What’s the story?
WWE.com posted stats showing who John Cena’s most frequent opponents have been throughout his WWE tenure.
In case you didn’t know...
John Cena has been the face of WWE since 2005 when he first won the WWE Championship from JBL. Since then, he’s been the main franchise player, selling the most merchandise and granting the most numbers of “Make-A-Wish”. As a result of his babyface persona, he became quite a polarising figures among WWE fans.
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Fans have begged for WWE to turn Cena heel for years now, to no avail. However, since October 2015, he’s transitioned into a more part-time role, spending more time outside WWE for Hollywood and other projects. As a result, fans have warmed up to him a lot more. It’s also possible that his return has helped move numbers for WWE as viewership and house show figures increase with his presence.
Cena is a 16-time World champion, tying Ric Flair’s paper record(Flair is said to actually be a 17-23 time world champion)
The heart of the matter
WWE.com stated that the following are Cena’s 5 most frequent opponents during his WWE tenure:
| Opponent | Number of times faced | Win | Loss | Draw |
| Randy Orton | 77 | 47 | 25 | 5 |
| Big Show | 55 | 33 | 20 | 2 |
| Edge | 52 | 29 | 19 | 4 |
| The Miz | 42 | 26 | 16 | 0 |
| Kane | 41 | 28 | 11 | 12 |
It comes as no surprise that Randy Orton is John Cena’s most frequent opponent. From 2007 to 2010 the two faced off against each other so many times on so many different PPVs and episodes of RAW and SmackDown that fans got bored of the two matching up. Their rivalry became a running joke among fans because of the number of times they’ve faced.
Big Show and Kane served more as secondary rivals to Cena, being more of one-off opponents and short-term feuds rather than long-time rivals. Edge, on the other hand, will go down in history as one of John Cena’s greatest rivals. The two had some incredibly memorable feuds and matches, and Edge was the perfect foil to Cena’s babyface character.
The Miz naturally is one of John Cena’s memorable opponents as well. He doesn’t touch the level Cena reached with CM Punk or Edge, but they’ve had a long-standing rivalry regardless, facing off in the main event of WrestleMania 27 and also facing each other in a Mixed tag team match at WrestleMania 33
What’s next?
John Cena is set to face Rusev in a Flag match at Battleground later this month, renewing his rivalry with The Bulgarian Brute from 2 years ago.
Author’s Take
The list is not that surprising. The only surprise is that CM Punk isn’t featured in the top 5. However, Orton being first was the most expected of the lot. Cena has been the workhorse for WWE the past decade and is very deserving of the praise that he gets.
His transition into a part-timer has also helped other talent a lot, as he has been putting over superstars left and right. Hopefully, that trend continues.
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