8 Years After Debuting Against John Cena, Top Star Reveals Reason for Getting That Memorable First Match

John Cena, 46, is, was, and will be a superhero, of a sort both in the squared circle and in the big screen. To talk about his legendary WWE career, Cena powered through many daredevil rivals over the decades. The leader of the Cenation is the last one to back off from any potential challenge coming his way. Rather, he sometimes comes up short of getting enough of them on his platter.

In 2015, The Champ felt a deadlock regarding the supply of some new in-ring foes. By then, he was saturated with locking horns with all the main roster monsters and was utterly craving to meet a face fresh at the opposite end of the ring and one NXT star duly obliged.

Kevin Owens recalled how his first bout with John Cena materialized

Kevin Owens, one of the top stars of the promotion, was yet to bring his talent to the main roster. His fruitful reign in NXT earned him the confidence to get down to Cena’s United States Championship Open Challenge during the May 15th episode of Raw in 2015. However, in lieu of waiting for a match, the then-NXT starlet straightaway ambushed Cena, stomped on the US title, and held afloat his NXT Championship. Later Owens cemented his credibility by beating the 16-time WWE World Champion at Elimination Chamber a few days later.

Nonetheless, the affairs between the two solid assets of the WWE saw a peaceful settlement years later when they teamed up to face off against Roman Reigns and Sami Zayn in 2022. Still and all, the first Owen-Cena match is always noteworthy.

After the Fast X superhero made a triumphant return to the company at Money in The Bank last month, Owens went on to look back at their first encounter and how it came off.

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During a recent appearance in TNT Sports’ Ariel Helwani Meets, Roman Reigns’ long-term rival noted, “When I worked with Cena back in 2015, it’s because he needed somebody new. And he just felt like the roster was pretty much. He had done everything he could. And then he looked at NXT and who was the top guy in NXT? It was me so he’s like, ‘That’s the guy.’ Right place, right time.”

Of course, Owens’ fame in the NXT scene made him compete with Cena, the tagged legend of the business, but that didn’t do the job alone.

 John Cena wanted to elevate Kevin Owens by fighting him in 2015

Elevating the company isn’t possible without elevating its talent, something Cena knows the best. He has a decorative history of fighting with emerging faces to give them more exposure. His feud with Kevin Owens came as another testament to that.

According to WWE veteran Matt Hardy, Cena grew faith in Owens seeing his rousing NXT run. So, he chose to give a chance to him, to which KO did absolute justice.

While it’s not wrong that Triple H, too, had a soft corner for Owens and hence pushed him hard, John Cena also had his say in favor of this, as he rightly recognized how much potential KO carried.

Years later that match remains memorable and paved the way for Owens to be a top star in WWE.

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What’s your take on Kevin Owens memorizing his first-ever encounter with John Cena? Let us know in the comments.