00:00Tonight, I officially announce my retirement from the WWE.
00:05Okay, brace yourselves, be emotional, but let's dig into it.
00:08It is unfortunately official.
00:10I just think it's time that we all face facts.
00:13John Cena is having his final run of his WWE career from 2024 into 2025.
00:22At Money in the Bank, he confirmed that his retirement tour begins in early 2025 and is
00:28set to span for most, if not all of the year.
00:32To summarize this, what he said is that at the show and the press conference, Cena said
00:38while WrestleMania 41 will be his final mania, it won't be where he ends his career.
00:45Cena also said that his jorts are going to be retired once he retires.
00:51I'm pretty sure he can wear jorts after that, but not the same way, and he's going to replace
00:55it with a suit and tie.
01:00He's open to going to a world championship at the number 17 record-breaking level.
01:06He appears to be entering the 2025 Royal Rumble match, and he's going to be having 30 to 40
01:14appearances on this final run, what is most of the year.
01:18It wasn't surprising that Cena was met with an outpouring of love and emotional support
01:24from the WWE fanbase and those within the industry itself.
01:28Long gone are the days when people meant what they said when they chanted, John Cena sucks,
01:35come to be a term of endearment for a man who is widely considered one of the greatest
01:39of his generation to perform at the highest level.
01:43Cena always said that he wanted to wrap up his career by the time he turns 50, and assuming
01:48he retires at the end of 2025, he's going to be nearly 49 years old.
02:08Let's get into it, what needs to be done with John Cena's final run in WWE.
02:16This is Sportskeeda Wrestling.
02:18I'm Kevin Callum, I've booed John Cena and I've cheered him too.
02:22What do you think needs to happen with John Cena and his final run?
02:26Let us know in the comments below.
02:28Oh look at you, I can see you, yeah you can't see John Cena but I can see you sticking through
02:33that little ad, thank you so much.
02:35We have a few ideas of what WWE should and shouldn't do in this, the very final and
02:42pivotal year of an important career ending run here.
02:46For one, WWE should not be putting John Cena in a string of weekly back-to-back matches
02:53so that he can face superstars for the first time ever.
02:57Overexposing him in his final year of in-ring competition is going to dilute the value of
03:03those big matches that he's in.
03:05We need Big Match Johnny being Big Match Johnny again.
03:09Unfortunately this sucks for some younger members of the roster, yeah on the younger
03:13side who could benefit from having the stardust of John Cena rubbing off of his colorful wristbands
03:20on them when they take an attitude adjustment.
03:24But for the active week-to-week superstars, it's just a matter of what it is, yeah maybe
03:29it's just best overall that John Cena's not in there all the time.
03:34Yeah, who do you think is not going to be part of this final run?
03:38I'd love to hear your take about that in the comments below as well.
03:41Even though it's 30-40 appearances in a year that can't be described as 30-40 matches
03:47in a year, and it can be described as a part-time run but certainly more expanded than what
03:52we've seen from John Cena in WWE in the past few years, it's still better to keep
03:56Cena's matches almost exclusively on premium live events or big destination versions of
04:03Monday Night Raw or Smackdown.
04:06Now we get it.
04:07With WWE scoring the most expensive and profitable TV media rights deal that has ever been granted
04:14within professional wrestling, Monday Night Raw and premium live events moving to Netflix
04:18internationally, $5 billion over multiple years kicks off in early 2025 which lines
04:26up with John Cena's farewell tour.
04:29It's going to be a part of justifying the money they're spending in getting such a
04:33big property.
04:35And we get that in order to give Netflix more value for the billions they're spending,
04:40WWE is going to have to put John Cena in some matches on Monday Night Raw, and that makes
04:45it special.
04:46It's not outright unavoidable, his matches on Raw should be kept to a minimum, and minimum
04:51doesn't mean they're not special, it means they are simply awesome things you get to
04:58see on Netflix in John Cena's final run.
05:01Last year heading into WrestleMania 39, Austin Theory, the young braggadocious superstar,
05:07was put in a dream feud against Cena and ended up beating him at WrestleMania.
05:13The only issue is the match, in the eyes of a lot of people, simply didn't live up to
05:17standards.
05:18Nobody remembered anything about the rivalry beyond John Cena chewing Theory up on the
05:23microphone.
05:24Austin Theory somehow became the only person to ever be worse off after beating John Cena.
05:30That's no detriment to him, but it's just simply a matter of the way the cards laid
05:34out when it was all said and done.
05:36Yeah, maybe that's not the same example if we're going to do a generation vs generation
05:41thing in this one final run.
05:43Old rivalries is the route to go.
05:47Perhaps his last WrestleMania match can be against Randy Orton, a man who, along with
05:53himself, helped define a generation of WWE, yet they've never had a one-on-one match
05:58at the show of shows.
06:00Certainly, they've had a lot of big matches together.
06:03They were in the same match at WrestleMania 24, but that was a Triple H Triple Threat
06:08match, so not exactly the same thing.
06:11It only seems like a fair spot since neither legend will be taking up a championship spot
06:17at WrestleMania from our estimations, and it can still be a marquee attraction in Las
06:22Vegas.
06:23It's already been hinted at in some way or another on social media.
06:28CM Punk, someone who is certainly counter-culture, and John Cena was the face of WWE culture
06:33for quite some time, were certainly a yin and yang against each other in a fantastic
06:39way in the early 2010s.
06:42Their Money in the Bank 2011 main event may be one of the most underrated WWE main events
06:47of all time.
06:49Reigniting that could be very, very special.
06:52Or better yet, they could team up together against two up-and-comers.
