John Cena Rival Proud Of Memorable WWE Title Match
There aren’t many bloody John Cena matches, but JBL is very proud of the bloodbath he had with the future WWE Hall of Famer.
Due to the era that he competed in with WWE cutting back on blood during matches due in part to the PG Era, John Cena is not known for taking part in a lot of bloody WWE matches. If he had been in the Attitude Era or wrestling in the years before that, perhaps Cena would have bloody matches like Triple H, Steve Austin, Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels, and many other greats of that era.
John Cena won his first WWE Championship at WrestleMania 21 in 2005 when he ended the long reign of John Bradshaw Layfield. After the title win, the feud continued with Cena set to face JBL again in a PPV rematch.
At the Judgment Day 2005 PPV, John Cena defeated JBL in a bloody “I Quit” match to retain the WWE Championship. What was memorable about the match is that Cena was a bloody mess for all of it and he was covered in blood when he celebrated the win.
When JBL co-hosted the Something to Wrestle podcast, he spoke about how he was proud of the match because of how he put over John Cena in a manner similar to Eddie Guerrero putting over JBL for the WWE Title one year earlier.
“I was proud of this match. Probably as proud of this match as I was of any match I’d ever done, because my role now is the Eddie Guerrero role. My role now is to make John. And again, I don’t want to take too much credit for making John, John was going to make it anyway. I want to always say that. But my role was to walk him through hell and make him earn it.
“And I knew what he could do. I knew he was a really tough guy. And I knew he could wrestle, I knew that. I’d been in the house shows with him and had different nights every single night with him. I knew what he could do. I wanted the world to see this. I wanted so badly the world to see ‘This is a tough son of a b***h that’s going to be a hell of a champion.’ And I thought we did a great job with it.”
JBL Wants John Cena To Win Record 17th WWE World Championship
It is well-known among WWE fans that 2025 will be John Cena’s final year as an active in-ring competitor. Throughout the year, there will likely be teases about Cena going for a record-winning 17th WWE World Title win. Cena has 16 World Title wins in his WWE career, which ties him with Ric Flair, so it has led to people wondering if Cena might set the record.
JBL addressed the possibility of Cena breaking the World Title record and made it clear that he wants to see it happen.
“It’s so cool when you’re saying goodbye to these incredible legends, and I’d put Cena up there with Dr. J. That’s about as big of a compliment as you can get. It’s also kind of bittersweet. Cena, I love the guy.
I hope he gets the seventeenth championship. I think it’d be cool to see that broken. I think it’d be historic, it’d be fun. I just hate that he’s retiring. I’m gonna love every second of it, but I wish guys like that were with us forever, and he will be with us forever, he just won’t be in an active role.
He might always do stuff down the line, but as far as in-ring competition, regular stuff, he’s retiring, which it’s kind of cool. What an incredible career.”
John Cena is likely to be in the Royal Rumble on February 1st, but The Rock is now considered the favorite to win the highly-anticipated match.