Kevin Owens Had Hopes Of Returning Before John Cena’s Final Match So He Could Wrestle Cena Again

Owens was hopeful about the possibility of wrestling Cena again.

When Kevin Owens was ringside for John Cena’s final match in December 2025, he was still recovering from his neck surgery.

Owens made his return to in-ring action at the 2026 SummerSlam Premium Live Event. After the P.L.E., Owens told Sam Roberts of WWE Now that he had hopes of returning before Cena’s final match so he could wrestle the 17-time World Champion one last time.

He then detailed other points he was hoping to return at. Owens shared that it was July 18th, 2025 that he underwent neck surgery, and it was on July 18th, 2026 that he was active in a ring for the first time since the operation.

“July 18th, 2025 was my surgery. Usually, six months after the surgery is the first scan. I start asking them to do a scan at three months because when I was 20 years old, I had ACL surgery and most people take nine months to get back from that. Took me three, so I’m like, this is the same thing. In three months, my bones are fused. Because in my head, I’m like, ‘I’m gonna come back before John Cena retires so I can wrestle him one last time,’ and they humored me and did the scan. They’re like, ‘Yeah, not happening.’ I did another scan at four months because I wanted to come back in Montreal in January. They’re like, ‘We can’t do it.’ Did another scan at six months which is when we were supposed to do it, and they’re like, ‘It’s still not right.’ So then they’re like, ‘We’re not doing a scan for another long while.’ We did one at nine months; still wasn’t good. So by that point, I’m like, ‘Man… maybe it just won’t happen.’ So then finally I did a scan beginning of July, and they called me and said, ‘Look, we saw enough progress and enough bone growth that we’re comfortable enough letting you get back in the ring to see how you feel, and we’ll go from there.’ So I got back in the ring for the very first time on July 18th this year, one year to the day after my surgery and that’s only because I was on vacation in France with my family and when they told me I could get back in the ring, I cut the trip short by one day so I could come back and get in the ring on July 18th so I could at least mentally go, okay, it wasn’t more than a year, and I had Tara (Halaby), one of the physical trainers at the Performance Center come in on a day off just so I could get in the ring,” Owens laughed.

Elsewhere in the interview, Owens opened up about the damage that was done to his spinal cord. More on that can be found here.

If the quote in this article is used, please credit WWE Now with an H/T to Fightful for the transcription.