John Cena missed WrestleMania for the first time in almost two decades earlier this month. With his Hollywood career taking off, his presence at the Show of Show has lessened in recent years, with a brief match against The Undertaker at WrestleMania 34, a short segment with Elias at WrestleMania 35, and his final WWE match - a cinematic Firefly Fun House bout - against Bray Wyatt last year.
The leader of the Cenation has been busy shooting F9: The Fast Saga and The Suicide Squad, and he's currently busy working on Peacemaker with James Gunn in Vancouver.
In a recent interview with Bleacher Report, Cena acknowledged that his WWE career is essentially over. "We all have a window," he said. "And I love listening to “Stone Cold” Steve Austin talk about his window. My goal when I stepped foot in WWE was to leave it better than I found it, and it’s really great to be able to see an event. I almost had the best transition you can possibly have."
"I think it’s really special, and we all think they’re never going to go on without us," Cena continued. "That’s not true. It’s more reassuring to me to not only see that WWE has a life after me, which is inevitable for sure, but that the life is thriving. It’s called WrestleMania, not CenaMania, you know? I’ve been a part [of it], and that part is over."
While Cena once vowed he would never leave WWE for a Hollywood career as The Rock did before him, the writing was on the wall for him years before he left the company (when Vince McMahon started pushing Roman Reigns as the new face of WWE).
Cena is bound to return for one final match at some point, but right now, he's clearly focusing on other things...