5 WWE Superstars who had backstage power to choose their opponents
Regular WWE viewers will know that Vince McMahon ultimately makes the big decisions on WWE match outcomes and storyline developments, but he still has a team of over 20 writers who pitch ideas on a weekly basis.
On top of that, there have been certain Superstars throughout WWE history who have had so much backstage power that they have been allowed to choose their own opponents.
In some cases, these Superstars were only able to select a handful of opponents, while others had creative control over their characters and future matches.
Without further ado, let’s take a look at five people from WWE history who had a say in the Superstars they faced.
#5 John Cena chose his WWE WrestleMania 36 opponent
John Cena’s on-screen WWE character was allowed to choose his own opponent at SummerSlam 2013. He selected Daniel Bryan, prompting huge “Yes!” chants from the WWE Universe, and the two men went on to headline the event.
In reality, while Cena worked as WWE’s top guy for over a decade, you only have to look through a list of his opponents to know that he did not have complete creative control over his matches during his full-time run with the company.
Since becoming a part-time performer, however, it seems that WWE’s higher-ups have taken a different approach with the 16-time WWE World Champion.
In February 2020, WrestleVotes reported that WWE allowed Cena to choose his WrestleMania 36 opponent. He opted for Bray Wyatt – the man he defeated six years earlier at WrestleMania 30 – and they ended up creating another ‘WrestleMania moment’ by competing in WWE’s first Firefly Fun House match.
It has been implied on other occasions that Cena has had more say in his WWE opponents than most colleagues throughout his career.
For example, Seth Rollins revealed on Edge & Christian’s Pod of Awesomeness in 2019 that he made a comment to Cena about possibly being added to his match with Brock Lesnar at the 2015 Royal Rumble, making it a Triple Threat.
Cena discussed the idea with WWE officials and Rollins was added to the match.