John Cena refuses to defend Undisputed WWE Title against top star in scenario suggested by Hall of Famer

John Cena captured the Undisputed WWE Championship at WrestleMania 41 to become a 17-time world champion. A Hall of Famer recently suggested a scenario where The Franchise Player would refuse to put the title on the line against a top superstar.

Cody Rhodes held the Undisputed WWE Title for 378 days. However, he failed to retain it at this year's Show of Shows as Cena defeated him following a low blow and a hit to the head with the belt. Since then, The American Nightmare has been absent from WWE programming. Speaking on the Something to Wrestle podcast, Hall of Famer John Bradshaw Layfield (JBL) discussed what could be next for the former champion.

The wrestling legend suggested a scenario in which Rhodes would return to challenge Cena, but the latter would refuse to wrestle him since he had already defeated him at WrestleMania. JBL pointed out that The American Nightmare would then be forced to work his way back up:

"I don't know if it exists right now or not because I don't know the creative. But it's easy to make exist because it's, literally, you can make it out of thin air. This comes out with just the typical heel champion of saying, 'I'm not gonna face him. I beat him. I'm not gonna face him.' And then you have Cody have to work his way back up. It's one of the oldest angles in wrestling," he said. [1:08:43 - 1:09:03]

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Ex-WWE writer thinks John Cena will lose the title to Cody Rhodes at SummerSlam

On his Wrestling with Freddie podcast, former writer Freddie Prinze Jr. expressed his satisfaction with the outcome of the Undisputed WWE Championship match at WrestleMania 41.

Meanwhile, the Hollywood star predicted that John Cena would drop the title to Cody Rhodes at SummerSlam in August:

"This gives Cody another hill to climb because they're gonna wrestle again at SummerSlam and Cody's gonna win the title back and get it back because he's the new John Cena. So, he's getting it back," he said.

Wrestling veteran Stevie Richards recently explained why Triple H and his creative team had to take Cody Rhodes off television after WrestleMania.

Please credit Something to Wrestle and give an H/T to Sportskeeda if you use the above transcription.

About the author

Ahmed Hamdy is an Egyptian journalist with a decade of experience in sports journalism, specializing in pro wrestling and football.

Hamdy kicked off his career as a sports reporter for Al-Ahram Weekly. He then became a producer/reporter for Mal Masr TV program on the Egyptian channel ON TV. In the following years, Hamdy worked as a reporter for several international news outlets, including Deutsche Welle (Germany), As-Safir (Lebanon), and Al-Monitor (U.S.A).

In 2014, Hamdy joined leading Egyptian newspaper Al Masry Al Youm, where he is now a Senior Sports Editor. In addition to all that, the Egyptian also worked as a sports editor for Sport360 and feature writer for Manshoor.com.

Hamdy has covered several sports events throughout the past few years, including WWE's tour in Egypt and the 2019 African Cup of Nations.

The experienced journalist joined Sportskeeda's pro wrestling feature writers team in early 2021. Since then, his work has managed to get millions of reads.

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Edited by Rahul Madurawe