John Cena pays tribute to former rival after WWE SmackDown
John Cena acknowledged Adam Copeland (formerly known as Edge) twice on Friday night.
The first tribute to his former rival took place on WWE SmackDown in his United States title match against Sami Zayn. Cena used Kurt Angle’s Ankle Lock and Angle Slam, Kevin Owens’ pop-up powerbomb, and gave Zayn a spear during the match. On commentary, Michael Cole noted that the spear could be a tribute to Roman Reigns, while Corey Graves alluded to Copeland by mentioning a famous Canadian rival of Cena’s uses a spear as well.
Cena and Edge had 18 singles matches on WWE programming from 2006 to 2010, including 11 matches for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship, four of which ended in a title change.
Cena posted an image of Edge to Instagram without any caption a few hours after SmackDown concluded on Friday night. His post is available below.
Ian Carey is a writer from Toronto, Ontario, Canada, whose work has appeared in award-winning publications such as NOW Magazine and The Huffington Post. He joined the F4WOnline team in 2019 and was named managing editor in the summer of 2026. Born in Calgary, Alberta, Ian has covered professional wrestling for more than 15 years.