Why WWE Legend’s Feud With John Cena Never Happened
A future WWE Hall of Famer revealed that he was likely going to feud with John Cena, but an injury derailed the plans.
During his legendary 20+ year WWE career, John Cena feuded with many of the biggest names in the history of the company.
By 2009, Cena had wrestled some of the same guys several times, like Randy Orton, Triple H, Big Show, and Edge, to name a few, so he needed new heel opponents.
Matt Hardy was one of the biggest heels in WWE in 2009 after savagely turning on his popular brother, Jeff Hardy. The brothers went on to have multiple big matches, including at WrestleMania 25.
On his Extreme Life of Matt Hardy podcast, the future WWE Hall of Famer said that in 2009, there were discussions about putting him in a feud with John Cena.
“You know, there was actually talk — if I hadn’t have gotten hurt after my thing with Jeff whenever I broke my hand, and I also had to have a surgery because my abdominal wall ripped and I was hurt. And I was obviously going to be out for a while. There was a point where Vince (McMahon) had mentioned that maybe I work with John Cena after I did the heel run with Jeff.
Because he liked a lot of the stuff that I was doing at that time. And then Jeff, his injury. He had that restless leg syndrome at this time. I was out for a while, and then by the time I came back, he knew Jeff was going to leave at the end of his deal, because he was going to take some time off. And he ended up bringing me back, and they turned me babyface again.
But there was talk if I had been healthy going through that program with Jeff and we got through it, and I was a heel and had heat, that I could work with Cena. Which I would have loved, and that would have been fun to do. Because I worked with him back in the day, you know, when he first started, but it would have been fun to work with him on a much bigger level.”
How Matt Hardy Thinks Feud With John Cena Would Have Gone
As he spoke about what a potential feud with John Cena could have looked like, Matt Hardy spoke about how they had worked together early in Cena’s career, before he became a main eventer in 2005.
“Once I went past Jeff and I kind of kept talking about being the black cloud over his head, I would obviously tried to change my direction and kind of what my trajectory was for what I was doing.
And I don’t know, maybe I would have even leaned in to some of our history back in the day about, ‘Hey, he’s become such a big star.’ And I was one of the guys who helped work with him in the very beginning. And you know, ‘They trusted me to work with you and to team with you. And after all that I did for you, you never tried to help me later on. You just said, ‘To hell with you.”
You know, maybe something like that. I felt like the being jealous of Jeff, maybe even being jealous of John, I could have came at it from a different angle or something, because that, that routine worked pretty good at that time.”
John Cena officially retired as a WWE superstar on December 13th when he lost to Gunther, while Matt Hardy continues wrestling along with brother Jeff Hardy as two of the biggest names on the TNA roster.