John Cena Reveals Selfless Reason He Didn’t Retire At WWE WrestleMania

John Cena called the curtains on his wrestling career in December 2025.

At Saturday Night’s Main Event XLII, Cena lost to Gunther after getting trapped in a chokehold, which forced him to tap out.

Judging by his latest revelation, the 17-time world champion could have retired at WrestleMania 41, where he won the title for a record time.

John Cena instead chose SNME in December.

John Cena Reveals Why He Did Not Retire At WrestleMania

While speaking on the No-Contest Wrestling podcast recently, John Cena revealed the selfless reason why he chose to retire in December instead of at WrestleMania.

I’ll tell you why I specifically chose December to retire. There is a lot of stuff going on in December, and in the WWE calendar, like, Survivor Series is the last one, and then everyone waits for the Rumble. December is like a month in limbo. They’ve never really been able to crack that code, and with people on holiday, there’s until the holiday season is over, until like the 26th, tickets are tough to sell because people are spending on holiday presents. So, it’s a weak month for viewership, it’s a weak month for live attendance, and the “fan fans” are like, “Wait till January.” That’s when we’ve advertised it. That’s when the road to WrestleMania starts.

When I presented this idea to Nick Khan and Triple H, they were awesome. ‘Who do you wanna work with? What event do you wanna retire at? I simply said, ‘Hunter, who I wanna work with is up to you. That’s your department. I have never been that guy. I don’t wanna take this last year and change who I am. You deal them, I play.’

‘Nick, from a business perspective, the data that I’ve gathered over 23 years of doing business is December is soft. WrestleMania is gonna sell itself. So retiring at WrestleMania is selfish. It doesn’t do anything for the business. We retire in December, our weakest month, and we take the middle of December, the dry zone, that desert from the end of Survivor Series to the beginning of the Rumble.’

‘We put it like right in the middle of December because I know once you do the holiday tour, the houses will come back, you guys will make money. Let’s show a profit in Q4. And you put whatever arena you want, doesn’t matter. Just let’s get ourself the best position to have the best December we can.’

Also read: WWE’s Newest Monster Makes Honest John Cena Confession