Las Vegas – John Cena and Coy Rhodes had a final confrontation on Friday night in the final episode “SmackDown” before their Wrestlemania 41 confrontation at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas.
Dinner and Rhodes exchanged shots to each other, as they have been doing for weeks. For a moment, Rhodes was at the receiving end of some boos of the crowd in the T-Mobile Arena. CEN had a reminder for the “American nightmare.”
CLICK HERE for more sports coverage at Foxnews.com
John Cena enters during the promotion of Cody Rhode during Friday night SmackDown at the T-Mobile Arena on April 18, 2025 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Andrew Timms/wwe through Getty Images)
“On Sunday to overcome you, I don’t have to fight,” Dinner told Rhodes as he cut him in his head.
Dinner then tried to put Rhodes in his firm attitude adjustment maneuver, but Rhodes responded and hit the 16 -time WWE champion with a Rhodes cross and left Cena on the back in the middle of the ring.
It was the final message sent before his epic match at Night 2 of the main live WWE event.
Rhodes told Pak Gazette Digital in the days before WrestleMania to face dinner was an “first time” experience for him due to the turn has made fans.
“I look many things now, like John and my game in Wrestlemania 41. I really see it as if it were the first time,” Rhodes explained. “John was someone who entered and, not immediately, but found his balance quickly in terms of who was going to be John Cena, and stirred that flag and took his brand very firmly, very disciplined during the time he did.
Wrestlemania 41 Night 2 will see John Cena trying to make history against Cody Rhodes
“It really helped attract the WWE car for a transition period too. I feel that this John has always been for me, a good guy or bad. You needed to work so hard, if not hard, and you need to reach its level, otherwise it was going to happen to you and then leave you in the dust.”
Rhodes added that he would never have thought that Cena would have become the heel during his career, since he had been loved by fans for so long.
Cody Rhodes is about John Cena during Friday night SmackDown at the T-Mobile Arena on April 18, 2025 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Mike Owens /wwe through Getty Images)
“Then, now, looking at the confrontation, that’s why I say it feels like a first half for me, because at the beginning of my career, I had not found my balance. I didn’t know who it was,” he said. “And now, especially judging by these past interactions in the ring, I feel that we know who they are now … I could not have expressed it in my wildest dreams that this would be a head of Wrestlemania and a main event, especially in the circumstances it has been. But that is the beautiful thing about the professional struggle; it is too difficult to call.”
Wrestlemania 41 Night 2 is scheduled for Sunday at 7 pm et. If Cena won, it would be a title 17 of the WWE record for him.
