John Cena Shot Down WWE Retirement Idea: “You’d Kill The Audience”

Saturday Night’s Main Event XLII would have been a whole different show had John Cena not rejected Bruce Prichard’s idea.

Having been a part of the business for 23 years, Cena understood the demands of the audience and accordingly pitched something that made the event a success.

While the 17-time world champion headlined the show, it stood out for the reason that it gave budding wrestlers from the developmental brand NXT a platform to showcase their talent.

The likes of Oba Femi, Sol Ruca, and Je’Von Evans scored huge points with the WWE higher-ups, largely due to the quality of the match they put on to entertain the audience on a night when they were not in the spotlight.

Prichard, on the other hand, wanted to make SNME a one-match show.

John Cena Reveals Rejecting Bruce Prichard’s Idea For Retirement Event

John Cena recently sat down with hosts of the No-Contest Wrestling podcast, wherein he spoke on a variety of subjects from his wrestling days up until his retirement.

He also revealed rejecting Bruce Prichard’s idea, instead proposing one that pitted lesser-known wrestlers against veterans.

I remember Bruce Prichard, who is a great friend of mine, came up to me and he’s like, “For your last show, I’m thinking about a one-match show.” I said, “You will kill the audience. You will absolutely murder the live event audience.” Now, WWE is great at production. If you’re watching at home, that would have been great. But the wind would have been out of the sails in DC.

I said, “No, f**k that. Do, two-three-minute packages here, but let’s get some matches. Let’s bring in some marquee guys and guys…you wanna do like the cycle of life.” A marquee guy was like, “Who back there wants to take this open challenge? And idoit rutheless aggression guy came out. So, like how cool of a full circle moment is that where I kind of went out the same way I came in but it’s not set and anchored into a date?” [29:40 onwards]

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