has less than 30 dates left in his WWE career. Next, he will face Randy Orton for the Undisputed WWE Championship at WWE Backlash. Learn more here.
Check out the full podcast embedded below.
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