John Cena’s return to win the Royal Rumble shocked almost everyone. While he had been displayed in some advertising for WrestleMania, most expected Cena to not be back in action until after WrestleMania. When he was originally injured and stripped of the WWE Championship last October, it was expected that he wouldn’t be back until this summer. Cena was to begin filming his new movie 12 Rounds on February 25 in New Orleans and the movie was set for a September 5, 2008 release date.
Earlier this week during his promotional tour of Italy when asked about his rehab for his injury, Cena said “I’m happy and healthy. Its just the doctor in the company is conservative. I’m also involved in a cinema project. I’m filming a new movie in two weeks which is going to last for around five months.”
When asked when he’ll return to the ring, Cena responded, “I don’t want to say ‘never say never’ but it looks to be about the six to twelve months that they thought, so we’ll see.”
It now appears that WWE will have Cena work a very limited schedule which will probably involve little to no wrestling between now and WrestleMania. How WWE will balance the movie shoot with Cena’s title match remains to be seen.
With Cena back, unless there is a screwjob with Cena not being granted the title shot, the top matches for WrestleMania appear to be John Cena vs. Randy Orton for the WWE Championship, Edge vs. The Undertaker for the World Championship, Triple H vs. Batista and Ric Flair vs. Mr. Kennedy (with Kennedy likely ending Flair’s career). I would also expect MVP to finally face Matt Hardy, and Maria to face Beth Phoenix for the WWE Women’s Championship since Maria will be the Playboy girl this year.
As always, plans change at the drop of a hat in WWE, so I wouldn’t be surprised if a couple of those matches get changed around. As for the expected Randy Orton/Triple H WWE Championship match being called off, this marks the third time that WWE had planned for an Orton/Triple H match to headline WrestleMania, only for it to get changed.
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