5 possible WrestleMania opponents for John Cena

For over 14 years, John Cena has consistently been a corner-stone at WWE’s biggest show of the year, WrestleMania. Main event after main event, the Cenation Leader has been part of some of the biggest matches of that night each year. While he has taken a back seat on the card in recent years for fresher faces to main event the show, it cannot be doubted that Cena’s WrestleMania matches are still some of the biggest matches on the card and garner strong creative backing.

With just a few short months to go before WrestleMania 35, it’s still unclear whether we’ll see John Cena return to action on time or spend his first WrestleMania weekend away from WWE since the 20th edition of the show. It will be interesting to see who he faces if he were to return for the show in April, as a lot has changed since we last spoke about “John Cena matches we’d like to see”.

Before we begin though, it should be made abundantly clear that I am not in favour of The Undertaker returning to the ring anymore, so if you’re expecting an “epic rematch between The Phenom and The Cenation Leader”, you’re in for a disappointment.

With that said, we now take a look at five most likely opponents for John Cena at WrestleMania 35.

---

#5 Shinsuke Nakamura

Shinsuke Nakamura

Kicking things off with The King of Strong Style, Cena can possibly find himself in an extended feud with Nakamura if The Artist regains the United States Championship before April.

While WWE hasn’t used Nakamura at all recently even with his champion status, he’s still someone fans can easily get behind as a legitimate star, if WWE presents him in a way he truly deserves.

The story writes itself too. Cena was the guy who legitimized the US title and brought it back to relevancy with his weekly open challenges. He can come back and blame Nakamura for being lazy and talk about how Nakamura has gone months on end without defending the once-workhorse title.

With Cena involved, Nakamura will not need to do much of the heavy lifting in his promos, since The Cenation Leader is quite known for putting over his opponents en route to their respective match. And if their 2016 SmackDown Live clash was anything to go by, Nakamura and Cena can produce an outstanding series of matches against each other.

#4 Samoa Joe

Samoa Joe and John Cena share an intense staredown

While it may have lost some steam with the latest booking decisions from WWE's side, Cena-Joe is pretty much still a dream feud just waiting to happen in the WWE.

Widely considered two of the best promos in the wrestling industry as a whole today, the feud between Joe and Cena can easily be responsible for some of the must-see TV segments, while their matches at WrestleMania and beyond can be full of in-ring psychology and storytelling.

Luckily, it wasn’t too long after his losing efforts in his extended WWE Championship program, that Joe found himself in a hot program with Jeff Hardy. The feud has already started to captivate the fans and is giving the Becky Lynch program a run for its money on the blue brand.

Joe will benefit tremendously from a feud with Hardy by restoring his hurt credibility as a force to be reckoned with and a guy who can dive deep into his opponent’s head in order to make them more vulnerable.

Joe vs. Cena can follow the same route with Joe playing all the mind games in the world to disarm Cena and what may follow would most likely be Cena’s best program in a long while.

#3 AJ Styles

AJ Styles & John Cena face to face

AJ Styles' WWE career has been nothing short of spectacular to this point, holding the WWE Championship for a combined total of 511 days out of his 1,062 days with the company. It can strongly be argued that it was his program with John Cena in his rookie year which helped cement Styles as one of the biggest stars in the WWE today.

The pair went through a terrific series of singles matches at Money in the Bank and SummerSlam that year followed by another blockbuster match at the following year's Royal Rumble. Trading competitive victories and verbal shots, Styles and Cena were determined to produce legitimate "Match of the Year" contenders in a rivalry that was widely regarded as the best of that time.

Although one would think that the program between Styles and Cena is over, WWE has a great opportunity to present the two rivals as arch-nemesis to each other, with a rivalry that never really ends, similar to that of Stone Cold and The Rock, and to that of The Miz and Daniel Bryan.

With all things considered, Cena and Styles are this generation's Hogan and Flair - with one being WWE's biggest star of his generation and the second making a name for himself in the wrestling business outside of Vince McMahon's wrestling empire.

Their match at WrestleMania can -- and probably should -- involve the WWE Championship since that has been the major point of conflict between the two to this point; and a definitive answer to who really is the face of the company.

#2 Finn Balor

Finn Balor captures the inaugural Universal Championship

For years now, Balor has not been the guy once presented as - by the WWE faithful. Coming up to the main roster at the most opportune time in 2016, Balor was positioned to be "the guy" on WWE's flagship show, beating the likes of Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins clean in singles action en-route to becoming the first-ever Universal Champion.

However, a shoulder injury in the same title match halted all his momentum and Balor was never able to recover from RAW's floundering midcard ever since. Yes, he's had his fair share of the spotlight on RAW but nothing even close to how he was booked prior to the injury.

By the end of 2018, things look completely different though. Roman Reigns had to give up his position as the top guy in the company following unfortunate news of him suffering from leukaemia. In addition, Braun Strowman went into a lean period creatively, which leaves a deep vacuum of top-tier stars on Monday Night RAW.

Balor is still over with the fans and near that top spot on the brand that it's not too far fetched to imagine him moving up the ranks exponentially on the red brand in the near future. As per Dave Meltzer in his Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Balor may finally be set for a "massive push" on RAW and there are few things bigger than going up against John Cena at WrestleMania.

Balor can finally resume his ascent to the top of WWE by beating the guy who has been on the top for over 15 years, and that too at the grandest stage of them all. While it would be good to see Balor unleashing the Demon King on Cena, it would be wiser for him to face Cena as the man. We all know the Demon is a star, but it's high time the guy wearing that paint becomes one too.

#1 Daniel Bryan

Daniel Bryan captures the WWE Championship

Perhaps, no other match makes sense for the Cenation Leader to have more than facing the former Yes! Man at the Show of Shows, for the ultimate title in the company. Bryan and Cena have a ton of history to take their possible rivalry to different places.

For starters, it was his match with Cena at SummerSlam 2013 that solidified Bryan as the top babyface in the company and positioned him to lead the company into the next generation. Considering how things panned out, it can be argued that it was this match which unofficially retired Cena from the main event of big yearly shows on a full-time basis.

Cena can return to confront Bryan with his new attitude and may also play the reality card in this - given that they were family. With how twisted Bryan has been portrayed on-screen of late, this would be a traditional good vs. evil bout that will be worthy of being one of the feature matches of the entire WrestleMania card - not looking pale in front of whatever the RAW main event is.

Cena will be looking to capture his record-breaking WWE Championship title victory, while Bryan would use all the tactics in the books to keep Cena away from doing just that. In addition, as far as the in-ring action goes, there are not a lot of matches that can be booked on the WrestleMania card today to realistically have the best match of the night than a Bryan vs. Cena clash.