News

John Cena Sends Emotional Message To AJ Styles After WWE Retirement

By John Canton • Published Jan 31, 2026 21:50 EST
AJ Styles WWE John

John Cena had some thoughts about AJ Styles after the WWE Royal Rumble.

When John Cena went on his retirement tour in 2025, many fans and wrestling pundits reflected on some of his best WWE rivalries. While names like CM Punk, Randy Orton, and Edge deserve to be mentioned, perhaps the best opponent Cena ever had was AJ Styles.

At WWE Crown Jewel in October 2025, John Cena and AJ Styles had their final match after not doing a single promo about it. All they did was post on social media about it, and the fans in Australia were absolutely on fire for the match. Cena got the win in what was considered one of the best WWE matches of the year.

What we didn’t know when watching that Crown Jewel match is that John Cena and AJ Styles would have their final WWE matches seven weeks apart.

Gunther ended John Cena’s WWE career at Saturday Night’s Main Event on December 13th. Gunther also ended AJ Styles’ in-ring career at the Royal Rumble in Riyadh. Styles is 48, just like Cena, and clearly, both men felt like it was the right time to call it a career, even though each of us was still having great matches right up until the end.

After Styles lost his final match to Gunther at the Royal Rumble, the 17-time WWE World Champion John Cena went on X/Twitter to issue a statement about the respect he has for Styles.

Phenomenal is an understatement. Respect is earned and few are more worthy of universal industry wide respect than @AJStylesOrg. Thank you AJ for all you’ve done for wrestling. From anyone who’s seen you and those lucky enough to share canvas with you.

AJ Styles Could Have Behind The Scenes Role In WWE

While addressing the AJ Styles-Gunther match at the Royal Rumble on the Royal Rumble post-show, WWE Chief Content Officer Paul “Triple H” Levesque made it clear that AJ Styles doesn’t plan to wrestle anymore. While discussing AJ’s future further, Triple H also suggested that Styles could work behind the scenes in WWE.

“We’ve had a lot of conversations on the off chance that this all came down. Obviously, we expected it later in the year. We had a lot of conversations about it. AJ is one of those people who absolutely want to give back and be a part of this business. I don’t want to speak for him. Other conversations he had with me, he made it very clear that he was just done with the in-ring. There is a point where you just reach in your career where you say, ‘I do not want to do this anymore.’

When your heart goes, no matter how good you are, like, he hasn’t lost a step. But when you just say I’m just at a place where I don’t want to do this anymore, it is time. Before you get hurt. Before you get told you are not allowed to do this anymore. I am hoping that he will contribute again because he is one of the most influential people in the business and one of the greatest minds in the business.

I think when you see somebody like what Shawn Michaels is doing at NXT, that is a path of a career for AJ Styles beyond this period that he is in. For me right now, this is not the time to talk about it. This is an emotional night for him and his family, for everybody involved. It is let him breathe. It is let him take the time that he wants to take to think about what’s next for him and we’ll have that conversation.”

After losing the match to Gunther at the Royal Rumble, AJ Styles thought about leaving his gloves in the ring. Instead, he ended up keeping the gloves on, posed for the fans and walked to the backstage area.