8 Best Rivalries of John Cena’s WWE Career (Ranked)

At WWE Money in the Bank 2024, John Cena delivered the news that he will retire from wrestling in 2025. The announcement means that we have no more than 18 months left of the 16-time world champion’s career, and, as such, attention will rightly turn to what fans still want to see from him before he hangs up his boots. However, his impending retirement has allowed many to reflect on what his legendary career has brought us so far.

He may still have some fresh match-ups left in him, but, since 2002, John Cena has mixed it up with some of the very best to ever do it, building up an incredible list of top opponents in the process. So, from his meteoric rise to becoming an industry veteran, let GIVEMESPORT take you down memory lane as we rank John Cena’s eight best WWE rivals.

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8 Bray Wyatt

The two faced off at multiple WrestleManias

Starting with a classic battle of good vs evil, John Cena spent the first half of 2014 locked in a psychological battle with The Eater of Worlds. For fans, Bray Wyatt was the shot in the arm that the WWE roster needed, and many gravitated towards him as a future star following the departure of CM Punk and the injury to Daniel Bryan. Although, in typical fashion, Cena didn’t let the darkness win the day.

Many are still of the opinion that John Cena’s constant victories over Wyatt were unneeded and ultimately damaged the mystique of his character in the long run, but the segments involving the two created truly captivating television. Plus, after initially being obsessed with the deconstruction of Cena, the Firefly Funhouse match the two shared in 2020 will go down in history as one of the most genius ideas in wrestling history, as Bray finally stood tall over a defeated Cena, making an impression on fans that they won’t soon forget.

7 Kurt Angle

The Olympic gold medalist helped Cena breakout

Next, let’s take you back to John Cena’s famous WWE debut. It’s a moment that has been replayed countless times before, so the line about having ‘ruthless aggression’ is etched in the minds of almost all wrestling fans, but it’s fair to say there may not have been many better options to bed Cena into the WWE landscape than the Olympic Hero.

With four pay-per-view one-on-one matches in this series, Kurt Angle was the measuring stick for Cena for almost four years, and they went from their first encounter in 2002 to clashing over the WWE Championship in 2005. Kurt was pivotal in making John the main event player he’d go on to be for the following decades.

6 Triple H

The Game helped solidify Cena as a world champion

When on top for as long as both Triple H and John Cena were, it was inevitable that they’d meet on the biggest stage. The first time they met in singles action was in the main event of WrestleMania 22, where the King of Kings tapped out to an STF, and they’d meet a further five times one-on-one, including as recently as 2018 at the Greatest Royal Rumble in Saudi Arabia.

Cena and Triple H were as natural a babyface and heel duo as you could find, and The Game played the perfect villain for John to overcome during their showdowns. They met in tag team matches, handicap matches, triple threats and more over the years, and it felt like a never-ending tussle to be the best.

5 AJ Styles

The Phenomenal One gave Cena some of his best matches

Throughout Cena’s dominant run across the 2000s and 2010s, AJ Styles was building his name outside WWE. Working for TNA and New Japan Pro Wrestling, many thought he’d never cross the boundary into the company dominated by Cena. Yet, in 2016, the two locked eyes and the atmosphere was palpable. Fans were seeing an impossible dream match happen in front of their eyes.

Thankfully, the two shared incredible chemistry in the ring, putting on a trilogy of awesome matches across the span of eight months and adding on a fourth on an episode of SmackDown in 2018. AJ even won the first two meetings against Cena, something which delighted many of Styles’ career-long fans, and John’s victory in their third encounter will go down in history as the moment he won his 16th world title and tied the record. Unforgettable.

4 CM Punk

Punk was everything that Cena wasn’t

Covered in tattoos, anti-authority and popular with the fans, it always seemed as if CM Punk was the exact opposite of John Cena. It always felt as if the Chicagoan was fighting an uphill battle to be seen in the same light as the now 16-time world champion, but it all climaxed when they met in Punk’s hometown of Chicago in 2011 when the Second City Saint won his first WWE Championship in the company’s first five-star match in many years. Plus, in the lead-up, we got the infamous pipebomb promo which shook the industry to its very core.

The pair circled each other throughout 2011 and 2012. Punk went on his incredible 434-day reign on top of the company, but even then, a power struggle existed between the two as they battled for main event slots and the right to be considered the best. They are two icons of the modern era of WWE, and their clashes enhanced both men’s careers for the better.

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3 The Rock

Their feud was so good that ‘One in a Lifetime’ happened twice

A storyline spanning two years and three WrestleManias, John Cena vs The Rock saw two of wrestling’s biggest ever icons meet in a ‘Once In A Lifetime’ encounter. Of course, as we all know, once turned into twice, and they ended up having two clashes on the biggest stage, but, when a match is as big as this, it’s no surprise that WWE wanted to set up the first match the day after ‘Mania 27 and continue it into ‘Mania 29.

The rivalry itself was aided by events away from the ring, as Cena’s loss to The Rock in 2012 came in the same year as John’s real-life divorce, allowing WWE to play up the idea that the ‘Once In A Lifetime’ match had sparked a downfall in all areas of Cena’s life. This led to the ultimate redemption one year later, as the WWE Championship changed hands in New Jersey. It was a clash between two genuine legends that was backed by a story and saw fans get more than initially thought.

2 Edge

Edge was the perfect slimy villain for Cena to conquer

Beginning when Cena became the first to fall victim to the Money in the Bank briefcase in 2006, Edge’s run at the top saw him do battle with the leader of the Cenation right up until his first retirement in 2011. The pair fought over both the WWE and World Heavyweight Championships on multiple occasions and even competed in a WrestleMania match in a triple threat with The Big Show in 2009.

Their feuds were often very personal, too, and The Rated R Superstar even entered Cena’s home during their rivalry and struck his father. Plus, Edge was responsible for putting his own spin on the ‘spinner’ WWE Championship, by having Lita throw John’s iconic title into a river to introduce his own design.

1 Randy Orton

The duo’s careers will forever be linked

When you think of John Cena, it isn’t long before you think of Randy Orton. The careers of The Apex Predator and The Face That Runs The Place have been intertwined since they both debuted, and every wrestling icon needs a rival to push them on to the next level. The pair simply wouldn’t have had the same level of impact if it wasn’t for each other.

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Cena and Orton have had an astonishing 21 broadcasted matches over the years, and that’s if you only count the times in which they met one-on-one. Including all match constellations such as triple threats and even Royal Rumbles, they have been involved in upwards of 90 matches together. Whether it was Randy at his psychotic best or as part of The Authority later in his career, there’s no getting away from the fact that Orton has been Cena’s most iconic foe for decades, and maybe there’s one more match in it for them before John hangs up his boots next year.