John Cena appears to be enjoying retirement life, and physically, he says he’s feeling better than ever.
Although Cena officially retired from active WWE competition in December 2025 and has stayed true to his promise of not wrestling again, the longtime WWE franchise player has still remained involved with the company in a non-wrestling capacity. He made appearances during both WrestleMania 42 and WWE Backlash earlier this year, continuing to stay connected to the product.
During a recent interview with Sports Illustrated’s The Takedown, Cena opened up about how retirement has treated him so far and what his future with WWE could look like moving forward.
“It’s great, physically, I feel great,” Cena said. “Gosh, I love watching the product. As you saw, I was having a bunch of fun at WrestleMania. Really looking forward to the future and my future role in WWE.”
He went on to mention having a “no fall down policy” he plans to adhere to as part of his WWE retirement.
“This was the confusing thing about retirement,” he said. “First of all, I will stay retired — no fall downs. I will not do anything physical. But that doesn’t mean I’m away from WWE. I mean, anyone who knows me knows how passionate I am about not only the sports entertainment business but WWE as a brand. So it was simply a matter of like, ‘So where do I fit in now?’ And we’re still trying to find out those pieces, but I think we got a clear path.”
Cena also spoke about wanting to give back to the wrestling business after everything it gave him throughout his legendary career.
The 16-time world champion explained that his focus now is finding ways to help contribute behind the scenes and continue providing value to WWE even without stepping back into the ring.
“I just want to try to develop a way to pay it back and pay it forward for all the moments I was able to have,” Cena said. “My goal is to leave the business better than I found it and there has to be some acumen behind it. (This is) a chance for the business to continue to get energy from me, because they’ve given me so much energy.”
