With only a few appearances left on his retirement tour, John Cena's opponent for WWE Crown Jewel was "The Phenomenal" AJ Styles—a match effectively chosen not by World Wrestling Entertainment itself, but by Cena, Styles, and the WWE Universe clamoring for it and speaking up.
An interesting statistic was brought up at the start of the match that if Cena were to win, he would score his 100th pay-per-view victory, which puts him second of all time behind The Undertaker.
Seemingly by Cena's request, Styles had a special introduction from ring announcer Alicia Taylor, putting him over in numerous ways as The Face That Runs This Place, the ace and total boss of The Bullet Club, and "the definition of Total Nonstop Action". All of that appeared to take Styles by surprise in an emotional moment.
The match was filled with references to each other's greatest rivals in a celebration of their careers, as Cena has been doing as of late when paying tribute to the likes of Superstars like "The Rated-R Superstar" Edge with his taunt and spear in previous matches.
This time around, it was even hard to keep track of all of them, but here's a lineup of some of those references:
- Cena hit The Miz's Skull Crushing Finale
- AJ Styles did a Scorpion Death Drop to reference Sting
- In a tribute to Randy Orton, Cena did The Viper's trademark DDT off the ropes, followed by his taunt leading into an RKO. He would also attempt a punt, only to be caught in an Attitude Adjustment from Styles.
- Cena locked Styles in a Boston Crab (Walls of Jericho) for a Chris Jericho reference, which resulted in a Y2J chant
- Styles referenced Christopher Daniels with Angel's Wings
- Cena went for a Triple H pedigree, but didn't manage to do it, and was setting up a Rey Mysterio 619 before he was stopped by a clothesline
- Styles hit a Shawn Michaels superkick (Sweet Chin Music)
- A big moment took place with Cena paying tribute to the late Bray Wyatt with a Sister Abigail, wherein the fans brought out their cell phones for the fireflies
- Cena put Styles in Rusev's Accolade and was then followed up with a Coquina Clutch from Styles to reference Samoa Joe
Cena was able to pick up the victory by doing an Undertaker style Tombstone piledriver (also doing a chokeslam earlier in the match) followed by an Attitude Adjustment for the pin.
Go out of your way to check out the match if you missed it.