What WWE Actually Planned To Set Up John Cena’s Next Match

There are more details about how WWE set up John Cena’s match at Crown Jewel.

John Cena got destroyed by former WWE Champion Brock Lesnar at Wrestlepalooza. In his next match, Cena will face another former WWE Champion whom he has wrestled many times in the past.

Between Wrestlepalooza and the Australian Crown Jewel PLE on October 11th, Cena was scheduled for no television appearances, so WWE had to be creative in how they set up the next match.

On Twitter/X, Cena asked his 14+ millions of followers if they wanted to see him against AJ Styles one more time. Of course, WWE fans responded with a “yes” to that.

After WWE’s CCO, Triple H, made the match, John Cena stated that his two posts about it garnered over 10 million views, indicating that fans will get to see the match at Crown Jewel on October 11th.

Using Social Media To Set Up John Cena-AJ Styles Match Was Always The Plan

On Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer discussed how WWE conceived the idea in that manner by using social media to their advantage.

They did a little social media gimmick. Essentially, Cena pretended he wants this match and AJ said he wants this match, and they got fans to say they wanted the match. Paul Levesque said, ‘I hear you fans and I’m going to give you this match.’ So they used social media to do an angle.

By the way, this match was always scheduled for Australia. Always. So the whole deal with Cena and AJ, the idea was Cena was doing a tribute to him because he wasn’t gonna get to wrestle him. That was actually to build to this match, that was not actually ever the case.

The idea was they would tell people, you’re not gonna get this match, which meant people were – nobody was gonna clamour for the match – so to create a demand for the match, they basically told the story that Cena’s paying tribute to him because he’s only got limited dates, and AJ ain’t getting it.

Meanwhile, Fightful Select added that they didn’t know how long WWE planned the Cena-Styles match. However, they did confirm the Observer report that WWE didn’t book the match because of the fans. The plan was always to utilize social media to announce the Cena-Styles match.

The rivalry between John Cena and AJ Styles began in mid-2016, marking AJ’s first year in WWE. They had an epic match (won by Styles) at SummerSlam 2016 that was a WWE Match of the Year contender, and they may have topped it at Royal Rumble 2017 when Cena beat Styles for his 16th WWE World Title win in an outstanding match.

At WWE Crown Jewel on October 11th in Perth, Australia, John Cena and AJ Styles will face off one more time in one of Cena’s final matches.

Also read: John Cena’s Crown Jewel opponent, AJ Styles, is planning to retire as a wrestler in 2026.