John Cena Would Have Been A 17-Time World Champion Five Years Ago If Not For Brock Lesnar

Cena has revealed some of the finer details about his retirement, and the build to it, during an interview with ESPN's No-Contest. Cena didn't become a 17-time World Champion until last year's WrestleMania, beating Cody Rhodes in the main event, pulling himself clear of the 16 World Titles record he'd held alongside Ric Flair for years.

In the main event of SummerSlam 2021, Cena competed against Roman Reigns for the Universal Championship. Cena lost that night, and right after the bell rang, Brock Lesnar returned to confront the reigning champion. Turns out Lesnar's return wasn't confirmed until a few hours before the show began. Until then, Cena was supposed to become a 17-time champion that night.

"They didn’t secure Brock until 5 pm that day. I was going to win 17," Cena revealed, although the process sounds like it would have been pretty convoluted, and he wouldn't have left SummerSlam with the Universal Championship. "We were going to have someone come out and restart the match, Roman was going to take it back... Tons of finishers because I was going to win, and then Roman was going to take it back. You have this hard-fought battle, and through a nefarious set of rules, the match is restarted."

Brock Lesnar's Late Arrival Forced A Significant Change Of Plans

Those plans were thrown out the window when WWE secured Lesnar right before the show was about to go live. Once Cena had been told, he went to speak with Reigns and Paul Heyman about what they were going to do differently. They pivoted from a match that would have been filled with finishers and false finishes to a match that featured just one spear - the spear that ended the match.

Cena made the call to have Reigns beat him with a single finisher because, with Lesnar coming back moments after the referee counted three, he needed to look strong. It couldn't be a match where Cena repeatedly kicked out of the spear. By having Reigns need it just once, it proved it really was a finisher, and it made him look as strong as possible heading into a new chapter of his years-long rivalry with The Beast.