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John Cena’s Role In 4-Time WWE Champion’s Return Revealed

By Shuvangi Sen Chaudhury • Published Jan 06, 2026 07:26 EST
John Cena Survivor Series

John Cena was the key figure in WWE for the whole of 2025. It was his Farewell Tour, and he wanted to ensure he was giving back to the industry and the fans to the best of his abilities.

The Champ battled AJ Styles, Randy Orton, Cody Rhodes, R-Truth, Logan Paul, and Gunther during the retirement tour.

Superstars spoke fondly about John Cena’s backstage demeanour, and Bayley even thanked him for coming out to the camp and visiting the next generation of women in the industry.

John Cena facilitated Matt Cardona’s return to WWE

To choose the final opponent, WWE conducted a ‘Last Time Is Now’ tournament. During that time, Cardona came to WWE as Zack Ryder to face LA Knight, but lost the match.

On the latest episode of WWE SmackDown, Matt Cardona returned under this name as Kit Wilson’s mystery opponent and secured the victory.

While speaking to TMZ’s Inside The Ring, Chelsea Green opened up about Cardona’s return and how John Cena realized he belongs in WWE and helped him reach that point.

When we go and have our little date nights with John and Shay, he’s very open and honest and very, very kind to us.

He’s been very supportive throughout, especially after Matt left WWE and was on the Indies, he was very supportive of his journey to get back to WWE, because that was always Matt’s goal. So it’s been fun to go on those date nights and track the progression towards this goal.

Then for John to help facilitate that as well, obviously Matt did all the hard work, but I really think that John, helping him get into that tournament, was what made WWE see ‘oh wow, that is a superstar that we need’. He’s an Indie star but he is, at his core, a WWE superstar.

Matt Cardona returned to WWE six years after his release.

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