Legend John Cena has made a stunning admission about what he had thought was his last WWE match.
Last year, in Dec. 2025 at WWE Saturday Night’s Main Event, John Cena wrestled his final wrestling match. Following a submission loss to Gunther, Cena bid adieu to the sport and retired from in-ring action.
Following a year-long consistent run in 2025, Cena retired from WWE. Throughout the run last year, fans saw Cena turn heel, turn back face, win his 17th World Championship, win the Intercontinental title, and more. However, according to one of Cena’s recent interviews, he believed his career was over almost five years ago at WWE WrestleMania 36.
WWE WrestleMania 36 took place in 2020 during the pandemic. While the two were scheduled to face each other at the PLE, the pandemic and crowd-less WrestleMania turned their bout into the cinematic and highly praised Firefly Funhouse match.
Speaking to Alistair McGeorge of Metro, Cena revealed that he thought his last match was at WWE WrestleMania 36 against Bray Wyatt. The veteran also opened up and justified why the match was produced that way.
“Honestly, no kidding. I thought the Firefly Fun House was going to be the last match of my career,” he said. “I really did think that the Firefly Fun House match was going to be the tail end, and that was kind of a meta journey for me through facing all of my demons, and then letting go.”
During the pandemic, Cena was filming Fast 9 and The Barbie Movie. His commitment to the project kept him out of WWE for 16 months. This also possibly led to him believing that his WWE journey was over. However, he came back for several brief stints after that before finally retiring in 2025.
Last year, in Dec. 2025 at WWE Saturday Night’s Main Event, John Cena wrestled his final wrestling match. Following a submission loss to Gunther, Cena bid adieu to the sport and retired from in-ring action. Following a year-long consistent run in 2025, Cena retired from WWE.