John Cena Loses WWE Retirement Match

The final WWE match in the career of John Cena is in the books as he faced GUNTHER at Saturday Night’s Main Event tonight, December 13.

GUNTHER won the Last Time Is Now tournament to earn the spot as Cena’s last opponent, defeating Je’Von Evans, Carmelo Hayes, Solo Sikoa and finally LA Knight.

GUNTHER is also the same man who had the last WWE match of Hall of Famer Goldberg, as he defeated Goldberg at Saturday Night’s Main Event in July.

Tonight, the result was the same, as GUNTHER defeated John Cena, and most notably, made Cena do something he hasn’t done for 20 years – give up.

GUNTHER locked Cena in a sleeper hold for several minutes, and after time after time of Cena managing to survive he finally, eventually tapped out.

Prior to Cena vs GUNTHER, the theme of the matches on the show as WWE main roster stars facing NXT talents, something that Cena himself requested.

In the opener, WWE Champion Cody Rhodes vs NXT Champion Oba Femi technically ended in a disqualification victory for Rhodes when Drew McIntyre entered the ring and attacked him.

Femi and Rhodes then both took out McIntyre together and shared a moment of respect in the ring.

After that was Bayley vs Sol Ruca, which was won by Ruca via a roll-up – there was another moment of respect which also included Zaria who had been in Ruca’s corner, and Lyra Valkyria who had been in Bayley’s.

Then, World Tag Team Champions AJ Styles and Dragon Lee scored the win against NXT’s Je’Von Evans and Leon Slater.

Between that and Cena vs GUNTHER was in an in-ring segment featuring The Miz, R-Truth and Joe Hendry, which was Truth and Hendry work together in a beatdown of Miz who had been complaining about not getting a match against Cena on his retirement tour.

Then, it was time for the main event as GUNTHER defeated John Cena.

After the match, the locker room and backstage area emptied, which initially led to chants criticizing Triple H for having Cena lose his last match.

With everyone around ringside, WWE Champion Cody Rhodes and World Heavyweight Champion CM Punk joined him in the ring and have him their title belts to hold up in the air.

Triple H then also got up on the apron and embraced Cena, which again led to major boos from the crowd. HHH then pointed to the big video screen where a Cena tribute video played.