John Cena’s story is complete even in submission defeat
John Cena walked into the sunset Saturday night.
He was gracious in defeat after working his butt off for 20+ minutes against Gunther, who made it his mission to make the “Never Seen 17” champion quit. He relentlessly worked Cena over from bell to bell in that pursuit and despite Cena’s best efforts the “Ring General” imposed the inevitability of defeat on him. Cena tapped out with what looked like a gracious, contented smile of resignation on his face as if he was saying, “it’s OK” as he let go.
Cena’s Last Match
There will be time in the coming days to really look at Cena’s final year and judge or review it as a whole. For now, this moment in time was everything it needed to be. What was striking though for someone who had been polarizing almost his entire career, at least in terms of fan reaction, was the resounding support that had not only welled up around him through most of 2025 but especially so in these last matches as we neared the end. The totality of that year-long ending was filled with moments that felt earned. I feel like that’s true even if you didn’t necessarily agree with its entire trajectory from beginning to end.
Gunther versus Cena was everything a career closer needs to be when we’re discussing a generational divide between the two opponents. Taken within an isolated moment in time, when you have a wrestler who still has room to expand their influence against a wrestler who has done it all and is retiring, it’s obviously more beneficial for the outgoing wrestler to put over the person sticking around. It’s as near to a tradition as wrestling gets where the retiring legend pays back the benefits of beating others in the past and paying forward that benefit to someone who is up and coming.
Other Options?
Now yes, Gunther is 38 and you could make a fair argument that a younger talent would have been a better fit for Cena in his last match. I would say I agree from the perspective that a blossoming talent would be more ideal, but if you look at the roster as it currently is, who’s a better choice? I think if Bron Breakker, for example, was an option he would be there. Clearly there’s a line of reasoning why he was nowhere near this tournament. I would then argue none of the NXT champions are a good fit at the present moment and Oba Femi gained more from his opening match and follow-up segment against Cody Rhodes and Drew McIntyre.
Then if we’re looking at secondary tier men’s champions, Cena just recently completed a program with Dom Mysterio over the Intercontinental championship, and as I wrote last month I didn’t think it would be best for that feud to carry into Cena’s final match with him carrying the title. It would cultivate a predictable ending. I think the Mysterio feud was timed and wrapped to allow for the much more beneficial and unpredictable “Last Time is Now” tournament to be timed to occur after Survivor Series and into Dec. 13’s Saturday Night’s Main Event. As for U.S. champion Ilja Dragunov, it wouldn’t make a lot of sense conceptually and even if you wanted to give Cena one final physical match, Dragunov and Gunther share a similar style and there’s more to gain with the latter and more villainous final boss option.
Once you argue away those options, what’s left is Gunther, lower card performers, or running back main event matches from earlier in the year. Gunther was simply the right choice for this moment, and when you look back on the year with his retirement of Goldberg, it feels like he was tapped for this very early in 2025 to then launch him into a strong 2026. And I think that’s the endgame with this choice — Gunther is already a strong world champion-level heel, but his victories over Goldberg and Cena indicate their sacrifices being booked to build the Austrian into a bigger bad guy for the company. If not the top heel option for one of the world titles.
How this all materializes into 2026 is irrelevant to the conversation of Cena’s last match. To quote the man himself, “it doesn’t matter,” right now. What does is Saturday night, that match, and for when the man who preached hustle, loyalty, respect and to never back down or give up, lived up to those statements before falling to the inevitability that comes with Gunther’s pressure and aggression. That was the point of the final sequence. Try as Cena might, as hard as he fought, he was outmatched, outclassed and outworked. Every time he tried to escape Gunther’s grasp, he reclasped the rear naked choke and exhausted Cena into submission after dumping his last drops of energy, heart and soul into his efforts. That’s the story here, coupled with the admission that it’s all OK.
Where Reality Meets Wrestling
Look at it from this perspective, and I’m sure this match and ending will be debated for some time regardless of what anyone thinks.
