A few days ago, reports of Joe Otterson of Variety first broke the news of John Cena’s return to WWE programming during an upcoming episode of Smackdown. He is slated to appear on the December 30th edition which will also be the final WWE televised show of this year. That episode of WWE’s Friday night show will emanate from the Amalie Arena in Tampa, Florida which is the current residing state for Super Cena.
Afterward, WWE also delivered an official statement to confirm that the former franchise player under their banner is indeed returning on TV,
“You can (and will) see him! As first reported by Variety, 16-time World Champion John Cena will appear on the final SmackDown of 2022. What will The Leader of the Cenation have in store for the special year-end episode of SmackDown? Find out Dec. 30 at 8/7 C on FOX!”
For the time being, it is not known what he will be doing during that episode but there’s obviously some rumor of WWE giving an update regarding his involvement in Wrestlemania 39 in April. Being a large-scale show in Hollywood, it’s expected that he will be on board for an appearance or a match but he won’t be available for the buildup during the upcoming Wrestlemania season.
John Cena Teases Facing Celebrity Star At WWE Wrestlemania 39
John Cena not likely to have a match at Wrestlemania 39
According to the reports from Wrestling Observer, if John Cena does have a match at WrestleMania 39, then he most likely won’t be available during the build-up through the Road to the Show of Shows as he’ll be busy filming the comedy movie “Ricky Stanicky” in Australia. The filming schedule spans through February and March while WrestleMania 39 takes place on April 1st and 2nd.
Since John Cena will still be filming the movie in March, it’s very much possible that he might decide not to compete in a match at WrestleMania 39 because he’ll have less time to prepare for it. He also can’t train while filming the movie due to the risk of injury that could result in a halt in the movie production and cost the producers a lot of money. This is one of the reasons why The Rock finds it difficult to make the anticipated comeback for one last match.
Recent reports have stated that WWE wants to do John Cena vs. Austin Theory at WrestleMania 39. They planted seeds for this match on the June 27th episode of Raw and then at Survivor Series 2022 where Theory appeared on WWE’s The Bump and said he’s better than Cena.
