John Cena started his retirement tour, announcing that he will work 36 dates, in total, throughout this year, leading up to his final match. The first five months of the year have already eaten up 12 of those appearances, leaving only 24 of his upcoming TV appearances, as it appears. Furthermore, we now have a clue about the whereabouts of his final match.
While fans have been aware that John Cena will hang up his boots by the end of 2025, there is now a date and location that have been revealed for that final run into the ring, at least according to his father. At the end of a feature done by Boston news station WCVB for their Chronicle show on New England’s contributions to wrestling, the anchors revealed that Cena Sr. noted that his son’s final match will take place in December at the TD Garden in Boston, Massachusetts.
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For the record, John Cena is billed in the WWE from West Newbury, Massachusetts, a place where he grew up and is less than an hour’s drive to Boston. WWE has yet to announce a December event at the Garden, as of this writing. Hence, the speculation continues if a premium live event, Saturday Night’s Main Event, Raw, or SmackDown will go down in the final month of 2025.
For the time being, John Cena is now down to 24 appearances after closing the May 9th episode of WWE Friday Night SmackDown, and then appearing at Backlash. At a glance, his completed 12 appearances go as follows,
January 4: WWE Raw Netflix Debut (Los Angeles, CA)
February 1: WWE Royal Rumble (Indianapolis, IN)
March 1: WWE Elimination Chamber (Toronto, ON)
March 17: WWE Raw (Brussels, Belgium)
March 24: WWE Raw (Glasgow, Scotland)
March 31: WWE Raw (London, UK)
April 18: WWE SmackDown (Las Vegas, NV)
April 20: WWE WrestleMania 41 Sunday (Las Vegas, NV)
April 21: WWE Raw (Las Vegas, NV)
April 25: WWE SmackDown (Fort Worth, TX)
May 9: WWE SmackDown (Dayton, OH)
May 10: WWE Backlash (St. Louis, MO)
Confirmed upcoming appearances of John Cena
May 24: WWE Saturday Night’s Main Event (Tampa, FL)
May 30: WWE SmackDown (Knoxville, TN)
October: WWE in Perth (including WWE Crown Jewel: Perth)
In the main event of WWE Backlash 2025, John Cena (c) defeated Randy Orton to retain the Undisputed WWE Championship in the latter’s hometown of St. Louis, Missouri, at the Enterprise Center. His next title defense is expected to go down at Saturday Night’s Main Event on May 24 against R-Truth in Tampa, Florida.
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