Statistically Cena doesn’t measure up to Gunther in terms of stature. They might both be announced at 250 pounds but that is likely less the case with present day 48-year-old Cena, whereas Gunther who formerly tipped the scales around 300 pounds and has cut down is a naturally larger athlete at 6’4″. Combining with his aggressive style, that poses problems if you’re imposing legit-focused realistic logic to the match. Gunther should dominate an older, slower, mentally-exhausted man who admitted he doesn’t have much left in the tank.
Let’s use MMA as an example, and yes they are obviously not the same thing. I would couple this with the reality that not every professional fighter is given the grace to bow out on their own terms, and rarely is it pretty. And not every wrestler gets the same sendoff Sting received in AEW; he is an outlier.
Anderson Silva was one of the greatest MMA fighters of all time and he dominated his division while dabbling in other weight classes. However, eventually he lost (albeit he was being an idiot), and he lost the rematch when he broke his leg from a checked leg kick off Chris Weidman’s shin. From that point on he was never the same. Going into the first Weidman fight he had 33 wins against 4 losses. He would finish his career with one win in nine fights, with a record of 1-7 (1 NC). Time passed him by, and it’s the nature of sport — eventually the next generation comes to take your place and passes you by. One good example was when Israel Adesanya, a younger version of what Silva was, fought, outclassed and defeated Silva (ironically Adesanya has had the division pass him by since then, as reality is unkind).
Eventually, time comes to collect even “the greatest ever” regardless of the field.
The Story They Told (What does Cena’s loss mean in the context of his career?)
From the moment the bell rang to close the match the general reaction vaulted from excitement to shock to anger as the Washington, D.C. crowd rained boos in the arena and later onto Triple H. It was inconceivable that the man who pledged to never give up, work hard, and persevere no matter what would submit.
These concepts are great marketing, but the more you listen to the man behind the character you begin to see he understands his impact, understands himself, and understands his value to the fans, company and the people he has worked with. Hustle. Loyalty. Respect. Never back down. Never give up.
And yet that’s what happened Saturday night. I also think we’re too hung up on the last one.
Aside from the jeers that rang throughout the arena, a good example of a dissident opinion I disagree with comes from Dave Meltzer and Bryan Alvarez for the Wrestling Observer. In one clip from their post-show Bryan Alvarez focused in on the “Never Give Up” phrase and merchandising and keyed in on how in some ways the loss and tapping out was a betrayal of that motto. Furthermore, both said they would not do that finish and inferred Cena, who surely had some say in how the match played out, needed Tony Khan and the Young Bucks to tell him, “no, you’re not losing.”
We’re going to ruin their argument, because they’re blowhards.
- John Cena and Sting only share retirement as a constant. Sting arguably gave more and longer to wrestling, and had his career cut short due to injury. Cena carried WWE for years, was a company constant, and went out in a more traditional way because his rise and trajectory was a classic method to close out a career. Sting story’s demanded and deserved a positive ending because it made sense for him. Conversely, Cena’s story deserved that ending because it was the right thing to do, and it still fits his story.
- The Young Bucks are not Gunther, and Gunther is not Matt and Nick Jackson. The Bucks are effectively a bulletproof entity and losing means nothing to them. They are more established as an entity than Gunther is and have hit their ceiling. Conversely, Gunther has a higher ceiling, is still active and a loss to Cena hurts him. The situations are not the same, and their roles in the respective matches are not the same. To assume as much is stupidly daft.
- Here’s an obvious one. Triple H and Tony Khan have two different perspectives — one is business focused, one is fan-focused. Both are fine, are valid and relative to the right circumstance are acceptable. Putting Cena in AEW or Sting back in WWE to close out their careers changes the story, and I think both were the right moves respectively for them in the respective companies.
To write off the ending and compare it to another retirement that holds different circumstances is ignorant. From there, does that invalidate the retirements of Bryan Danielson or Undertaker for how they were completed? As you’ll recall, Danielson was thrashed short of homicide in his retirement, whereas Undertaker left a conquering hero. Were those endings wrong? No, because they fit the stories and the circumstances.
Back to those words now: hustle, loyalty, respect; never back down, never give up.
