John Cena confirms retirement despite speculation of potential return

John Cena is introduced prior to his match against Cody Rhodes for the Undisputed WWE Championship during WrestleMania 41 at Allegiant Stadium on April 20, 2025 in Las Vegas, Nevada. | Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images The Never Seen 17 is out here trying to promote his Clash of Clans tie-in, and his excellent turn as a villain in Acme vs. Coyote, and he keeps getting asked about the end of his in-ring WWE career. Earlier this week John Cena revealed that he thought WrestleMania 36’s Firefly Fun House match would be his last, and now he’s talking about the lead up to what he vows was the only final match he’ll ever have. Graham “GSM” Matthews brought it up after he and Cena talked a bunch about Clash of Clan’s “Search for Cena”. In an interview for WrestleRant, Matthews specifically asked about Cena’s long-awaited heel turn. He wanted to know if Cena would have regretted not turning heel during his career, or if he thinks he’d be looking back and asking, “what if?” Cena offered a lengthy answer. It starts with a pretty undeniable point in favor of Cena’s heel turn, his final match, and everything that occurred during his last year before retiring from “falling down”, as he sometime calls it. “Well, that’s a great question, a hypothetical one, but — I’ll walk down hypothetical lane. Let’s say we never do it. I think that would give you as a writer a great canon for articles to write on like, ‘Man, what would it have been like?’ “But now we have what really happened. We got a heel version of me, and we we did the best we could with the time we had. As far as like did it work or not. Okay, there’s a lot of aspects to that. “From a business side, we didn’t have a seat left, and you know people watched in numbers. So I don’t know if it didn’t work from a business standpoint. All the numbers aren’t at my fingertips, but John Pollock at Post helpfully reminds us that Cena’s last match at Washington, D.C.‘s Capital One Center not only sold out, it set WWE’s all-time arena gate record. He knows that’s not the only piece, however. In addresses the creative shortcomings of his retirement run, Cena circles back around to what was successful, like the initial turn itself at March 1, 2025’s Elimination Chamber. With The Rock and Travis Scott by his side that was, forgive me, an electrifying moment. But it fizzled out, in part because neither of Cena’s villainous allies have been seen since. That’s one thing he brings up as, not an excuse, but a bit of an explanation [emphasis mine]: “But then, there’s the creative standpoint. Sometimes blockbuster movies are poorly reviewed by critics. So I understand where critically people are like, ‘Man, that’s just not what I wanted to see.’” “Intrinsically, I would have loved to have a chance to literally ruin wrestling, to wrestle so poorly that people just wanted to see me go, and then wanted to see a hero thwart me. We didn’t have that kind of time, and that would not have been good for business. That would have made people stop coming to the shows, and that would have made the numbers go down. “So, I’m grateful that I had good guidance around me, and good mentors. And I’m also accountable for critique. I was just in Toronto for Dream Con, a convention there, and gosh, so many people were like, ’”Yo, I was there for [Cena’s heel turn at last year’s Elimination] Chamber and it was crazy.” So, I know that the moment was crazy, and then … if you’ve seen [Netflix’s] Unreal, like stuff changes in the WWE all the time. Well, a bunch of stuff changed for us. So, with high level plans like that where, you know, you think you got eight chess pieces and and find out you got one or two — you got to make do with what you got. And that’s also okay. He’s less coy when reminding us that he doesn’t “call the plays”, WWE Chief Content Officer Paul “Triple H” Levesque does. Before definitively states he wouldn’t change anything about last year, he drops that several of the things online fans complained about the most weren’t his ideas: “I guess long and short — I’m glad to have done it. I never asked for it, so it wasn’t my idea. It was Paul’s idea. And he even says himself, he asked me, and in two seconds it was a ‘yes’. Just like facing Brock or tapping out to Gunther. Yes. That’s how I do business. ‘Yes’. Just let me tell the story my way, you know. So … if we never did it, I would have been fine. “It would have been nice for you guys to write about like, ‘Oh man, he never did it.’ In reflecting, I wouldn’t change a thing. I’m glad we got to do it, because it helps me now when I speak to younger talent and say like, ‘Yo, be bold, take chances, don’t worry about failing — or you gotta fail. I come from a place of activity, not a place of privilege where I’m in some sort of protected bubble.” Whoever deserves whatever percentage of the blame, Cena will accept the heel turn as a failure because failures are always useful: “A lot of folks will say the heel turn failed. Okay, I accept that as a failure, but I swung boldly. A lot of folks were upset with the finish of the last match. Goodness, I accept that critique — and I feel great that I swung boldly in my final moments. So, it helps me as as now a conduit to talk to people who might not be able to understand my journey and be like, “Yo, man, I’m swinging.” Does any of that change your take on John Cena’s heel turn, or final year as a member of the WWE’s active roster?

