John Cena Set for Gunther Challenge in Last-Ever WWE Match After the Latter Topples LA Knight on SmackDown

John Cena will stand across from The Ring General at Saturday Night's Main Event on December 13.

John Cena Set for Gunther Challenge in Last-Ever WWE Match After the Latter Topples LA Knight on SmackDown

Gunther will be wrestling John Cena on Dec 13 [via- WWE]

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16 men were in contention to be John Cena‘s last WWE opponent in a tournament that started a few short weeks ago. The finals were held on SmackDown this Friday with Gunther taking on LA Knight. Even though the odds were completely stacked against ‘The Megastar’, he was the sentimental favorite going into it. But just being that was never going to be enough.

Despite showing characteristic resolve against a wrestling machine like Gunther, the former United States Champion bit the dust. The former leader of Imperium somehow escaped the wrath of the BFT by placing his foot on the ropes to break the pinfall count. He even survived an Attitude Adjustment followed by a Burning Hammer from Knight.

‘The Defiant One’ eventually tapped out to Gunther after the Austrian viciously wrenched his neck. And just like that, ‘The Ring General’ has booked a date with the 17-time world champion at Saturday Night’s Main Event. It was previously reported that WWE had Gunther penciled in as Cena’s final opponent. After putting Knight down, the 2-time world champion issued a warning to ‘The Cenation Leader’.

Staring dead into the camera, the 38-year-old affirmed that Cena will finally give up on December 13 by tapping out. With ‘Mr. Hustle, Loyalty, and Respect’ just a week away from his wrestling swansong, the anticipation of some high-profile names gracing the occasion in Washington, D.C., is high.

While it’s not, by any shot, confirmed, US President Donald Trump has long been rumored to pay a visit to the Capital One Arena for one of the all-time wrestling greats retiring. An update from Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful on Trump’s likelihood for the event has revealed that WWE sources have given him the said response, “I would be surprised, but who f**king knows?”

John Cena reveals the original retirement tour work schedule was set at 220 dates

John Cena did a media round this week in the lead-up to his final WWE match. While doing so, ‘The Prototype’ stopped by Bill Simmons of The Ringer podcast. Sharing the original plans for his retirement tour, Cena claimed that he wanted to work a full-time schedule amounting to 220 dates, as opposed to that paltry figure of 36 that he ended up doing.

John Cena
John Cena [via- WWE]

‘The Franchise Player’ was prepared to take a year off from everything else and make WWE his top priority for 2025. However, Cena said that WWE needed him for only 36 appearances. The Peacemaker actor expressed gratitude for the healthy state of WWE’s current business to a degree where the company didn’t feel the urge to have Cena on the road every other week.

One would imagine that getting to work even less than 25% of the dates that were originally proposed would’ve been super easy for Cena. It wasn’t. The filming commitments got in the way. Around the time of his appearance on Raw’s Netflix debut, the Massachusetts-born wrestler was shooting Matchbox in Budapest.

He had to fly back to Europe after competing in the 30-man Royal Rumble match to wrap up the filming. The rigorous Hollywood schedule kept draining John Cena until after WrestleMania 41, prior to which he was juggling between flights to fly across the globe for movies. ‘The Last Real Champion’ alluded to him being sleep deprived as a consequence, but he threaded the needle just enough.

In hindsight, Cena would be extremely thankful of WWE keeping him from committing to working over 200 days in his farewell tour. During the same interview, the former Dr. of Thuganomics admitted to paucity of time for telling the right story as a heel. He said the work he did after turning into an on-screen villain wasn’t perfect but added that he gave his all.

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