How Surprising Ex-WWE Star Ended Up Ringside For John Cena’s Last Match
John Cena was greeted by a raft of WWE icons when he had his final match, but one name caught many fans by surprise.
On December 13th, 2025, John Cena brought the curtain down on his legendary career when he squared off with Gunther at Saturday Night’s Main Event. The crowd in Washington, D.C. and those watching around the world were shocked when Cena meekly tapped out to Gunther while trapped in the sleeper hold to lose his final bout.
Such was the strength of feeling of the crowd in the building that they showered Triple H with “You f*cked up” chants when he led the WWE locker room to the ring to pay tribute to Cena.
Before the match, John Cena greeted some ex-WWE stars at ringside who had come out to see his final match. Mark Henry, Haku, Kurt Angle, Rob Van Dam, Michelle McCool, Trish Stratus, Eve Torres, and current WWE stars Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn were there, as was TNA star Elijah – best known to WWE fans as Elias.
Elijah Asked By WWE To Be At John Cena’s Final Match
Speaking on Notsam Wrestling, Elijah revealed how he came to be at ringside for the historic match:
I couldn’t even begin to tell ya how that came about. I really don’t know. I got a call on Tuesday from WWE saying we would like you to be at Saturday Night’s Main Event for John’s final match. I said, ‘Yeah. To do what?’ And they were like, ‘Well, we don’t really know yet. We’ll figure it out, but we’d like you to be there’ and I said, ‘Okay, sure, of course,’ and I have my own history with John and of course in general he’s just the greatest ever so, of course it was an honor to be a part of that and really fun and I was game to do whatever.
If it’s like a pre-show interview or whatever. So then, nothing kind of came about and then as the main event starts to come out, they’re like, ‘Hey, we’re gonna go sit ya right there.’ ‘Okay! Sure…’ So then that was it, and a cool little moment for me. It was kind of funny and probably a little bit like, woah, to anybody who was watching that. Like, what!? There he is, right there.
But, for me, it was a really fun moment to be a part of that. It was a special moment. Of course I got a lot of history and friendship with John over the years and through working together and I kind of put out a little post of myself.
He was a really great advocate for me behind the scenes… So much goes on back there that people don’t know sometimes and he was always just so game to work with me and make things happen and do things, and he loved playing with the character and all that stuff too… [h/t Fightful]
Elijah will be part of TNA history when he takes to the ring for the debut edition of Impact on AMC. He will team with The Hardys to clash with Order 4. One match planned for that show has been pulled due to a request from WWE.