Two of the quarterfinals matches remaining in The Last Time is Now tournament—which will determine who faces John Cena in his retirement match, set to go down at WWE Saturday Night's Main Event on December 13, 2025—took place on tonight's episode of WWE Monday Night Raw.
Unfortunately, it doesn't appear as though the bracket is going to shape up the way WWE had planned, as yet another injury has taken place.
But first, Gunther and Carmelo Hayes went at it for the bottom right side of the bracket. Hayes put up a good fight, including not succumbing to Gunther's patented sleeper hold. However, a powerbomb was able to put him down, and The Ring General advanced to the next round.
Later, the other bout was Solo Sikoa against Penta. While there is no confirmation yet as to this beyond just logic and speculation, you'd assume Penta would be the victor, advancing to face Gunther in the semifinals.
That is not going to be the case, as Penta did a hurricanrana to Sikoa on the outside and appeared to land on his shoulder. He was immediately checked on by referees and the show quickly went to a commercial break. By the time they were back to the broadcast, Sikoa was standing tall in the ring, looking a bit lost, as officials were helping Penta on the outside, and it was announced that Sikoa had won the match due to Penta no longer being able to compete.
Previously, Sheamus had moved on to this round after defeating Shinsuke Nakamura. However, The Celtic Warrior suffered an injury likely in his six-man tag team match alongside Rey Mysterio and John Cena on Monday Night Raw last week, causing him to be pulled from the tournament. His replacement is currently supposed to be a mystery, however, according to spoilers of this upcoming episode of WWE Friday Night SmackDown, we know who LA Knight will be up against as the replacement for Sheamus.
As it stands right now, whether it was planned or not, Gunther will face Solo Sikoa in the semifinals, and the left side of the bracket, which has not aired yet on television, is still Jey Uso vs. Rusev and LA Knight vs. an unknown star.
SPOILER WARNING FOR THE CONTENT BELOW
If you read the SPOILERS for SmackDown, you'll see that not only did Jey Uso defeat Rusev, but LA Knight defeated his replacement opponent, The Miz, setting up Uso vs. Knight. The winner of that will face the winner of Gunther vs. Sikoa.
It was likely always the plan to have one of those two babyfaces against Gunther in the end, rather than Sheamus or Penta, but the quarterfinals and semifinals getting to that point were definitely not set up to go down as they have.
What do you think about Penta's injury and the way this has changed the tournament? Drop a comment below!