Making sense of the joy and pain surrounding John Cena’s Final Match and preparing for the future.
On Saturday, December 13, 2025, at the Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C., it happened: John Cena tapped out in the final match of his professional wrestling career, one of the few times he’s lost via submission. After his loss, surrounded at ringside by the WWE Superstars he’s shared a locker room with over the years, Cena removed the APL Techloom Pros from his feet and the sweatbands from his arms, laid them in the middle of the ring, and exited to an arena of fans wearing tear-soaked John Cena Farewell Tour tees.
After the “Saturday Night’s Main Event” broadcast was complete, current WWE Champion Cody Rhodes was the last wrestler left in the ring, soaking in the final moments of Cena’s career. “There’s a way it ends,” Rhodes told WWE’s Jackie Redmond. “He did everything right; by the book.”
Rhodes’ and the crowd’s reaction mirrored those of many WWE fans. Everyone was in their feelings. When the entrance music for Gunther, the man who made Cena tap out, began a chorus of playful boos started up; later in the match, chants of “Asshole!” filled the arena. After the match, when Paul “Triple H” Levesque led the group of WWE Superstars to the ring to greet Cena, the real boos of the night hit. Levesque—who has been captaining the WWE ship ever since Vince McMahon’s 2022 exit amid sex trafficking allegations—has been lambasted for how he booked Cena’s final year. From a lackluster ending to his infamous heel turn back in March to having the man who touted “Never Give Up” as one of his prime slogans tapping out in his final match ever.
“There are time-honored traditions in our business,” Triple H said during his post-show interview. Adding that, “it’s about leaving this place better than you found it.” As a cacophony of boos underscored his comments, he made one more point: “There’s no way for people to understand that in the moment.”
It’s a critical remark to make at a time when many are questioning how he handled the ending of Cena’s historic 23-year career, one that found WWE’s modern GOAT winning 17 world championships over 726 televised matches in a career that spanned 8,570 days. Cena did practically everything a pro wrestling superstar could do, including, but not limited to, recording platinum-selling rap albums, starring in feature-length films, and being in the Guinness Book of World Records for granting 650 wishes with Make-A-Wish. Cena’s contributions to the pro wrestling industry and to children worldwide are enough to make him a first-ballot Hall of Famer whenever that time comes. By choosing to make now his time to retire, however, Cena imparts a final important lesson: How to leave at the right time.
The concept of leaving a situation at the right time is easier said than done. Fame is a hell of a drug. Wrestlers often talk about there not being a high like the one they get from the roar of a crowd. That may be why someone like Ric Flair technically “retired” after losing to Hulk Hogan in a steel cage match at Halloween Havoc 1994, only to find a way to wrestle for another 14 years. Then, after losing to Shawn Michaels at WrestleMania XXIV in a match where a loss meant the end of his in-ring career, Flair was back in the ring a year later as the heel during Hogan’s 2009 “Hulkamania” tour of Australia, dabbling in and out of the business before having his actual last match in 2022, where he admitted to passing out twice. And that’s just how the 16-time world champion chose to end his career! Others continue to perform past their prime, in part because of the paydays they can collect as a nostalgia act on the wrestling circuit.
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Sadly, many pro wrestling stars don’t even get a chance to retire. Some, like Bret Hart, suffer injuries bad enough that they can no longer perform in the ring. Others had their careers tragically cut short, either due to horrific accidents or issues involving substance abuse. After the Chris Benoit double-murder/suicide in 2007, WWE tightened up its Wellness Policy. Almost 20 years later, one of the benefits of its new policies has been a locker room that can make good money and not be on the road for most of the year, destroying their bodies for the WWE Universe. There may not have been a time in Cena’s past when he had the opportunity to realize that he isn’t the competitor he once was, and it was time to hang up the APLs.
“This has really never been done in WWE history,” Cena told Jimmy Kimmel during the blitzkrieg press run he made leading into his final match. “WWE Superstars don’t necessarily retire; they always kind of hang on for one more match. I am absolutely 100 percent done. The 13th of December on Peacock is my last in-ring performance!” And while it was an episode of WWE’s quarterly Saturday Night’s Main Event series of Peacock specials, it was heavily promoted as John Cena’s Last Match, which is what made the final part of Cena’s Farewell Tour even more special.
“Leaving this place better than you found it” wasn’t just a Triple H comment. CM Punk said the same thing in the video package Cena watched before leaving the ring. Cody Rhodes got choked up talking about the concept at ringside. Much of what they were speaking to was what had many in the WWE Universe enraged: the way Gunther defeated Cena. When you zoom out a bit and look at what this last chunk of Cena’s final run has been, it’s clear the ethos has been to make sure the WWE Cena is leaving behind is in a much better position than when he got the wheel. And it makes sense when you consider Cena’s debut on SmackDown in 2002, when a young Cena challenged Kurt Angle (someone who became one of his biggest rivals) to a match, showing heart and “ruthless aggression” in his debut bout.
Over the last few months, Cena has spent his final hours as an active performer paying it forward. On a November episode of NXT, Cena shouted out two wrestlers he deemed to be the “future”: Je’Von Evans and Leon Slater, calling them “a pair of 21-year-olds who are way ahead of their time.” But it wasn’t just about shouting them out; during the night of his final match, Cena requested that main roster WWE talent face future stars. Evans and Slater took on the current World Tag Team Champions, while Rhodes faced Oba Femi, the Nigerian beast and current NXT Champion. Bayley, a great example of an indie talent who joined NXT and became a decorated champion on the main roster, took on Sol Ruca in one of the night’s highlights, which followed the eight hours Cena spent at Bayley’s Lodestone Training Camp, a space dedicated to helping independent wrestling talent.
What’s funny is, for all the hate Gunther is catching for defeating Cena, that outcome is another form of Cena paying it forward. At WrestleMania XXX, the ferocious Brock Lesnar (who was already a decorated champion in WWE and UFC) was chosen to end The Undertaker’s Streak of wins at WrestleMania, becoming “the 1 in 21-1” as Lesnar’s advisor Paul Heyman used to gloat, further upping his stock for future bouts against talents like Roman Reigns. Gunther may be a former two-time World Heavyweight Champion, the 2024 King of the Ring, and have the longest Intercontinental Champion reign, but, if Cena is to be believed and this is indeed his final match, Gunther is now the only person to retire John Cena. The only person to make Cena tap out. There’s a reason he got those boos early. It’s the same reason fans hounded him after the bout: Gunther just became the biggest heel in WWE. Do you know what that means?
The mission to find the person who will avenge Cena’s loss—the one who will attempt to achieve even half of what Cena did in his 23-year in-ring career—starts now. And while it’s not etched in stone that they will be as big (or bigger) than John Cena, his loss paves the way for their future and the future of WWE.
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