In the history of WWE, it’s tough to come up with a star more divisive than John Cena. The face of the company from about 2006 to 2016 and a 16-time World Champion, Cena is easily compared to a star of previous decades like Hulk Hogan, but even Hogan didn’t deal with the vitriol and hostility that John Cena did. At least, it didn’t become a part of Hogan’s kayfabe narrative like it did Cena’s.
However, these days it feels like fans have more positive feelings for John Cena. Let’s investigate the why of that — why fans love him now as well as why they hated him back then.
10 Used to Hate Him: Outgrew Him
During John Cena’s time at the top of WWE, he was generally presented as a Hulk Hogan type, a kid-friendly superhero who overcomes the odds, no matter how ridiculously stacked those odds may be. As kids get older, their enthusiasm for these kinds of heroic figures begins to wane, and they start embracing darker, edgier characters.
That’s why it was so easy for fans to take to rival CM Punk during his rise to the main event scene — the tattooed, heelish star felt like a breath of fresh air for fans who were over John Cena.
9 Love Him Now: Nostalgia
If there’s one thing WWE has proven over the past two decades or so, it’s that nostalgia is one of the most potent drugs for wrestling fans. It’s the reason why The Undertaker and various relics of the Attitude Era get carted out multiple times a year, and why fans are excited about John Cena when they used to boo him mercilessly.
As a dominant figure in the sport, he’s a big part of fan’s memories watching wrestling in their slightly younger days, and many fans seem to believe that wrestling was better in the past compared to now.
8 Used to Hate Him: Over-Exposure
During his run as a full-time part of WWE’s roster, John Cena was pretty much an unavoidable fixture of WWE’s main event scene. If one goes back and looks at pay-per-view lineups, it’ll come as no surprise that Cena’s pretty much always at the top of the card, even as the undercard varies dramatically over the years — and sometimes even when he’s not wrestling for a championship.
Seeing a wrestler too much can not only kill the mystique, but also can foster some resentment. With John Cena, it was more than easy to not only take him for granted, but also get totally sick of him.
7 Love Him Now: No Longer A Full-Timer
“Absence makes the heart grow fonder” isn’t just a cliché — in pro wrestling, it’s a demonstrable fact. Any time a wrestler makes a triumphant (and often surprising) return from injury, it’s hard not to be a little excited, even if it’s some midcard loser.
When John Cena returned in 2021 after over a year, WWE was a very different place, and spent several years without John Cena at the very top of the company. Because he’s not overexposed anymore, it’s actually more of a treat to see him than it would be if he were on Raw every week.
6 Used to Hate Him: The Corporate Champion
Modern pro wrestling has changed a lot since the 1980s wrestling boom “Hulkamania” years that WWE fostered. With the Internet, fans are a lot more privy to backstage gossip and aware of the backstage machinations of wrestling companies. Because of that, it’s tough to look at a hard-working sensation like John Cena and also not see that his presentation is the result of corporate decision-making resulting in the most marketable guy being at the top of the company.
Cena’s champion because WWE wants him to be, in the same way that fans rejected Roman Reigns during his rise — being told who to like isn’t as fun as cheering for the wrestlers fans actually like.
5 Love Him Now: Work Outside of Wrestling
Once John Cena stopped being a full-time WWE Superstar, people started seeing a lot more of him outside the squared circle as he began to take more movie roles. Cena would impress in action movies like Bumblebee and F9: The Fast Saga as well as in comedies like Blockers.
Before long, Cena would combine the two, portraying the patriotic doofus superhero Peacemaker in The Suicide Squad and the HBO Max spinoff Peacemaker, showing off his comedic chops as well as how well his physicality translates to the silver screen.
4 Used to Hate Him: Super Cena
Speaking of superheroes, it’s John Cena’s constant in-ring success that caused many fans to dub him Super Cena. In an unfavorable comparison to Superman, fans grew tired of Cena’s seeming invulnerability against every foe who came along, regardless of how many there were.
The nadir of this tendency happened at SummerSlam 2010, as Cena found himself standing alone outnumbered by The Nexus in an elimination tag team match. After taking a DDT onto concrete and eating a 450 Splash finisher from Justin Gabriel, Cena was still able to somehow defeat the remaining bad guys.
3 Love Him Now: US Open Challenge
By 2015, while Seth Rollins, Roman Reigns, and Brock Lesnar made up a majority of the WWE main event scene, John Cena had found a very cool niche in the midcard. Having won the United States Championship — coincidentally, the first title he ever won on the main roster, Cena decided to hold a series of near-weekly open challenges, defending the belt against a variety of underrated midcarders and rising stars from NXT.
The focus on in-ring performance really helped to endear the “workrate” fans to Cena, who put on awesome matches with Cody Rhodes, Sami Zayn, Cesaro, and Kevin Owens.
2 Used to Hate Him: Juvenile Promos
There’s no question that John Cena is a ridiculously charismatic star and more than capable on the microphone, but the content of his promos tended to be grating, especially for fans whose ages were in the double digits. Aside from poorly-aged gay jokes, there’s a lot in these promos that felt directed at only the least smart children.
One of his worst offenses was a promo he cut in 2013 ahead of Royal Rumble — the one where he reveals his gamer tag is “skidmark187” — was so poorly received that some have called it an all-time worst.
1 Love Him Now: Actually A Good Wrestler
Now that John Cena is a part-timer at best, the conversation around him as a wrestler isn’t as fraught as it used to be, which is great because it allows for a more even-handed assessment of his in-ring skills without discussing how matches were booked or who got buried in the process.
Once one ignores all that, it soon becomes apparent that John Cena is actually a talented wrestler who’s put on some classic matches during his time. While bad wrestlers can be involved in good matches, Cena’s put on all-timers with many of the greats from “workrate” guys like Daniel Bryan, and AJ Styles to main event stars like Brock Lesnar and Edge.
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