John Cena’s 17th WWE world championship victory was supposed to happen much earlier than WrestleMania 41.
John Cena won his record 17th world championship by defeating Cody Rhodes for the Undisputed WWE Title at WrestleMania 41. However, during his recent appearance on the No-Contest Wrestling podcast, he revealed that it was supposed to happen at SummerSlam 2021.
The original plan for the event was for John Cena to defeat Roman Reigns for the Universal Championship. Things would’ve then led to WWE restarting the match and Reigns taking the title back from Cena. The company had this plan before securing Brock Lesnar to make a surprise appearance at the show. When they eventually roped him in by 5 PM that day, the plan changed to Reigns beating Cena clean.
“That night was supposed to go very different,” John Cena began. “In the last moment, we had a surprise guest booked, and he came out after the match was over. Brock. They didn’t secure Brock until 5 PM that day. And you want to talk about pivoting, right? A message to anybody out there listening, thinking I’m talking from a high place, or a glass house. I was gonna win 17.
“We were gonna have someone restart the match, and Roman was gonna take it back. This is creative, and the way we put together the match was we were gonna give them a hell of a match. Everything out the door, no rules, no nothing, tons of finishers. All this stuff because I was going to win, and the Roman’s gonna take it back. So you have this hard-fought battle, and then, through a nefarious set of rules, match was restarted, and here we go,” John Cena said.
John Cena then pitched Roman Reigns beat him with one spear
“Then we secure Brock, and TR comes and said, ‘I need to see you. We’re switching the finish. Roman over. Yup, clean. What do you wanna do?’ John Cena replies, ‘Let me just talk to Roman and Paul (Heyman).’ I go in, and they’re like, ‘You got the news?’ I said, ‘I got the news.’ ‘What do we do?’ I said, ‘One spear. That’s it. Whatever match you wanna have, that’s fine. You beat me with your finish once.’
“I love Paul. Paul Heyman has been a great mentor. He gets it, and he recognizes somebody who sees that it’s not about them, it’s about the story. This is gonna make Roman better because they’re having him win, so he can go on to bigger and better things. And it switched, right there. We’re on the west coast, so an hour before the thing. So it happens to everyone. It happens from the top of the card down to the bottom. They will switch, they will cut your time, they will give you different creative,” John Cena said.
Cena says last-minute WWE creative changes happen all the time
Speaking further, John Cena noted that last-minute creative changes are very common in WWE. That’s why he didn’t mind when The Rock and Travis Scott disappeared from the storyline after his heel turn.
“It happens all the time. So I didn’t flip out when Travis didn’t want to do it anymore, when Rock chose to go another way, it happens. I saw Steve Austin leave. I saw him get fired. I was there. They fired him in Atlanta. It happens all the time. But I was supposed to win 17 that night. Pi*s in your cornflakes, but what we served from the kitchen was a different menu,” John Cena said.
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