John Cena has been announced for WWE’s post-WrestleMania Saturday Night’s Main Event on May 24th, 2025, in Tampa, Florida, as part of the Memorial Day weekend shows.
This will be Cena’s first appearance in Tampa since his return on SmackDown in December 2022. The event will be aired on NBC in primetime.
Cena recently turned heel at the Elimination Chamber 2025 pay-per-view event, aligning with The Rock ahead of his WrestleMania 41 match against Cody Rhodes for the WWE Championship.
WWE Chief Content Officer Triple H recently highlighted that even former WWE CEO Linda McMahon, who was attending President Donald Trump’s State of the Union Address as the Secretary of Education, was asked about Cena’s heel turn as she left the event.
Speaking at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, “The Game” stated,
“Just recently, John Cena, when we talk about generational stars, for 20-plus years, has been the ultimate good guy in WWE. For him personally, that’s just who he is. Done more wishes for Make-a-Wish than any other celebrity in history. He’s just an incredible human being. But his character, John Cena, his character has been the ultimate good guy for 20-plus years. The Rock, who now has a character developed called ‘The Final Boss’, he’s on the board of TKO legitimately, but it’s part of the character, and he has all this power and control. He just used some of that power and control, and John Cena just turned heel, became a bad guy, for the first time. This was one of the biggest stories we have ever done. Within a few hours, that moment had over 100 million views on social media, within hours. It was front and center on SportsCenter. It resonated everywhere. Jon Stewart used it as a vehicle to explain Washington D.C. and political power with a new administration. I think it’s no secret my mother-in-law is the Secretary of Education, and she just had a moment the other day where she was walking out of the State of the Union, and the one question someone shouted at her was, ‘Ms. McMahon, as the new Secretary of Education, what do you think about John Cena turning heel?’ It resonated so massively. It transcended everything. It was water cooler talk around the globe and made headlines everywhere.”
And finally, Pwinsider is reporting that Charlotte Flair has been spotted in Philadelphia, PA ahead of tonight’s WWE SmackDown TV tapings. As of this writing, she has not been announced for the show.
