John Cena Finally Reveals WWE Creative Reason Behind Brock Lesnar Squash Match
John Cena’s Retirement tour saw many ups and downs.
The reception on John Cena’s retirement tour was fairly divisive, with many fans and critics unhappy with much of what happened during the tour and the eventual outcome in which he tapped out to Gunther’s sleeperhold in his final ever match, and others feeling that it was a proper send-off for the superhero-like figure who was the face of WWE for over two decades.
His match against Brock Lesnar at Wrestlepalooza in 2025 was also the subject of much debate as a returning Lesnar squashed Cena in a matter of minutes, taking almost no offense from The Never-Seen-17 star.
The build-up to the match began when Lesnar attacked Cena with an F5 after John Cena lost his WWE Undisputed Championship to Cody Rhodes at SummerSlam.
Critics bashed WWE creative for having Lesnar squash Cena, with many saying that The Beast Incarnate didn’t need to be booked as a monster again since the world already knew what Lesnar was capable of. They also felt it was unfair to Cena, who was working the final year of his career.
John Cena Explains The Reason Behind Getting Squashed By Brock Lesnar
In a recent appearance on No-Contest wrestling, Cena opened up about the squash match, saying it made sense for the story to lose the way he did.
Could I have put together a better performative match with Brock Lesnar? Sure. But it doesn’t tell the story, doesn’t creatively tell the story.
We got to reintroduce this guy. Everybody needs to know he means business. How do you do that? By taking the one entity that can lose, not lose steam. It’s like an exhibition match.
Meanwhile, Brock Lesnar is currently active in WWE and is slated to appear on the Feb 23 episode of Raw. This would be the final Raw episode before the major Elimination Chamber PLE. It remains to be seen what Brock’s role would be in the episode leading up to the big event.