Yes, we’re talking about this a month after the fact. And yes, the dust has settled a bit. And yes, there will continue to be discourse surrounding the end of John Cena’s legendary WWE run. And I had not really planned on giving this subject matter much more thought than the one post I did last month… but a couple things occurred that caused me to give this more thought than necessary and this, along with a message that came my way a short while ago, sort of dawned this epiphany of sorts as it relates to this whole deal.
Unfortunately for those hoping for another voice in the “John Cena Shouldn’t Have Lost” or “John Cena Shouldn’t Have Given Up” camp, I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news for you. In fact, I’m going to highlight something that you folks SHOULD have figured from the very beginning of this whole Last Time business.
But before we get to that piece of business, we may as well go over the whole John Cena Retirement Tour… the one that John Cena announced that he was going on in 2024 at some random WWE show somewhere. We didn’t think much of it; we figured that the John Cena Retirement Tour was going to be treated as a nostalgia run of sorts, replay all the hits with all his best foes, maybe play around with a couple of the new kids, and then at the end of it all, John Cena does his last WWE match and calls it quits.
Needless to say, those who have watched WWE throughout 2025 (or at the very least, followed all the noise surrounding the product during that time) know that John Cena’s last run has had a few bumps and bruises. It is during this tour that John Cena made his long-awaited heel turn that people had been waiting for and while it was promising at first, it just as quickly fell off the rails for a variety of reasons. We did get a 17th World Title reign for John Cena at Wrestlemania, which lasted until Summerslam where he dropped the title back to the man he beat for it, Cody Rhodes. But in between that period was some of the worst wrestling matches and promos ever conceived.
Another round of John Cena vs. Randy Orton that we didn’t need… seriously, there’s like a trillion fucking matches between these two. And then there was the CM Punk deal, where Phillip K. Brooks decided that getting some of that Saudi Blood Money was worth sacrificing your ideals for the sake of one final tepid and meaningless match with his former rival. A tag team with Logan Paul for… some reason. A teased alliance with Dwayne that never developed when Dwayne fucked off back to his home planet, which some folks blamed for this heel turn not working out. And so just before Summerslam, Cena turned face again and lost the WWE title back to Cody.
After that, he had a match with Brock Lesnar that was a repeat of their Summerslam match from a decade ago… except people hated it this time because Brock Lesnar is a “controversial” figure now. Then came the match with AJ Styles that replayed the hits. He had a mini-feud with Dirty Dom Mysterio that saw John Cena win his only Intercontinental Championship to achieve whatever qualifies as WWE Grand Slam status before dropping the title back to Dominick a week or so later… and then he announced a tournament where the winner would wrestle him in his last match for… reasons. A tournament that would be won by GUNTHER.
So yes, needless to say, the John Cena retirement tour could have gone better. Hey, I can applaud WWE for having the temerity to turn John Cena heel even if it didn’t quite work out. Probably would have worked better if they had done this five or ten years earlier when it really would have mattered, but I guess all that merch money convinced them otherwise… not that it ever stopped the nWo from being merch sellers despite their heel status back in the 90s.
So yes, let’s talk about John Cena’s last match.
On paper, a final match against GUNTHER did not excite me. Yes, I will admit that I enjoy watching GUNTHER. The man is old-school as can be, he has a straightforward approach, he’s booked (for the most part) like a killer, and he respects the ring; hence the “ring general” moniker. It’s not an exciting character, but sometimes, you want something simple when it’s done well. GUNTHER is done well… but by no means do I want him to be the guy who is going to be the last advertised match of someone on their way out. I even said as much in a post.
But some time after that post was made, a silent thought occurred to me. Why would they make GUNTHER John Cena’s final opponent? It’s just a match with no real stakes. GUNTHER beats John Cena? Who cares? The guy was already on his way out. It’s the same way I felt about Goldberg’s last match. GUNTHER beat a guy on his way out the door. So what? Who cares? And as much as people claim to prefer the other way, John Cena beating GUNTHER would have been a happy moment that lasted for about five minutes before you moved on to something else and forgot the whole thing happened. Or even worse, we’d have more #LOLCenaWins memes or cries of Super Cena striking again. Do you really want that and more importantly, would you have cared?
People point to Sting’s retirement as a tentpole example, but Sting’s retirement was a special deal. He announced that he was calling it quits at the Revolution PPV and then somewhere along the way, he and Darby Allin won the AEW Tag titles before being challenged by the Young Bucks to a match at said PPV. Now that retirement match has stakes behind it, with the tag titles being on the line. Not only that, but Sting has an undefeated record in AEW – even though he’s mostly wrestled in tag matches, he’s won all those matches. So now there’s a question to be answered; does Sting get to retire as a tag champion or does he end his wrestling career with the only blemish on his untainted AEW record? That’s what made that retirement match work. That’s why people cared.
