John Cena has explained why he was unable to hold an extended WWE retirement tour amid Nick Khan’s comments about who has been “calling the shots” in planning his final year as a professional wrestler. Cena will retire on Saturday, December 13th, at Saturday Night’s Main Event at Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C.
John Cena’s Scrapped WWE Retirement Plans
Cena shocked fans when he announced at Money in the Bank in July 2024 that he would call time on his storied career at the end of 2025. But he promised to go out with a bang, delivering a farewell tour that would see him face old and new faces.
The 48-year-old has now revealed that he was initially keen to take on a full one-year calendar and go on the road with WWE before retiring.
He told Bill Simmons of The Ringer: “Hey man, 36 dates must have been easy this year.’ I did too many jobs. I was in Budapest, flying to Indy, do Indy, fly back, land, go film. Doing that until post-WrestleMania. Back and forth to Morocco, Budapest, all these crazy places that weren’t easy commutes. You think you can do it, ‘I’ll sleep on the plane.’ You don’t. It doesn’t happen. Then, you get upside down and you’re super fatigued. I threaded the needle just enough.”
Cena has spent the year mostly appearing on PLEs and special episodes of RAW and SmackDown, and his tour has been full of ups and downs. He challenged himself with a heel run that struggled to hit the heights many anticipated, but he also put on classics against Cody Rhodes at SummerSlam and AJ Styles at Crown Jewel.
The 17-time world champion wanted to do more dates but travel scuppered those plans:
“The plan, originally, was to do a full year. This goes to show my ignorance of the business. I wanted to do 220 dates. Just take the year off from everything, hop on a bus, do a full WWE calendar, and totally say goodbye. Thank goodness the business isn’t like that anymore. I’d be done. They only needed me for 36.”
Cena has one more match left as a WWE superstar and that will be against either Gunther or LA Knight. The duo square off in the final of the Last Time is Now tournament on SmackDown (December 4).
Nick Khan on Who Dealt With John Cena’s Farewell Tour
Some of the bookings for Cena’s farewell tour have left much to be admired, and many envision the grand slam champion not always agreeing upon certain decisions. He has suggested twice this year that he doesn’t decide his opponents, first mentioning “they deal them, I play ’em” when his rivalry with Brock Lesnar was revived and also to push for a match with Styles on X:
“I do not choose my opponents, but I (even through tough times) ALWAYS listen to the fans. @AJStylesOrgare you listening? Better yet @TripleH….. are YOU listening???”
WWE President Khan was asked by Logan Paul, who has been calling the shots throughout the tour. He responded on the Impaulsive podcast:
“Cena on this retirement tour, the generosity of his spirit in the ring is unparalleled. There’s never a, ‘I don’t like this outcome because it doesn’t make me look good.’ There’s a lot of, ‘Hey, let’s do this in the storyline. Let’s do this in the match,’ which of course you want from the John Cenas of the world. But there’s never a, ‘Why do you have me losing to Dominik Mysterio?’ He always does what’s best for the business and it certainly has turned out quite well for him.”
He added:
“It’s he and Triple H together (calling the shots), but there has not been a dispute. No, ‘Let’s end with this. No, let’s end this way.’ There’s not been a dispute with John Cena since he announced his retirement tour — prior to that, by the way, or since he’s executed upon his retirement tour.”
WWE’s Netflix docuseries ‘Unreal’ delved into Cena’s heel turn, and Triple H suggested the plan came to fruition through collaboration with writers and producers who proposed a “what if” situation. While the turn itself was iconic and is one of the greatest in pro wrestling history, the booking of his villainous run thereafter was disappointing.