It was a night Cena is now aligned with The Rock and Travis Scott as he goes to WrestleMania to face Cody Rhodes to try to win a record-breaking 17th World Championship. With a little over a month to go until the match itself, this was a night in which fans learned a lot about John Cena's new outlook.

Jeered on by a European audience that represented the feelings of the fans watching at home on Netflix, John Cena referenced his past and even people who don't watch WWE, in a tirade that will be spoken about for years.

5 The Crowd's Reaction Was Nuclear

John Cena's Retirement Tour Is Going To Raise Every Roof

For the entire 25 years of his WWE career, fans have had decibel-shattering responses to John Cena. Listen to him entering Chicago to face CM Punk at Money In The Bank in 2011, or walking into the hate-filled stadium The Rock played college football in after a year of taking shots at him at WrestleMania 28. John is no stranger to loud reactions but, even when considering those examples, Brussels booed John Cena as loudly as at any point in his career with expletive-ridden chants, jeering his words, vicious songs, and a contender for the loudest rendition of "John Cena Sucks" accompanying his entrance music of all time.

The artistry of Cena deciding how he was going to conduct the crowd came in his very first line. Letting everyone know that their opinions do not matter to him in a smug quote, John Cena had the superb Belgian audience furious at how little he cared for them and their opinions. His total disinterest in both the audience and the WWE Champion was evident from the first note of his entrance music. More on the latter of those two to come, but both Brussels and John Cena set the standard of what both audience and performer can expect from one another in the months ahead.

4 Cena Is Going All In as a Bad Guy

John Left No Grey Area on Monday Night Raw

It is no exaggeration to say that fans have waited for at least a decade to hear John Cena cut a heel promo. Forever tied to his values and character, it was Cena's iron-clad dedication to being WWE's only true babyface that made his heel turn at Elimination Chamber so shocking. John Cena is now fully dedicated to being a villain, in exactly the same way he was formerly committed to being the WWE Universe's hero. His unflinching words directed at the people in the audience who chanted "Let's go Cena!" and, believe it or not, even at the kids in the audience, prove that there will be no gray lines or mixed reaction: John Cena is a full heel.

Doubling down on his feelings and killing any lingering doubt of his perspective, John barely paused for breath as he incinerated any ties with his former self. Cena unloaded on WWE's fans for always taking from him in a toxic and abusive relationship, from the beginning of his career to everything about the start of his retirement tour. Cena felt believable in his disdain for everyone associated with WWE and turned this into a promo so great it managed to exceed a decade of expectations.

3 Cena Is Rewriting His Story

John Draws On His Past To Explain His Presence

If people came to Monday Night Raw for answers on why he finally snapped during the opening quarter of 2025, John Cena revealed how he felt underneath all of his years of smiling. There are ways in which a global icon like John Cena exists that the people who consume his work cannot possibly understand, and the WWE Universe isn't sure how to feel about hearing a John Cena heel promo when they are told they should all be ashamed of themselves. Cena has drawn extreme reactions out of people for decades. "What if he was justified in how he feels?" was quite a conundrum for the audience to wrestle with.

10 of John Cena's World Championship victories came in less than 5 years, between November 23rd, 2008 and 7th April, 2013.

Without a doubt, these were the moments that hit home the hardest. He made the crowd fall silent, as Cena told them how he felt about each significant era of his career. If you lived through the Big Match John years of him racking up victory after victory, listening to him antagonize everyone over how the audience treated him as he started to "win and win and win", it couldn't help but strike a nerve. When the conversations about John Cena being the GOAT come at the end of this year, his cutting a first heel promo so good that it hurt the same people who wanted it makes a hell of a case.

2 John's Presentation Will Not Change

His Look And Theme Song Are More Than Just Clothing And Music

If retelling his story is part of the 16-time World Champion's new presentation, John Cena will not be updating his look, music, or slogans. In further demolition of the fans in the audience and at home, he pointed out that people just decide to dress like him and sing his theme song, while this is just how he looks and his words on his theme song are telling his truth. He tells the audience they pay for "Hustle Loyalty Respect" to be on a t-shirt, but he lives it every day because that's who he is. If shooting at the people who him within WWE's walls wasn't crazy enough, Cena didn't stop there.

WrestleMania 41 will bring in more casual wrestling fans than any in memory. Between Netlfix broadcasting the event to more people than ever before, plus WWE's continual radical overhaul of Vince McMahon's archaic foundations, John Cena even berated people who don't watch wrestling. Cena insulted everyone using the "You can't see me" meme as an invisible joke, in a move that took a shot at pretty much everybody. How is the crowd in Las Vegas and at home going to react when he still does the "you can't see me" in the ring, now that he's told them he thinks their joke around is "not funny and pathetic"?

1 He Has No Respect For Cody Rhodes

WWE's Current Champion Draws Nothing From John Cena

Before addressing him directly, Cena described Cody Rhodes as the fans' "shiny new toy" now that it's his turn to be put out to pasture. It is the closest he came to giving the face of WWE's new revolution one iota of respect. In truth, this was a rare night in which Cody Rhodes got his assessment wrong that he had taken Cena's best shot and was unaffected. Their first battle on the mic saw Cena taking Cody's best shot and coming out of Monday Night Raw with more to show for it.

Cody Rhodes is a fellow master on the mic, and he loaded up to fire back at John in Brussels. He summarized that this is a pale imitation of the real John Cena, calling him "a whiny bitch", and walking away. At face value, Cody shouting down Cena for calling him "kid" was the moment John showed how he felt about Rhodes. Look deeper. Cena had 15 minutes worth of bile for the fans and nothing for Cody, just a smirk and barely acknowledging a word the WWE Champion had to say. More is to come between these two over the next month, but John Cena feels like a man who knows Rhodes' time is up at WrestleMania, and John's time to make history is now.