As John Cena prepares for the final year of his professional wrestling career, fans have been clamoring to see who “The Champ” will wrestle in 2025.
Will he challenge Cody Rhodes for the WWE Championship? Or maybe go for Bron Breakker's IC Title to become a Grand Slam Champion? Could Cena wrestle Randy Orton once more on a massive stage, with the “Legend Killer” taking a shot at one of the men most deserving of the mantle?
And yet, for every dream match Cena could wrestle next year, he will unquestionably leave more than a few on the table that leave fans asking “what-if,” including against these three absolute legends of the sport.
Three dream matches John Cena will never get to wrestle
1. John Cena versus “Stone Cold” Steve Austin
As crazy as it may sound, Cena and “Stone Cold” Steve Austin have never actually wrestled an official match together, with the “Texas Rattlesnake” officiating four matches as a special referee on a UK house show run in 2005 and again in 2011, where he called a tag team match between “The Champ” and Alex Riley – remember him? – against The Awesome Truth.
And, assuming Austin doesn't come out of retirement to have the ultimate WWE dream match at some point in 2025 – which could happen, as he apparently almost returned at WrestleMania 40 – it looks like this will remain one of the biggest “what-ifs” in WWE history.
But why? How did Cena and Austin, a pair of certified Mount Rushmore wrestlers, somehow avoid a match together when they have both exclusively been under contract with WWE since?
Frankly, it all comes down to timing.
You see, Austin had his “final” match with The Rock at WrestleMania XIX in March of 2003, with his lone official offering after coming at WrestleMania 38 against Kevin Owens. Cena, by contrast, didn't famously declare to Kurt Angle that he wanted “ruthless aggression” until June of 2002 after an extended run in OVW and wasn't exactly pegged as WWE's next great star right out of the gate.
Had Cena debuted a few years earlier, hit the ground a bit harder, or if Austin had held out for a few more years before calling it a career due to a laundry list of injuries as long as his in-ring accolades, maybe fans would have a seminal matchup that they could return to for years to come, but instead, they will have to wonder “what-if” forever.
2. Hiroshi Tanahashi
Because Cena exclusively wrestled his prime in WWE, with his big-time matches being booked based on who was under contract at the time instead of who truly were the best in-ring stars in the world, fans missed out on “The Champ” wrestling some of the biggest stars in professional wrestling over the last 20 years, from Sting, to Mystico – no, Sin Cara doesn't count – and the “Ace” of New Japan Pro Wrestling, Hiroshi Tanahashi.
Now, before Tanahashi became the president of NJPW, he truly did live up to his moniker, winning 12 different titles split over 30 reigns during his time in New Japan, Pro Wrestling Noah, CMLL, and RevPro, including an incredible eight runs with the IWGP Heavyweight Championship for a combined 1,396 days. Tanahashi has wins over many of the top stars in wrestling today, from AJ Styles to Will Ospreay, Shinsuke Nakamura, and another Cena “what-if” Kazuchika Okada, and his run in America was largely relegated to TNA, CMLL, Ring of Honor, and AEW, where he lost to The Elite in a trios match with The Acclaimed at Forbidden Door 2024.
Unfortunately for both Cena and Tanahashi, WWE wasn't nearly as welcoming to work with outside promotions during their primes, and as a result, fans will forever wonder what their match together would have looked like.
3. Kenny Omega
And last but not least, if there's one match fans would have really liked to see between Cena and a non-WWE wrestler, the honor has to go to Kenny Omega, a man so good at professional wrestling, he's known as the “Best Bout Machine.”
Now granted, Omega did have a cup of coffee in WWE developmental before taking his talents to Japan, spending some time in Deep South Wrestling without latching on long-term, but his true successes have come outside of the WWE system, with his matches in DDT Pro Wrestling, New Japan Pro Wrestling, and in AEW, where he currently serves as an EVP.
With some of the highest-rated matches in the history of the Wrestling Observer scale on his resume, including the top-rated match, it would have been incredible to see Omega work Cena to a true five-star classic, marking only his second “perfect” effort on Dave Melzer's scale. Unfortunately, even if Omega actually got out of his contract, which is borderline impossible to imagine, the chances are slim that he would actually get to work a match with Cena even if the stars aligned, as the “Cleaner” is currently out of action with diverticulitis and has no clear return date on the books. Instead, this will forever go down as a true “what-if” and arguably the saddest one of all.
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