John Cena walked into the Firefly Fun House match believing it was the end of his WWE career. Speaking to […]

John Cena enters the arena during SummerSlam at MetLife Stadium on August 3, 2025, in East Rutherford, New Jersey. | Photo by Craig Melvin/WWE via Getty Images John Cena has given every indication that he is happily retired from wrestling after hanging up his boots following a defeat to Gunther in December 2025. However, he recently revealed that he once thought his last match had taken place years before at WrestleMania 36. During that 2020 premium live event, Cena faced Bray Wyatt in a “Firefly Fun House” match. “Honestly, no kidding,” Cena said in an interview with the U.K.‘s Metro published on Wednesday (September 2). “I thought the Firefly Fun House was going to be the last match of my career.” At the time, Cena’s career in Hollywood was really taking off, and he had become “pretty unavailable for WWE.” The encounter with the late Wyatt at WrestleMania certainly would have been a suiting end to his celebrated career. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, WWE had to shift plans and turn the bout into a cinematic match. What fans ended up viewing featured many references to Cena’s career as well as a kind of spiritual death of the star before his defeat to Wyatt. “I really did think that the Firefly Fun House match was going to be the tail end, and that was kind of a meta journey for me through facing all of my demons, and then letting go,” he told Metro. Cageside Seats’ own Sean Rueter agreed with Cena when he assessed the match in 2020. Rueter wrote that “to make the Firefly Fun House Match something more than just an oddity, a bold attempt at something different WWE probably wouldn’t have allowed Wyatt & Cena to even attempt in any other year, it has to have meaning. It used the last 20+ years of wrestling history to tell a story, and that story should have repercussions for the future. “We should never see John Cena in WWE ever again.” Of course, we did see Cena again, and he continued his time in the ring for another five years after his memorable match with Bray. His final year in WWE was promoted heavily as his retirement tour, which featured high points, such as his last face-off against AJ Styles, as well as some regrettable moments, like the heel turn that WWE abandoned without much thought. A record-setting 17th world championship also made sure his last year would not soon be forgotten. What do you think, Cagesiders? Should Cena have called it a career after WrestleMania 36? When would you have wanted him to retire? Let us know in the comments.

Shay Shariatzadeh and John Cena attend the Los Angeles Premiere of "Coyote Vs. ACME" at Village Theatre on August 26, 2026 in Westwood, California. | Photo by Savion Washington/FilmMagic Whether you loved or hated John Cena’s final year in WWE and its tapout ending, Cena has been adamant there will be no do over. But because there are actually two deep-pocketed wrestling companies operating these days, one of which will run the next edition of its biggest show of the year on the House of Saud’s dime. And that’s led to repeated jokes, speculation, and questions of the 17-time WWE World champion-turned-movie star and pitchman. The questions came up in Cena’s appearance at Fan Expo Canada over the weekend. Or to be more precise, a one-person “One More Match” chant broke out during the Never Seen 17’s panel in Toronto. Cena responded to it with: “No Khan has got the pocketbook — Nick, Tony, they ain’t got the money. I’m out… “I can say that because lot of you folks spent a whole lot of resources on my farewell tour. If I decide to selfishly come back for ego-driven reasons, basically that’s saying I’m lying to every one of y’all. “You might not mind, but there are people who paid a fortune to sit at that last match. And for me to be like, ‘Just kidding’? I met so many families that put so much effort into saving just to see those moments. “For me, I’m out of it with my health. I feel good. I got good clarity and good closure. As far as ever falling down again, that’s out.” View this post on Instagram And I actually believe that Cena will be the rare pro wrestler/sports entertainer whose retirement really is a “never”. He’s already had a career unlike anyone before him, why should his retirement follow the standard script? Let us know what you see if the Invisible One’s pro wrestling future, Cagesiders?