John Cena won’t be stepping inside the squared circle too many more times.
“The Greatest of All-Time” recently spoke with Entertainment Tonight for an interview, during which he confirmed that at age 46, in-ring retirement is not far off.
“That’s not a maybe,” he said when it was suggested that maybe his in-ring career is coming to an end soon. “That time is gonna come and it’s gonna come soon. I made a promise to the consumer early on, to WWE fans, ’cause I know how tough it is to be a fan.”
Cena continued, “You gotta come out of pocket — and WWE has a ton of content — it takes a lot to be a passionate fan and our fanbase is passionate and global. I never wanted to go out there just for the sake of going out there. And I’m gonna be 47 this year. I feel great. So inside I feel great, but I know what it takes to be a WWE performer night in and night out and I don’t ever wanna just go out there and do it to do it. I wanna have the passion — the same passion as the fanbase — and I wanna give them exactly what they give me. The miles on the speedometer say, ‘Hey, that’s gotta be done before 50. That’s the timeline I’ve put on myself.”
He would also talk about how hard it is balancing his Hollywood career and WWE duties.
“It’s tough to juggle both because, you know, when you’re filming Argylle, Matthew [Vaughn] won’t let you go do anything else because of insurance. So as long as the phone keeps ringing and we’ve had some good opportunities here, I’ll kind of preserve that for as long as I can. But even coming back for these one-at-a-time things or short three-month periods, it takes its toll more and more and I’ve just had an incredibly fortunate run with my health. I feel great. I just want to continue to feel great the rest of my life.”
Check out the complete interview at ETOnline.com.