With his successful defense against Randy Orton at Backlash, the second major leg of John Cena’s retirement tour is complete.
Cena’s run as the “last real champion” was never going to be under threat from Orton. The match was designed to serve as a removal of Cena’s primary threat to his reign. That’s a valid argument to make with them being synonymous with one another for the balance of their careers. The paradigm of their dynamic has shifted, but at their cores they are 100% antagonistic to each other.
I have two trains of thought with where they could have placed this. WWE could have easily left Orton until the end of the year and made that feud Cena’s “final boss” in his quest to be the last real WWE champion. Given their history that would have made perfect sense. That’s even what I initially expected after WrestleMania before Orton’s surprise attack. Touching on that first and why it’s the lesser option compared to what we got, I think it handcuffs you to the result of Orton saving WWE.
Orton saving WWE from Cena? Yeah. That’s what the paradigm shift did to them, and it surely defies their roles in their shared history. However, if you left Orton to the end you only have one natural conclusion with Orton winning #15 at Cena’s expense. Aside from the expectedness of that result, I think you’d be also locking yourself into an Orton-centric WWE title face run with no immediate heel challengers to spring toward. No matter what their actual plan is for December, I think they can do better than resignation and an Orton win. And let’s be honest, Orton’s character has always been self-serving and I think you have a built-in feud with a heel Orton who failed to save WWE down the road. Cena should defeat him in their final encounter, not the other way around. That’s partially why the Backlash result works.
The path WWE took is the better of the two options because it gets the most obvious feud out of the way first, and it does so very quickly with a three week build and resolution. The match itself was as good as a Cena-Orton bout could be, but the surrounding beats didn’t need to be drawn out because their history speaks for itself. It was tight, hit the story beats they needed and resolved the narrative in a way that is final and also gets Orton back for his past self’s dastardly behaviour. Removing Cena’s “final boss” from the game first blows the entire narrative open. We then need to ask, who’s next?
Immediately that seems to be R-Truth, and that is honestly a really good short term move. The Backlash ending and Truth’s role in it sets up a match between Killings and his childhood hero. Ironically Truth sits in for us as fans and personifies our clinging to what Cena represented. Killings embodied those people we might have been when he prevented Orton from punting Cena Saturday night. My only wish is that we get to see the Killings from early-era TNA that held the NWA title, and not just the comic relief afterthought he’s become. Cena will obviously win, but even for a moment I’d like to see “Ron ‘The Truth’ Killings” one more time. That level of aggression could make what will surely be a short match that much better than a simple beatdown.
However, with his greatest rival out of the way, soon to be followed by the avatar of Cena’s fans, where does that leave us in May 2025 as we head toward that potential Boston date in early December?
Final Matches
Cena has demanded competition. The question is where those bodies come from.
There are plenty of obvious matches we will likely see before the end of the year. Some of these noted below are unlikely and impractical due to circumstance, but most do have history with Cena.
Brock Lesnar would be a potential match if not for his alleged ties to Vince McMahon’s criminal case; another one would be The Rock given their history. However reality and their recent narratives likely keeps that match off the year-end cards. These are the matches I think we should realistically expect between now and the end of the year.
The Miz
I’d be quite shocked if we see didn’t any interaction between the old rivals, and given the recent “tabling” of R-Truth, Killings’ and Cena’s probable forthcoming match, and his and Miz’s recent tag team partnership, dovetailing Cena from Truth to Miz should be relatively seamless and organic. It would be a rare opportunity for Miz to take the moral high ground on Cena, but as a final encounter they could do worse and there’s plenty of history to pull from. This would need not be terribly lengthy and Cena would emphatically be going over, but this is a prime opportunity to give them one last short feud even if the match itself would probably be relatively basic. The most important element here is them getting on the mic together.
AJ Styles
Even though there’s less history between Cena and Styles than there is compared to he and Miz, I think it’s hard to argue against the assertion that across his entire career Cena’s best matches were against Styles from 2016-2107. That Styles is currently amid a fairly loose program with Karrion Kross, or that he just wrapped a feud with Logan Paul does not exclude him from rekindling a rivalry with his old enemy. With Styles also likely winding his career down in the next couple of years, now is the opportune moment to revive their old quarrel while also giving Styles what will likely be his last WWE title chance.
While any match between them would fall well short of their Royal Rumble 2017 classic, one last match with Styles is still going to exceed the in-ring quality of any other match Cena will have as a heel during his retirement tour. Much like anything that gets booked between Cena and Orton, Truth and Miz respectively, this needn’t be dragged out longer than a few weeks to a month. With limited dates and time left it’s best to keep his feuds and defenses as lean and tight as possible. Where Cena’s last reign is going to excel is creating an unbeatable, win-at-all-costs aura and we don’t need long, protracted rivalries.
CM Punk
In terms of pure story this is the one I think you’re waiting for if you’re at all invested in this last run. While his matches with Styles were better, and you could argue his feud with Miz had more longevity, neither of those featured someone as diametrically opposed to what Cena represented at his height. Where Cena was the quintessential white bread good guy and company man, Punk was the thoroughbred antithesis to him. That’s what made their story compelling and the matches merely served to further that dichotomy between them. If we’re looking at the balance of the year and you try to figure out who could potentially take the title off Cena, Punk is the first realistic option.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they were kept a part until the fall, if not until that show in Boston. In that regard, should that be the spot its parallel to Money in the Bank 2011 shouldn’t be lost on us. I still wouldn’t expect Punk to take it off Cena, he’s just the best option of the most obvious choices, and the feud most are waiting for.
Other PossibilitiesÂ
Where the above names should be pretty obvious, where the other major names factor in during Cena’s farewell tour is less clear. If we’re talking about a situation where Cena is taking the belt home with him for good then I don’t think you can do this story without factoring in Cody Rhodes and Roman Reigns. Both would be solid avenues to explore. On one hand you have Rhodes who was effectively screwed over and is someone who worked his entire career to grab the brass ring his family never could. With him consider that he would be responsible for the current situation given his loss to Cena, and should it actually be Rhodes to regain the title, then you simultaneously complete a redemption arc for Rhodes and also possibly set up Rhodes and Orton.
Regarding Reigns, with not only his family being synonymous with the company, but with the unified championship he carried for over 1300 days at the centre of this, it would be unfathomable and make no sense to exclude Reigns from the retirement tour. To top that aspect off, I’d argue Reigns is the most logical move given Rock’s tie to Cena’s turn, Reigns’ history with both Cena and the championship, and above all, if there’s any intent to still run Reigns vs. Rock, that’s your route. And it would be fair to say that, while I’d like to see Orton and Rhodes, Reigns and Rock is the bigger match.
Either way, we can’t forget about either and how they may factor in to how the year unfolds. Two other things we can’t forget about are firstly whether or not WWE would want to rope in the world championship to reinforce Cena’s claim as the “the last real champion” through a unification bout, and secondly how the Money in the Bank briefcase gets used and who wins that contract. That may be the most important component for us, WWE and Cena’s last run on top.