Meanwhile, GUNTHER won a tournament to be John Cena’s final opponent, with no interactions between the two men to hype up the match or provide any sort of story. GUNTHER gains nothing by beating John Cena, a man who was already out the door long before they booked a date for his final match. Him getting beat by John Cena on his way to calling it quits does nothing but give him another pointless loss similar to the deal with Jey Uso that people largely point at and laugh. What’s the likely scenario? GUNTHER putting John Cena to sleep? Didn’t we do that shit with Goldberg’s last match? What happened there? People remembered Goldberg bitching about WWE cutting him off before he got to give a retirement speech. Where are the comparisons to Sting when, after he won his match, he mentioned only having ten seconds to make a speech before the PPV went off the air, but cut a speech for the live crowd that was later posted online?
So when you brainstorm all these different possibilities, that’s when that silent thought comes into focus and becomes louder. And once I actually give it substance, an epiphany struck. The one solution that nobody considered because nobody thought WWE would be stupid enough to actually do this… but when you sit down and think about it, it’s the one ending that makes the most sense. Especially when you consider what this whole last time is now run is all about.
John Cena gives up in his last match.
They’re going to make GUNTHER tap out John Cena in his last match.
How the fuck did I not see this sooner?
The answer was simple; because I largely didn’t care about this whole last run business in the first place.
To be fair, though, 2025 was the year that genuinely challenged my wrestling fandom. Both WWE and AEW were putting out shows and programming that simply didn’t interested me. WWE with its glacial storyline pacing (being generous; sometimes, these things feel less like stories and more like “moments” strung together and we’ll fill in the blanks later with nine hour video packages to pad out the PPVs… er, I mean, PLES.) AEW, on the other hand, had the ever present Death Riders and the stuff that I used to enjoy about the show have either moved on or evolved into some other things that had me go… meh. TNA had the potential to be a good product, but now it feels like whatever is being put on is done under the influences of their WWE NXT overlords. It speaks volumes that the one wrestling show I’m watching these days is from thirty years old from a defunct promotion whose content is being popped onto Youtube for free… and whatever blanks are left to fill, I’ve got a buddy to help me out there. Hence all those Nitro musings.
So, yes, the fact that John Cena’s last ever match failed to excite me beforehand… well, whatever, right? Never was the biggest John Cena fan. The guy grew on me over time and he’s killing it as Peacemaker, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to make his last match appointment television… especially since they’re likely to upload the show on Youtube for those who don’t have the Pee-Cock service outside U.S. territory and I can always watch it later.
But the possibility that WWE might actually do the one thing no one would expect them to do – have John Cena give up in his last match – I can’t help but be somewhat intrigued… but ultimately, I decided that I had let myself get burned by WWE so many times over the years that there was no chance of them actually going through with it. Even though they did the John Cena heel turn, they just as quickly pivoted back to the nostalgia tour towards the back end of the run. So deciding that they’re not going to end it the only way it could end, I ended up not watching the show.
And then the match happened.
And at the end of it, John Cena tapped out.
The man who preached NEVER GIVE UP gave up.
People were pissed.
Then I saw the match itself… which was fine, I guess. But then I saw the finish itself, in which GUNTHER has John Cena trapped in his sleeper hold and despite a bit of a struggle to break free, John Cena ultimately lays there in GUNTHER’s hold, a smile forming on his face and a feeling of contentment emanating from his being. He’s done everything there is for him to do. He’s happy with how things turned out. He has nothing left to prove. It’s time to call it a career… and so John Cena taps out, much to the chagrin and utter disappointment of the Washington crowd. And then out comes HHH to give Cena his flowers while the crowd roar in disapproval, booing HHH for giving this great star a shit finish.
I’ve mentioned this in a prior post, but it bares repeating here because people seem to have missed the point of this whole deal. Yes, he was the guy that preached Never Give Up. Yes, he was about the Hustle, Loyalty, Respect and all that jazz. And for two decades, he kept on fighting. No matter how much of a beating he took, no matter how many times he was knocked down, he always got back up and kept fighting for as long as he had something left to prove or that he had something to fight for. That’s the key lesson; as long as you have something to believe in, you keep fighting for that thing. That’s what never giving up is supposed to mean.
John Cena giving up in his last match made sense… because he had no more fight left to give. Not necessarily because he couldn’t go anymore – though let’s be fair; there are times when Cena simply couldn’t keep up in recent years – but rather because, well, he had nothing left to prove.
