John Cena Says Despite Praise For His Matches Since WWE SummerSlam, He’s Never Changed His Mind About Switching Retirement Timeframe
A candid answer from Cena.
As of this writing, three weeks are remaining until John Cena’s final match. He’ll be headlining Saturday Night’s Main Event in Washington, D.C. on December 13th.
There’s a new interview with Cena that was rolled out on the Raw Recap podcast. He stated that despite the praise for his matches since SummerSlam, he has not had a change of heart regarding his retirement timeframe. He namedropped Bryan Danielson while giving his response.
Cena also commented on the initial speculation that his retirement run would end at a WrestleMania.
“No,” Cena immediately replied when asked if he’s had the thought that he wishes he were not finishing up in December. “I think the thing that’s helping me push myself across the finish line is there is no tomorrow. So, I’ve always given everything I have. What I love — again, you’re saying a lot of stuff — so what I love is, ‘Hey man, as a fan, I think you’re having the best matches of your career right now.’ I have heard that through many phases of my career. I got to switch to the Hip Hop John Cena, and then was put in a lot of matches to quote-unquote toughen myself up. I heard that then, and then the era of Super Cena happened and then I got put with opponents who were supposed to be bad guys but they loved ‘em. The Punks, giving Bryan Danielson a shot, Edge. ‘Hey, you’re having some of the best matches of your career right now.’ Fast forward to the United States Open Challenge. ‘Hey man, you’re having some of the best matches of your career right now,’ and then for you to be able to say that right now means a lot. You can pontificate, of like, you should do X, Y and Z. But I’ve always wanted to stay curious and I’ve always wanted to leave the door open for a path of growth. You can never master sports entertainment. You can never master WWE. There’s always something to learn, and me with all this time under tension, I’m still learning and I’m still growing and I’m still trying to perfect my craft, and my body is beat up. It takes me a while to warm up for these matches and it takes me a while to cool down, and I wanna leave, given the audience shows up being like, you’re doing the best work of your career. I will say that’s helping push me across the goal line. That’s keeping my mind fresh. I’m always working with talent that I’ve worked with before, that I’ve had new opponents to work with so they’re bringing new ideas. I’m working with new talent. It’s great in that regard that there is that curiosity to still learn. I don’t think that I’ll ever be extinguished, but I do have to listen to my health and there’s not one piece that it’s like, hey, it should go past December 13th. I know there’s a lot of speculation — there was at one point, of like, ‘Oh, they’re just gonna run him through to WrestleMania’ because that’s the end of everyone’s story. That’s just the end of everyone’s story because that’s the way everybody did it before me. I told everybody 15 months ago that I was gonna do this. I told them I was gonna do a year, and I’m gonna do a year and after this, it’s done. I don’t say that as a bad thing. I say that as a collective, that I’ve (been) allowed to do this for 23 years, at a very high output, and to hear the, ‘You’re having some of the best matches of your career’ in the fourth generation of installments that I’ve heard that. It validates that I’m not the only one who’s exhausted. Every time I come through the curtain, I think everybody feels emotionally, like, man, he gave us all he had, and I think — or at least I hope — after the 13th of December, people understand that that’s all I’m trying to do is just give it everything I got.”
Cena’s final opponent is being determined via a 16-man tournament titled ‘The Last Time is Now.’ The latest names to advance were GUNTHER and Solo Sikoa.
If the quote in this article is used, please credit Raw Recap with an H/T to Fightful for the transcription.
