Amazing Red Reacts To John Cena Using The Code Red

John Cena’s retirement tour has been full of callbacks to his career, but one recent wrinkle caught the attention of a wrestler who rarely gets mentioned in WWE circles these days: Amazing Red. Cena has broken out the Code Red — the inverted 450 splash long associated with Red from his ECW and TNA days — during two high-profile matches this summer, first against Cody Rhodes at SummerSlam and then against Logan Paul at Clash in Paris.

Speaking with Chris Van Vliet, Amazing Red said his phone started blowing up once fans noticed Cena using the move, with people reaching out to make sure he’d seen it. Red, known for his high-flying style during his ECW run and later stints in TNA and the independents, joked that he probably needs to start asking Cena for some kind of cut given how associated the move is with him.

It’s a fun footnote to Cena’s farewell run, which has been built around leaning into nostalgia and paying tribute to the styles and eras that shaped him. Cena has never been shy about crediting the wrestlers who influenced his in-ring work, and pulling out a move like the Code Red against opponents of Rhodes’ and Paul’s caliber is the kind of detail that lights up longtime fans who remember exactly where the spot came from. For a performer like Amazing Red, who never got the mainstream WWE spotlight despite being one of the more inventive high-flyers of his generation, seeing his signature acknowledged on WWE’s biggest stages is a nice moment of recognition, even secondhand.

The move itself has become something of a rarity in modern WWE, given Cena’s age and the physical toll of performing it, which only added to the surprise when he used it twice in major matches this summer. With Cena continuing his final run toward retirement, it’s worth watching whether the Code Red makes another appearance before he steps away from in-ring competition for good — and whether Red himself gets any further shoutouts along the way.

Either way, it’s a small but charming reminder of how interconnected wrestling history really is, with moves and moments passed down and repurposed decades later on the sport’s biggest stages.