3 Times John Cena allegedly didn't want to lose in WWE and 2 times he did

#2 John Cena wanted to lose against The Fiend (WrestleMania 36)

In 2020, The Fiend Bray Wyatt defeated John Cena in a cinematic Firefly Fun House match at WrestleMania 36. Shane McMahon, who did not compete at that year’s event, helped out behind the scenes with the production of the unique match.

McMahon appeared on Corey Graves’ After The Bell podcast in September 2020. Discussing the Firefly Fun House match, he praised Cena for unselfishly going out of his way to make Wyatt look good.

“So it set up the potential of anytime The Fiend wants to have a match like this, it could be this trippy, completely different, go anywhere down a wormhole. So that was the intent of it, kudos to John Cena for thinking outside the box, an immense amount of that was really, really pushed by him. John wanted Bray to do very well with it, and had it be a showcase for him. Very unselfish,” McMahon said.

John Cena famously defeated Bray Wyatt in a regular singles match at WrestleMania 30 in 2014. The match outcome turned out to be one of the most controversial in recent WWE history, as many fans felt Wyatt should have won.

Speaking to Den of Geek in 2021, Cena said nobody knew what a Firefly Fun House match was when he arrived at the WrestleMania taping. He added that the uncertainty would cause panic for most performers, but he felt “riveted by the open field to create something special.”