Last month, Nikki Bella and John Cena announced they would be ending their engagement and rattled the wrestling world. The announcement came less than a month before the couple’s planned wedding date on May 5. It also ended a relationship that lasted nearly six years. For now, it appears that their relationship is over.
How did we get here? Here’s a timeline of one of wrestling’s biggest partnerships, both in the ring and out, and how there may yet be hope for the future.
2012 – The first date
They’d already been on the wrestling circuit together for a while, but Cena officially asked Bella out in late 2012 – just a few months after he filed for divorce from his first wife, Elizabeth Huberdeau.
“The first opening line was, ‘Hey, do you want to go to dinner with me?’ and I was kind of like, ‘What? With me?'” Bella recalled in a 2013 interview. “It just kind of started out like a dinner date and I have to admit we were friends for so many years, but then when you make it romantic, I couldn’t even say a word to him.”
2013 – Nikki moves in with John
If only it were that simple. Bella did indeed move into Cena’s home in Tampa Bay, but only after she signed a 75-page contract he created to protect himself.
“Having been through that process, here is how I view it. It is like buying a handgun for home defense. It gives you a sense of security, and it gives you a failsafe in case something happens. And those who buy a handgun for self defense pray, pray they never have to use it. Without it, it’s a dog fight,” Cena said to Nikki’s twin sister Brie on an episode of Total Bellas, the Divas spin-off where the sisters are the stars. “I had to have your sister sign an agreement to live in the house. And that’s – it wasn’t a one-page, it’s a 75-page agreement.”
September 7, 2014 – John Cena, soothsayer
One of the biggest topics this pair of wrestlers, well, wrestled with was whether or not they should have kids. Bella was forthright early on about her desire for a husband and, evnetually, children, but Cena was steadfast in his reluctance to marry again.
“Nikki and John wanted different things,” a source told PEOPLE. “It’s clear that they had issues over what they wanted from a marriage and from family. She wants kids.”
“Look, it’s his prerogative to not want kids,” the source continued. “But in that case, all of this should have stopped so long ago. They should have broken up after a year. And really that’s on both of them: She shouldn’t have tried to twist herself into someone she’s not just to please him. And he shouldn’t have given her false hope that he was going to change.”
But Cena stressed that he’s always been open and honest with Bella about not wanting children.
“I was abundantly clear about that from our very first date,” he told Brie on Total Divas. “It wasn’t like I tried to manipulate your sister into thinking a certain thing was going to happen and then all of the sudden say ‘Ha ha.’ ”
That disagreement came to a head on a September episode of Total Divas, when Cena virtually predicted the future of his relationship.
“I’m trying to be a realist. I’ve told you that I don’t want to get married and I don’t want to have kids, and you do want to get married and you do want to have kids. So I feel like this is a time-bomb over my head.”
