Celebrity Wrestler Recalls Beating John Cena On WWE Raw
A celebrity wrestler will forever be able to make the claim that he beat John Cena in a match on Raw.
When John Cena was in his early years of being a top guy in WWE, he was involved in a match that saw him get pinned on Raw by “celebrity” Kevin Federline.
Federline, known to some as K-Fed, was best known for being married to and having two kids with singer Britney Spears. The couple got a divorce, while Federline did all he could to milk the fame of being with a major celebrity like Spears. Federline was an actor and dancer during his career.
At the WWE Cyber Sunday PLE in 2006, Federline attacked Cena during a World Champions triple threat match with Booker T and Big Show. Federline hit Cena with a World Title, and Booker T would go on to win the match. Federline appeared on Raw a few weeks before this (as an ally of Johnny Nitro and Melina), Cena mocked him and gave him the FU, so this was Federline getting his revenge.
On the first WWE Raw episode of 2007 on New Year’s Day, a match was made between Cena and Federline. In a shocking result, Federline pinned Cena in a match thanks to interference from Nitro and Umaga, who was Cena’s main rival at the time. Cena dropped Federline with an FU later that evening to put an end to that “rivalry,” if you want to call it that.
During an appearance on Chris Jericho’s Talk Is Jericho podcast, K-Fed spoke about his brief WWE run.
“Man, I watched WWE when I was a kid. By the time I hit later teenage years, I started focusing more on dance and my own stuff, you know? But, when we got the call to go out there in Staples Center, or back when it was the Staples Center… Do it with (John) Cena. Just the whole thing was just like, I was skeptical, but once I got there, once I got in that room, and they hand you, ‘This is what you gotta do,’ and you’re literally going out there improving a whole f**king speech to the crowd. I loved it. I loved it.
I loved how they hated me. You eat it up, because at the end of the day, it was all different. When you’re leaving that arena, you got thousands of people out there that actually love you. They love to hate you in that ring but they actually love that you are the villain in this.
The guys, the group of people, everything about that, you guys, so much credit goes to you guys, the work ethic of you guys is like a football player. People don’t realize how strenuous it is of what you do.
I only got a couple of days of training out there in Venice and I was like — that was it for me. I was just like, ‘This is absolutely mind-blowing.’ Mind-blowing what you guys do. I mean, it’s brutal on your body. It’s crazy.”
WWE Was Impressed By Kevin Federline, So He Was Brought Back To Face John Cena On Raw
As he continued reminiscing about his time in WWE, Kevin Federline revealed that he was supposed to have only one appearance, but it turned out to be more, with WWE suggesting the match against John Cena.
“My stint with WWE was really only supposed to be that night at Staples. Once they saw the reaction, and once they saw just the back and forth between me and Cena, that was it. Vince (McMahon) called us in and was like, ‘Hey, I wanna do more of this. Are you guys down? Let’s do more of this’ and I’m like, ‘Oh, getting thrown on my neck every night? What are we talking here?’
Weight-wise, back then, it was night and day. I was a stick compared to him, and most of you guys… I had to do it. I had to do it.
That’s one of those moments that, even my kids now, still talk about it. They’ll go back and sometimes they’ll see clips of it. They’ll see clips of this and that and it’s something that my family shares. It’s an awesome one to share and I have so many good memories with all of you guys. Everybody in that circuit was amazing.”
As for John Cena, his WWE career is over after losing his final match to Gunther in December 2025, so there won’t be that rematch against Federline.