5 Wrestlers Who Should Challenge John Cena After Backlash 2025 (& 5 Who Shouldn't)

As John Cena embarks on his quest to ruin wrestling for everyone and with his appearances in his retirement tour dwindling down before our eyes, there are limited matches left, exclusive to PLE's so it should be the very best of WWE who 'Big Match' John should be in the ring with. With Backlash firmly in the rear view mirror, we look at who shouldn't be one of Cena's last ever matches in his career and who should be the ones who benefit the story of John Cena's last year inside the squared circle.

Wrestlers Who Shouldn't Challenge John Cena:

Logan Paul

Nothing more really needs to be said here, Logan Paul just manages to balance the line of heat that he's hated by the fans and heat in terms of overexposure and if WWE even considers putting him in as one of John Cena's last opponents it will not go down well. There was a window of opportunity to have this match in 2022/2023, when Cena was working in a limited capacity, but there is no wrestling fan in the world that wants Logan Paul anywhere near John Cena’s final run, enough said.

Randy Orton

We've just witnessed the last ever time they faced at the weekend, and something that WWE under Triple H has stuck to for the most part, is any stipulation has been upheld. Last Sunday was a lot of fun to see the two men who’s defined a generation of WWE fans go at it one last time, it was very smart for it to be one of the first matches on this run as everyone knew it would happen, we played the greatest hits, now let’s leave that album alone and move on.

Seth Rollins

Despite the fact that they have a built in history from 2015 onwards it wouldn’t make any sense to put Seth Rollins, in the ring with Cena, these are currently the two biggest heels in WWE right now so it would be very counter productive to put them against each other. Rollins will most likely be having his sights on the World Heavyweight Championship this year so as great as it would be in the ring, this one is very unlikely to take place.

Roman Reigns

Now you may think this would be a slam dunk for Cena to have one final encounter with The Tribal Chief, but it doesn’t really benefit either man in this case. Many fans are still very fatigued from Roman's near 4-Year run as Champion and also he's in a position where he doesn't need to be in the title scene anymore to be considered a main attraction, also

Drew McIntyre

Again this one is arguable, you could build a program between the two, given McIntyre's role of 'The Chosen One' and his recent views on Cena's hypocrisy on his final run but actually I feel Drew might end up joining Cena's cause. Maybe there's a scenario where from behind the scenes, The Rock orders Drew to join Cena in his mission to ruin wrestling, Drew would have the motivation to do so given the amount of injustices, in his mind, he's suffered over the past year, and it would give a more credible ally for John Cena then say... Travis Scott.

Wrestlers Who Should Challenge John Cena

CM Punk

The most obvious match that will inevitably happen is this one. Punk's meteoric rise in 2011 as the rebellious anti-hero against the corprate champion whoch is how many fans of the time viewed Cena delivered the most anticipated WWE mainevent for 10 years at Money In The Bank 2011. They have delivered some matches to be remembrered forever like MITB 2011, Night Of Champions 2012 and the match on RAW in February 2013, they never miss when it comes down to it. So with it being a case of when not if they face again, the roles are so similar to that fateful night in Chicago, but as opposed to Punk leaving WWE with the title like 14 years ago, it's now the other way round

Bron Breakker

Going back to what I mentioned earlier on about Rollins and that particular situation not making sense, but maybe later this year with Rollins as World Champion, he sends his newest disciple to dethrone Cena to become WWE Champion. If there’s one relatively new star that could get the rub off facing Cena, Bron is perfectly lined up to be that person, leaving Cena needing to resort to every trick he knows to survive, it’s an outside shot but it would be fun to see.

Karrion Kross

This seems very outside the box but there’s something that could be built upon here. The recent burst in popularity over Kross’ promos, referencing John Cena over WrestleMania weekend, his frustration at being sidelined for being a good soldier which is something, ironically, Cena has been his whole run. Not to mention his merchandise is currently No.1 selling on WWE Shop. There’s an underground following building behind Kross and Triple H has a chance to make him a big star just putting him in this feud with Cena and if he’s allowed to be Killer Kross, him and Cena could deliver an epic promo war.

AJ Styles

AJ Styles owes a lot of his success and longevity in WWE to the feud with Cena. Their matches at Money In The Bank, SummerSlam 2016 and Royal Rumble 2017 are some of the best if the last 10 years. Cena helped Styles immediately become legitimate in the eyes of those who wondered how AJ would fare in WWE’s model, given their track record they should revisit this, and since the clock is also winding down on Styles career too, he may have one last phenomenal match between the last real champion and the face that runs the place.

Cody Rhodes

This is arguably the final match, after everything that happened in one of the most divisive main events in WrestleMania history, it’s inevitable that Cody will cross paths with Cena again, maybe in December right at the end. Part of the story of WrestleManiaa was Cody’s message that he’s the captain now and he protects WWE for the fans and if it comes down to him saving wrestling from being “ruined “ by Cena. Also the ending of the Mania match’s as that Cody couldn’t pull the trigger to do the dark side of his character, if that situation happen again next time, he may do it which could lead in very nearly to 2026 in WWE.