06:57Who couldn't love seeing the story of two old, bitter rivals now working on the same
07:01page for a common cause?
07:03Yes, it's a tried and tested trope.
07:07Yes, how do they coexist?
07:09But one that would certainly translate well for guys like Cena and Punk at this stage
07:14in their careers and lives.
07:17And who have for the longest time stood across the ring against one another, but not side
07:22by side like that.
07:23It would be an attraction unto itself.
07:25There's always the possibility of him targeting a world championship run at a record-breaking
07:31number 17.
07:32We're not going to deny that he doesn't deserve it, but some could say that maybe
07:38that's more of a game for the modern, younger talent on the roster.
07:42But apart from him hitting that record number, will anything good come from him being a world
07:48champion?
07:49That's a reasonable question.
07:50Even with his 16th world title reign in 2017, the only two things that came out of it were
07:56the fact that Cena tied Ric Flair's infamous world title record and that it set up Bray
08:02Wyatt's first world championship win.
08:05But that's also ignoring the significance of what could happen if he does indeed break
08:11the record that Flair has held for many years.
08:14To counter that, Cena's final run having a record-breaking moment before he puts up his
08:20pump up rebox for good would also be a seismic swerve to keep fans, both casual and diehard,
08:27on their toes instead of just having them anticipating the ending of it all.
08:32Maybe behind the scenes, Cena isn't keen on being a world champion, even if he doesn't
08:37admit it when he's talking to the media.
08:40An alternative idea, which in our opinion is maybe more interesting, is the story of
08:45John Cena going after the only accolade that has eluded him throughout his entire career,
08:52the Intercontinental Championship, the working man's title within WWE.
08:58That's all it takes for him to have a grand slam championship run, and he deserves a crack
09:03at that as well.
09:04WWE has done a great job since Gunther made the IC title a prestigious fighting championship
09:11once again.
09:12Oh yeah, we're gonna get into the stats here.
09:15There's only been two champions in the past two years in the IC title's lineage.
09:21Cena having a part of that could really elevate that, even in just a transitional type of
09:27role.
09:28It would also be a great way to get him to feud with up-and-comers, but also make it
09:32legitimate at the same time.
09:34Other names he's never crossed paths with would want to tangle with him in those circumstances.
09:40But in reality, Cena won't need a championship storyline to feel important.
09:45He's a championship unto himself.
09:47He's John Cena.
09:48The fact that his last run is enough of a draw is a special, magical thing unto its
09:54own.
09:55There's been a fine balance where it doesn't feel like Cena's taking up the biggest spot
09:59in WWE, while at the same time helping to elevate younger talent.
10:04He's been in that role for the better part of a few years, making sporadic appearances
10:09and having sporadic matches, but this needs to feel like something different.
10:14But that's where another key factor in how WWE should handle Cena's last run comes in.
10:19He shouldn't be losing that much to anyone and everyone.
10:23He's been losing a lot in the past few years.
10:27After having the Super Cena reputation for a majority of his career, the former franchise
10:32player of WWE took on the opposite approach from 2016, losing all sorts of matches to
10:38all sorts of talent like Dean Ambrose, AJ Styles, Shinsuke Nakamura, and Solo Sakoa.
10:44If you're going to have every superstar who faces John Cena beat him, then it's going
10:50to devalue their victories in a big way.
10:53The whole idea of beating the big superstar John Cena won't mean that much when fans
11:00simply just want him to feel like John Cena again, and it will devalue John Cena as well.
11:07It's a different mode they have to go in here.
11:10In a very same breath, Cena probably is going to be put under scrutiny if he beats too many
11:15newer superstars.
11:16It's a hard balance to hit here, but how is a win over him supposed to mean something
11:21right now in these circumstances?
11:24The only way that can be done is by having superstars that have earned the right to beat
11:28Cena get wins over him, and that's not everybody, and that's debatable, and that's a whole other
11:34thing.
11:35And yes, that means WWE is probably going to have to present some type of newer version
11:40of a Super Cena.
11:41That's a different debate.
11:43When we say a watered down version of that, we mean John Cena that just beats about everyone
11:48except a select few.
11:50In our opinion, the best way WWE can book Cena in 2025 is to present him as the most
11:56fired up, determined version of himself that we've seen in years.
12:01You know who he is?
12:06He knows who he is.
12:08He knows what his body can do.
12:10He's crafty, he's smarter, and he makes different choices while still being a fiery fighting
12:17underneath hero for the fans to rally behind.
12:24There needs to be an emotional lava flow of culmination and conclusion at the end of the
12:32year, with him losing, yes losing, to a worthy opponent on his way out.
12:38As is the tradition of professional wrestling, you are going out on your back, looking up
12:44at the lights, and making another superstar on the way out, giving back to the business
12:50that gave so much to you.
12:51And no, we don't mean a Kurt Angle type of farewell where he just gets a random opponent
12:57and loses in 6 minutes.
12:59Yeah, that wasn't fair to Kurt Angle, but that was then.
13:02But this is John Cena.
13:04This is different.
13:05It needs to feel like a momentous, game-changing event for both him and whoever gets the truly
13:15career-changing moment of getting to end the career of The Goat.
13:20Can everyone playing their part in this epic emotional story deliver on their roles?
13:28Can John Cena have the biggest send-off in WWE history?
13:33Because at this point, that's what fans are expecting, and some feel it needs to be that
13:39and more.
13:40Yeah, it's a big question to ask, and if you've watched this entire video and you haven't
13:44jumped into the comments yet, come on, do it, or I'm going to reach through the screen
13:48and give you an attitude adjustment.
13:50I don't know how that's going to work out, but get down there, or check out the other
13:54videos we have like these.
Comments