John Cena only has two in-ring appearances left in WWE: Survivor Series: WarGames (he'll defend the Intercontinental Championship against Dominik Mysterio) and Saturday Night's Main Event (where he'll face the winner of "The Last Time Is Now" tournament).
However, just because he's retiring and hanging up the jorts, it doesn't mean we won't see Cena in a WWE ring again. In fact, Wrestling Observer Live's Bryan Alvarez has heard that the "belief is Cena very likely the 2026 Hall of Fame main eventer."
Stephanie McMahon has been announced as the first inductee into the WWE Hall of Fame, but it makes perfect sense for Cena to headline the event. Whether that happens remains to be seen, but if anyone deserves to be inducted, it's the 17-time WWE Champion.
Appearing on the WWE RAW Recap show yesterday morning, Cena elaborated on why now is the right time for him to retire. "I’m not going out on my own terms," he admitted. "If I could do this in infinity, I would do it. I made a promise to the fan base when I started that when I got a step slower, I gotta walk away."
"Yeah, I could probably squeeze out more matches, but at what cost? I do harm to myself, I do harm to the product, and you, as a fan who’s allowed me the opportunity for over two decades to spend time with you, you leave feeling bad or sad," Cena added.
Much has been said about Cena's apparent decision to spend many of these final weeks in WWE battling Dominik Mysterio. The former Intercontinental Champion is one of WWE's rising stars and a hugely popular heel, so it makes sense, but what does Cena himself see in the young upstart?
"I’m incredibly grateful to get in there with Dom Mysterio, who I respect and admire," Cena stated. "He reminds me a lot of me, and he reminds me of a lot of the mistakes I’ve made."
"I can see all of the mistakes which are about to happen with him, and I want to shake him and be like 'you’re going to do this,' but I want him to learn for himself," he explained. "But he is authentic, he’s reliable, he works hard and is passionate about the business, he’ll learn, he’ll figure the rest out."
Finally, Cena shared his take on Matt Cardona/Zack Ryder's WWE return on SmackDown last week. "I was very, very glad to see Zack Ryder come back," he said. "Matt is a personal friend of mine, I can speak candidly like that, and I’ve seen his mind grow."
"You wanna talk about always being curious and the quest for growth, the Zack Ryder I knew from a long time ago has accrued so much sports entertainment wisdom," Cena continued. "It’s amazing when we have interactions, he’ll tell me about his journey and be like, 'This is what you were trying to talk about before and I wasn’t ready to understand it.'"
"I like rooting for people who are humble enough to admit when they’re wrong, and always want to grow, and are doing things for the greater good of the business," Cena concluded. "Matt is certainly one of those guys, his wife Chelsea is one of those folks, who take an opportunity and get the absolute best out of it. I was really happy to see Zack Ryder back."
You can hear more from Cena in the player below.