Kevin Owens vs. John Cena needs to happen in 2025, WWE name opines

Kevin Owens disrupted WWE instantly with his arrival to the main roster a decade ago. He achieved this by destroying John Cena. While Owens was the NXT Champion at the time, Cena was in possession of the United States Championship.

The two men fought tooth and nail at three premium live events consecutively, with The Prizefighter drawing first blood, much to the shock of the WWE Universe. Analyst for the Stamford-based promotion, Sam Roberts feels that the former Universal Champion's current run warrants a revisit of this iconic rivalry.

On the latest episode of Notsam Wrestling, Roberts noted that the current version of Owens is reminiscent of how he used to be, gaslighting people into believing how he sees things through his lens.

"Heartless, soulless Kevin Owens. We haven't seen that Kevin Owens in a very long time. I don't think we've seen that Kevin Owens at least since he won the Universal Championship with Triple H's help, and maybe even quite a bit before then," Roberts said.

He then went further back to The Prizefighter's arrival on WWE's main roster, answering John Cena's US Title Open Challenge. With Cena's Farewell Tour happening and next year marking their rivalry's ten-year anniversary, the analyst feels it makes a lot of sense for the company to book this as one of the former 16-time World Champion's final opponents.

"Maybe we haven't seen this since the NXT Kevin Owens came in for the run with John Cena during John Cena's Open Challenge Era, which makes me wonder, if maybe now that we have this version of Kevin Owens back, we need to run that back with John Cena returning, and get a Kevin Owens-John Cena story, in this year we will have John Cena back," Roberts added. [From 41:59 to 42:44]

You can check out his comments in the video below:

Cena and Owens culminated their rivalry at Battleground 2015, with the former scoring a submission win over The Prizefighter. They reunited seven years later for a Tag Team Match against Roman Reigns and Sami Zayn.

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Kevin Owens on teaming up with John Cena against Roman Reigns in 2022

WWE SmackDown's December 30, 2022 episode featured a one-night-only appearance by John Cena. He teamed up with his former rival on that show.

In an interview with TMZ Sports ahead of his tag team contest that year, the Canadian explained why tagging with John Cena was a big deal to him. He revealed that his son was a huge fan of The Cenation Leader, so they both share a "little bond" with the latter.

"Me and my son will always have a little bond over John Cena. My son, as he was growing up, was a huge John Cena fan. When I signed my WWE contract, I told my son, 'Maybe I'll get to fight John Cena one day’, and then I did. It's a cool little thing to share with my son anytime John's involved. My son likes WWE but is not an avid fan like I was growing up. It’s just a neat little thing,” said Owens.

You can check out the match below:

John Cena disclosed earlier this year that he has around 30-40 available dates in 2025, meaning he is set for a handful of matches. But The Prizefighter is only one among a plethora of names WWE can book against Cena, as many have already expressed interest, including another notable rival of his.

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If you use any of the quotes from the first part of this article, please credit Notsam Wrestling and give a H/T to Sportskeeda Wrestling for the transcription.