WWE has been flooding their social media with the fact that 15-time world champion John Cena will be returning on SmackDown Live in Chicago, IL, this coming Tuesday. While it is not known the role Cena will play in this “Wildcard Finale,” it appears to be a significant one based on the hype building up for his return. With the Royal Rumble approaching in a few weeks, and WWE trying to stack the deck to fill up the Alamodome, Cena may indeed announce that he will be a participant in the match, in hopes to tie Ric Flair and become 16-time world champion.
However, there may be a different route that WWE is prepping John Cena for. WWE just posted a video of Cena and NXT star Samoa Joe, highlighting their past with each other.
The video starts off by stating that Cena and Samoa Joe crossed paths early in their careers, long before they were main event stars. Both competed and trained together at Ultimate Pro Wrestling (UPW), which was owned and operated by popular promoter and talent agent Rick Bassman from 1999 to 2007. UPW was also affiliated with WWE’s developmental system in the early 2000s, and both competitors would engage in an intense feud in the company.
The video would then go on to share the little-known fact that Cena would have dinners with Joe’s family, enjoying the Seanoa Samoan barbeque.
Interestingly, the vignette leaves fans with this quote.
If we ever see them in a WWE ring together, would it be as friends or foes?
This sets up a very plausible plot regarding the next person for John Cena to feud with. At this point, it appears as if Cena is using his time in the WWE to put other stars over, as we have seen this year with a loss against Dean Ambrose on SmackDown Live, and multiple losses against AJ Styles throughout the year.
Samoa Joe would be a perfect opponent in allowing Cena to continue using his legendary status to pass the torch and create the next batch of stars. With Joe losing in both Osaka, Japan and Melbourne, Australia to Shinsuke Nakamura, a main roster call-up may be as early as SmackDown Live.
