John Cena Says AJ Styles Shared With Him That He Planned To Retire In January Prior To Their WWE Crown Jewel Match Last Year

John Cena reflects on his match with AJ Styles at WWE Crown Jewel Perth last year.

At WWE Crown Jewel Perth, AJ Styles and Cena would clash yet again in singles action, putting on a match that paid tribute to the rivals of the pair’s past.

While speaking at MEGACon Orlando (via Kickin’ It With Keegan), John Cena was asked about his bout with AJ Styles, noting that AJ had told him his plans surrounding his retirement.

“The atmosphere in Perth was like something I’d never seen. I’d never seen that many like t-shirts. I know for a fact we didn’t give them away, but it’s like we gave them away. I wore yellow that night and like the whole crowd was yellow. I’m used to 50-50 or like, sometimes people will wear an older shirt. So the atmosphere, I think, really swept everybody up, and because the audience was smart enough to understand what we were doing as well, like, you can do all this cool stuff that you think is cool, but if you guys don’t get it, I’m kind of being selfish. So I think we had a moment of, like, serendipity where you have you have these two performers, and I knew AJ shared with me that he was going to retire in January. So I really think the world of him and wanted to do something special and make it special, and then you had an audience that kind of understood that, and man, like halfway through, I don’t watch a lot of matches back because I like to live the moment. I don’t like to get into my head and I’m like, what could I have done different? I can’t, it’s done. That’s one that I have watched back and like man, the audience was calling spots for us.”

Elsewhere in the same interview, Cena spoke about wearing his wrist and armbands from SummerSlam during his final match. You can read more about that here.

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