John Cena made history during his retirement tour WWE Undisputed Champion Cody Rhodes to potentially gain his 17th Championship, unseating Ric Flair as the greatest of all time.

While some have lamented that the build up until this past week's Monday Night Raw has been a slow and lagging story, it's possible they are laying foundations for a potentially larger story for Cena, one that goes back over a decade and involves the legacy of Bray Wyatt, as well as two products of his twisted world inside WWE.

What's Next for John Cena After WrestleMania 41?

Could The Firefly Funhouse Come Back To Haunt Him?

John Cena's feud with Cody Rhodes is primed to be one of the most involved matches at WrestleMania 41, including potential interference from The Rock or other bad actors on his behalf to ensure Cena walks out of Las Vegas with the WWE Undisputed Championship. It's what Cena wants, his driving factor for his alignment with The Rock and his only objective, and it's fulfilled the prophecy and the accusation Bray Wyatt leveled at him during their Firefly Funhouse Match at WrestleMania 36.

"How dare you talk to me about chances, John Cena. I have had to earn everything I've ever been given in life, and still they're taken from me. You, you're the golden goose, John. Your chances, they're unlimited, you're untouchable. But you're not a hero, John. You're a bully. You're a horrible person. You take the weaknesses of others, and you turn them into jokes. You'd do anything for fame, John. Congratulations, you're the man now, John. Poor, lonely John Cena."

If he is successful in his attempt to take the championship from Rhodes, Cena will have fulfilled his destiny as the greatest of all time, but at the greatest cost to himself, as he sacrificed his principles and his morals to keep his fame, just like Wyatt said he would. With the championship around his waist and an ego the size of Texas, Cena would be exactly what Wyatt said he was: a bully.

Uncle Howdy Returns To Even The Score

The Loose Ends of the Funhouse Still Exist

After Bray Wyatt's ing in 2023, it seemed that the world he created in WWE was left undone forever, with many plans and stories still left for the theater of the mind. However, his brother Bo Dallas, who had previously played Uncle Howdy during Wyatt's return in 2022 and 2023, was part of the rebooting of the Uncle Howdy storyline, involving a group of performers known as the Wyatt Sicks and raining destruction over the WWE Universe.

John Cena's story with Bray Wyatt may have ended at WrestleMania 36, but the wrath of The Fiend and Uncle Howdy never ended, and the foundation has already been set for another showdown between Cena and the Wyatt World. Cena's capitulation to his unrelenting need for fame means that, eventually, atonement will be sought, and Uncle Howdy is "the voice of the reckoning."

Karrion Kross And His Place In The Story

Kross Foretold A Cena Heel Turn As Well

Uncle Howdy wouldn't be the only one that had John Cena in their crosshairs to provide him with the necessary atonement for his sins against the people. Karrion Kross has been no stranger to either the Wyatt Sicks or John Cena, as cryptic social media videos show Kross watching Cena in the ring from backstage, foreshadowing his involvement with Cena as the walls push in.

During a recent interview on Unlikely with Adrian Hernandez, Kross revisited a few creative pitches that he came up with during his time working with Wyatt and raised a few eyebrows with some ideas.

"For me, it wasn't difficult at all. I had a blast with it. It was really, really fun. I had a ton of ideas that I put on the table that I was hoping we could get to. Maybe there's still time in the future to circle back and get to them, but it was a lot of fun. I think there's still a lot of mileage to be explored there. I had tons of ideas with Windham that we wanted to do that I think I can translate for them, which would be complimentary towards their story arc as well. I one story that Windham and a fellow named Nick Manfredini. He was an incredible writer with WWE. They were writing for me, and they ran it by me to see if I would like it. At one point, they wrote this thing where I was in a church pew, and it seemed like I was confessing to someone behind the other side of the door, like how you see in horror movies and stuff like that, and you couldn't see my face, and there was a monologue, and I don't want to say what the monologue was, because maybe there's a way to get to it. Maybe there's a place for it. But by the end of it, I leaned forward. Windham and Nick wanted me to have the Fiend mask on, and there was an idea out there that they were coming up with where Windham would have to overcome, or Bray Wyatt would have to overcome that side of him that he didn't really want to get near, so that was a really cool concept. I thought maybe we could revisit and reformat Jason Baker, who's an amazing Hollywood FX artist. He did a lot of Bray's masks. They were talking about maybe potentially giving me like a symbiote of The Fiend on my shoulder and up my arm."

Kross has been instrumental in the changing of the guard for multiple WWE Superstars and their storylines, as well as bringing out their true colors. If the creative forces at WWE spin this Kross/Fiend symbiote story into a multilayered story involving Kross, the Wyatts, Cena, things could get interesting very quickly, allowing for Cena to lose the championship as a result of his hubris and overwhelming need to stay on top and, most importantly, relevant in a WWE landscape that may not need him anymore.

Our Take on What's Next for John Cena

Any Avenue Works Well Here, And Pays Off A Big Story For Fans

John Cena's retirement is happening at the end of 2025, regardless of what he's taking with him when he leaves, and a significant portion of this story that needs resolution is that he, to quote the classic GangStarr record, sold his soul for some mass appeal. The Story of John Cena can't possibly end with him as a cowardly, selfish heel, hellbent on taking the championship with him, as it would betray almost 20 years of storytelling and character work that made him who he is today.

Pitting him in a program with Uncle Howdy, Karrion Kross, or both, would force Cena to face his demons and atone for his actions, and allow them to help facilitate the removal and loss of the only thing he's ever truly cared about: his golden calf, the WWE Championship. Whether Cena wants it right now or not, a reckoning is coming, and the story can't get much more exciting.