He got his 17th World title. He achieved his grand slam status. He had been the flagbearer for WWE during its turbulent years and did his part in making that company the global force that it is today. He’s leaving the business in a better state than when he entered it. His time is done. His career is over. This chapter of his life is over whether he wins or lose. He gains nothing by beating GUNTHER other than endless speculation of the slim possibility of “one more match.”
So yes, him tapping out to GUNTHER made sense in the story of John Cena… because that was basically John Cena punching out his card, calling it a career, and walking off into the sunset… or more DC movies with James Gunn. John Cena tapping out stamps out any possibility of “one more match.” This is John Cena’s way of saying, “Yes, I’m done. I’m happy. Time to call it a career.” And that makes it the perfect ending to the career of John Cena.
A month has passed since that match took place and my thoughts on the matter hasn’t changed; John Cena giving up in his last match was the only ending that made the most sense in this whole run. It put a bow on an otherwise legendary career of the man who spend the better part of his prime years carrying WWE on his back. You can say what you will about the content of that run, but you cannot deny the importance of John Cena as THE public face of WWE during its turbulent transition from the Ruthless Aggression Attitude of old to the more family friendly then, now, forever, together entity that it would become before reaching its current form. For that man to think back to his story career with a smile on his face and going “Yeah, I did good. Time to call it a career” is a far more poignant and beautiful ending worthy of the story of the Cenation leader than any empty “happy ending” win or weak pass out loss.
I rarely (if ever) give WWE flowers on decisions that go against fan expectations, but in this case, the end of that match was the one thing out of that whole retirement run that WWE did right. And I applaud them for it.
There are those who are upset by this decision. That’s not the way John Cena should have gone out. He deserved better. He never should have given up. It goes against his character. I can understand you feeling that way, but here’s the thing. If you were upset at the notion of the guy who says NEVER GIVE UP giving up in his last match, then you also should have been upset a year earlier when the guy who says NEVER GIVE UP appears on a random WWE PPV thing and declares that next year, he is going on a FUCKING RETIREMENT TOUR!
What did you think “LAST TIME” meant? That he was going on a sabbatical? No, it mean that he was RETIRING! You people know what retirement means? It means to STOP WORKING. Calling it QUITS! In other words, JOHN CENA GAVE UP A WHOLE FUCKING YEAR BEFORE HE EVEN HAD A LAST MATCH BOOKED!
And the really sad thing is that I probably should have seen this coming the moment he announced it. Hell, maybe if I were more invested in the product, I just might have figured it out. And you want to know something? That actually would have gotten me excited for the last match much sooner than they had even booked it. Because then you would have this subtle build towards the end, where each time John Cena would appear, we’d make mention of how many dates he’d have left before he was calling it quits. They kinda, sorta did that during the heel turn; the notion that Cena was threatening to retire with the belt and leaving WWE to fill the void with a shallow imitation… a bit of a stretch, but I’d let it slide if the story was compelling. And what would have been a sweeter deal than for this heel John Cena to hold onto his final WWE Championship until his very last match, where his final challenger would not only defeat John Cena for the title, but also make John Cena do the one thing that he has never done during his career; give up, tap out, and quit.
Because at the end of it all, THAT’s what this whole thing was all about. That’s what this whole thing was building towards. This was never about failed heel turns or feeding you member-berries up the wazoo. This was counting down the days before John Cena called it a career in the most definitive way he could to communicate the reality that, yes, he was done, and he wasn’t coming back. It’s not supposed to be a happy moment; it’s the reality that things end, but the world goes on.
As for this fierce anger at WWE for booking GUNTHER to tap out John Cena and how people were angry at the company for a “stupid” booking decision? Well, they got over that shit real faster because on the following Monday Night RAW, GUNTHER came out, got booed, and now has something to enable some cheap heat – he gets to tell people that he made John Cena tap out like a little bitch and they boo the shit out of him. Whatever hiccups they had over the finish went away Monday night and now they’re embracing GUNTHER as this evil slimeball who may very well “retire” other veteran WWE stars along the way.
And yes, let’s get that out of the way… even if it wasn’t GUNTHER, the idea of John Cena giving up in his last match still would have made sense. The only way they could have fucked it up is if they booked someone – like the Miz or even Jey Uso, for example – to be the guy to submit him because it would have made no sense… but they had GUNTHER do the deed, with the simplest and most elegant of submissions, and the way it played out was the best possible way they could have done it. WWE could have gone the fan pleasing way and made this match mean nothing – which would have been a waste because it meant nothing beforehand – but they stuck to their guns, stayed the course, and in this one instance, I actually agreed with their booking decision. This was – and still is – the right way to close the book on John Cena’s WWE career.
Well, I’ve said all there is to say about the matter, but next month’s Bite commentary will continue on this road of modern wrestling that I find myself not going on… and why I’m not entirely upset about it.
dtm666 