Drew McIntyre Agrees That John Cena’s Heel Run Was ‘Wasted Opportunity,’ Pissed Off That He May Not Get Singles Program With Cena

McIntyre wants to win the WWE Title so he can get the match with Cena.

The Undisputed WWE Championship is back in Drew McIntyre’s eyesight as he’ll be challenging Cody Rhodes for the belt at Wrestlepalooza.

A new interview with McIntyre was rolled out by Peter Rosenberg to promote the title bout. Along the way, McIntyre spoke about wanting to work with John Cena before Cena retires in December.

He agreed with Rosenberg’s opinion that Cena’s heel run was a wasted opportunity. McIntyre thinks some of that time could have been spent putting Cena up against him. He added that currently, everyone is remembering how good Cena is, and McIntyre is not pleased that he may not get the chance to have that program with Cena.

“Yeah,” McIntyre responded when asked if he views John Cena’s heel run as a wasted opportunity, and he could’ve been working with Cena during that period. “Call it selfish all you want. I just know and I talked so much trash during the time because I know what he’s capable of, and it’s so much more and we’re seeing it right now. I don’t think it’s deliberate. I know it wasn’t deliberate… For Cena, a Cena two, three is a lot of people’s nine, 10. But, I just know how good he is, what he’s capable of and I ran my mouth, I talked trash because it was just quite frankly pissing me off watching it because I know how good he is. Now we’re seeing how good he is but what’s pissing me off now is it’s at the finish line and I might not get that opportunity so I need that title. I need to dangle that carrot or something in front of him that’s gonna make him pay attention and go, alright, maybe I go over here, and I’ll show Drew what’s up. I’ll tear him to shreds and I want him to because I want to be able to prove to the world I can stand on my own two feet with everybody just like I did with (CM) Punk, when he was gonna tear me to shreds on the mic, and absolutely eviscerated him to the point he was begging for his other tricep to get torn so he could get more time off so I would stop shredding him on the microphone…”

McIntyre and Cena have shared the ring several times in 2025. They last competed against one another in a tag team match on the August 8th Friday Night SmackDown, during which McIntyre and Logan Paul faced Cena and Cody Rhodes.

If the quote in this article is used, please credit Cheap Heat with an H/T to Fightful for the transcription.