John Cena Makes Surprising Revelation About WWE Retirement Tour

WWE legend John Cena retired from the ring in December 2025.

He officially announced his retirement tour, The Last Time Is Now, on July 6, 2024, during a surprise appearance at WWE Money in the Bank in Toronto. His farewell tour began in January 2025 with his appearance on the debut episode of Monday Night Raw on Netflix on January 6, 2025.

Cena’s tour concluded with his retirement match at Saturday Night’s Main Event on December 13, 2025, held at the Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C., where he lost to Gunther via submission.

Following his WWE retirement, John Cena has transitioned into a full-time Hollywood star and is set to appear in his upcoming film Matchbox: The Movie, which will be released on Apple TV on October 9.

John Cena Opens Up About His WWE Retirement Decision

While promoting his upcoming movie, John Cena gave an exclusive interview to Entertainment Tonight’s Denny Directo, where he was asked about his retirement tour and how it feels to put his wrestling career behind him.

Cena revealed that his decision to retire was not impulsive and that it took him three years to make. Because of that long decision-making process, he said he feels he had enough time to mentally prepare and fully accept that his in-ring career has come to an end:

It’s something I wish I could do forever. I think the reasonable approach is to understand when it’s time to step away, and this was a process that took like 3 years. I had the idea, pitched the idea, 15 months later, we announced the tour, and then a year we had the tour.

So, I did have plenty of time to get into a space that like, okay, my in-ring performance for WWE is over. I’m happy that we did… I thought we did an incredible year of business, and certainly, the audience has talked about it, and I’m very grateful for that. (From 0:09)

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