Consider what he meant for a generation of people, even if you’re like me and were not the biggest fan but came to respect him over time. And we’re talking fans, make-a-wish children, his peers, everyone. The lessons he conveyed and how he carried himself taught us to work hard every day and commit to something we believed in. He preached finding purpose and working hard toward your goal whatever that might be. One of the definitions of “hustle” is to “obtain by forceful action or persuasion,” meaning to fight for something you want and making it a reality by your own will. Making your dreams a reality.
Loyalty can be broken down a number of ways, but in his context I think it means staying loyal to the people that matter to you personally, professionally, and most of all to yourself. Staying true to your word and living honestly, and having the respect for the people around you to not waver in that, for the people who count on you, and for the people who believe in you no matter how small the scale.
Cobbled together he built a career that inspired people to try, fight, be kind, respectful and work hard toward their goals. Or maybe it was something as simple as giving a tired, weary child hope, which he did hundreds of times over the last 20+ years. He inspired people to drive forward, which is where I think the perceived betrayal lays in concept.
Those might be right and it’s a fair opinion with the ending not two days old, but I think the other two-fifths of his catchphrasing is equally important.
“Never back down, never give up”
What does that mean taking it all as a whole? To me it’s a summation of his motto put into practice. So what does that mean for this final match?
Cena built his entire career off resilience, whether it’s defying norms, breaking barriers in wrestling, music and cinema, or even something as simple as choosing to work harder to return from injury faster. It’s about standing up against a challenge and not being afraid. Not so much based in the surety of success, but also accepting the potential for failure and being content in the possibility of either outcome.
(And yes, I know he tapped. We’re getting to that.)
We’ve established things I think are fairly true when comparing Gunther against Cena. When you lay out the particulars and accept that Gunther is a titan who frankly shouldn’t lose to an aged Cena, Cena’s defiance and will to fight is actually inspirational.
The approach from Cena was that this was a fight and a challenge he was willing to give every last drop of his heart and soul to. That was the story he and Gunther told from bell to bell. Cena never backed down once, he fought hard, he got beat down, he fought back and got beat down again. And when it looked like he was out, he got back up once more and defied Gunther at every turn. Especially when Gunther’s hubris got the better of him, as it tends to happen with his character.
The point is simple — if they wanted to tell a simple blowout story, Gunther could have thrashed him and everyone could have gone home early. Instead they told a story of someone who’s given everything to wrestling and its fans, and was going down the aisle one more time against an opponent who has made a career out of beating down people and making them quit.
The odds were steep and by nature of how Gunther presents, the deck was stacked against him. Yet there he was fighting back, never backing down and getting back up despite his proverbial health bar getting depleted by Gunther’s special moves and super arts attacks. The thing is with never backing down and never giving up is that the final understanding of ourselves involves the concession that we’re human, we have limits, and sometimes the pendulum doesn’t swing our way.
Looking back on the final moments of the match, in hindsight you can’t help but feel the slow denouement from what we didn’t realize was the climax of the match. Moment by moment as Cena fought to escape the RNC, we kept believing he’d pull through only for Gunther to reapply the hold; depleting Cena’s health further with every passing moment until finally Cena accepted that he was spent and accepted his defeat. It began to feel inevitable. And that’s OK; it’s OK to fight hard, inspire and still lose. There’s honour in that, and honour in the acceptance that it’s OK to let go.
From my perspective I see Cena as someone who has served his time, even if I spent most of my waking adult life wanting him to go away. I grew up over time and acknowledged what he meant to people and the value he has as someone who at least seemingly tries to uplift and not deconstruct. I see Cena as someone who lived up to his monikers, lived up to his catchphrases and in the end didn’t betray those mottos. I view his final match as one of his best storytelling outings where he showed us what it means to fight against stiff odds and to not give up in the face of pressure.
For someone who pledged that no one could see him for his entire career, by the time the final bell rang Cena could not have been more transparent. He left his heart and soul in the ring with his shoes, arm and wrist bands. More importantly what became clear as he left the ring after he was acknowledged and tributed was just how beloved he has become; additionally so, it became clear that he left the business better than when he found it, and gave back in a way that honoured those who came before him by paying forward what they gave him to Gunther.
His was a path worth treading and being inspired by both in victory and defeat.
