Road to WrestleMania – John Cena

We’re just hours away from the biggest event of the year, WrestleMania 29. After last year’s spectacular scenes, this WrestleMania seems to have the goods to top it, and become the biggest WrestleMania of all time! This WrestleMania will be headlined once again by the John Cena-Rock clash, which will be for the WWE Championship. It’s been a long journey for John Cena since the last WrestleMania, when he lost to The Rock at the Sun Life Stadium in Miami, and since then, Cena hasn’t won the WWE title! It’s been over 16 months since Cena had the WWE championship on his shoulder, which seems a distant reality considering the fact that Cena is the face of the WWE!

Since last year’s WrestleMania, John Cena has lost his way in the WWE. After his loss to The Rock, Cena openly admitted the next night that he had suffered the biggest loss of his career! And since then, he has seen some ups and downs, and in this article, we will see Cena’s road to WrestleMania 29 since WrestleMania 28. In the past year, Cena feuded with various opponents, which included a returning Brock Lesnar, CM Punk, Dolph Ziggler and The Shield. After the much-hyped main event against The Rock, the next night, Cena called out The Rock, and the challenge was accepted by a returning Brock Lesnar to a thunderous ovation!

Cena and Brock Lesnar had a showdown at the next PPV, which was Extreme Rules ’12. Although Cena was dominated by Brock, Cena found a way to win the match, but not before Lesnar decimated John Cena. After this, Cena got into a feud with the then General Manager of RAW, John Laurinaitis. John Cena then was involved in numerous confrontations with Big Johnny, which culminated in a match against Big Show, in which if Cena won, Laurinaitis would be fired, and if Big Show won, Cena would be fired! After a ‘hellacious’ match at No Way Out, Cena defeated the Big Show, which meant that John Laurinaitis was fired.

John Cena then participated in his first MiTB ladder match, which he won! He thus won the contract of facing the WWE Champion any time within the next year. Cena chose to use his contract during the 1000th episode of RAW against the then WWE Champion, CM Punk. During the match however, the Big Show interfered, costing Cena the opportunity to win back the WWE Title. Cena and Punk feuded over the summer for the WWE title, as Punk wanted Cena to respect him and call him the ‘Best in the world’, which Cena refused to do. At the Survivor Series, their feud culminated with Ryback included in the match, and Punk retained the title by pinning Cena.

Meanwhile, Cena got involved with Dolph Ziggler and AJ Lee. AJ and Cena got into an angle where she was involved with Cena during an on-screen relationship. Cena then challenged Ziggler for a match at TLC for Ziggler’s brief case. During the match however, AJ turned on Cena, costing him the brief case as she sided with Dolph Ziggler. Cena ended ’12 on a low note, as he was looking at the bottom of the barrel. But 2013 started well for Cena, as he not only defeated Ziggler in a couple of matches, but went into the Royal Rumble and won the Rumble match for the second time! This made him only the fourth ever performer to win the Rumble on more than one occasion!

After this, Cena challenged the WWE champion for his match at WrestleMania. Later, Cena was involved in a feud with The Shield, with his team losing at the Elimination Chamber. Soon after this, Cena seemed well on his way to retain the WWE title, after he defeated CM Punk to keep his opportunity of facing the WWE champion, thus defeating his demons! 2013 has been a great year for Cena, as he looks well on his way to make good of his past year.

In just a few hours, Cena will be facing The Rock once again for the WWE title. One has to believe that Cena’s momentum will see him beating The Rock, and become the new WWE Champion. Only time will tell us if that’s the case, or if Rock hands Cena another devastating loss to send him into another downward spiral.