John Cena made his highly-anticipated return to WWE programming on Monday, Jan. 6 in the company’s debut episode of the flagship show Raw on Netflix, ushering in a new era in the streaming age.
From Cena’s perspective, the biggest part of his nostalgia, he-very-much-still-has-it promo was the announcement that not only will he compete at WWE Royal Rumble 2025 later this month in Indianapolis, but that he will WIN the Royal Rumble match.
Cena has won the Rumble twice in his career, including in 2008 with one of the greatest returns in pro wrestling history. Whether it was truly a “surprise” return is still up for debate, but the pop he received was beyond thunderous.
After a decade of being the hated top babyface, Cena is now even more beloved than he was in the 2000s, with fans in Los Angeles even booing Cena when he brought up his 2,000+ day losing streak and his initial assessment that it would be impossible for him to win a 17th world title and break Ric Flair’s record.
By winning the Royal Rumble, Cena could finally get a signature win after years of putting over wrestlers he probably should have beaten, most namely Austin Theory and Solo Sikoa. He’d then have a chance to write a storybook WrestleMania victory for himself, though he does have more history with wrestlers who are not champions right now (Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins, and CM Punk) than he does with either Gunther or Cody Rhodes.
Because of that, it’s hard to see Cena winning the Rumble this year. He’s been all about putting over younger talent after building a reputation as someone who buried rising stars, most prominently his shocking carryjob victory for Team WWE over the then-powerful Nexus faction at SummerSlam 2010.
So it’s hard to see Cena winning the Rumble for that reason, though, in fairness, the other candidates to win aren’t exactly up-and-comers. Maybe more appropriate is the point that the roads (no pun intended) to WrestleMania via the Rumble are already set with Roman vs. Rock, Seth vs. Punk, Cody vs. Punk, and Seth vs. Gunther being the more likely options.
One of the top prognosticators of WWE matches, Mark Justice (who writes for this site and Daily DDT) predicts that Cena will actually face McIntyre in a match outside the world title scene at WrestleMania 41.
Of course, that’s just one man’s prediction, and as WWE tested with Cena’s promo on Netflix, there is a groundswell of support from fans to see Cena capture the 17th in his farewell tour.
It makes more sense to do that towards the end of the year, though, when things get increasingly desperate, sort of as a callback to 2018 when he was desperate to get to WrestleMania and then got smacked by the Undertaker.
Cena’s farewell tour is going to be more about memories than wins, and while we should “never say never”, as Cena implored us at the end of his promo to kick off the farewell tour, this looks like one instance where the babyface boldly proclaiming Royal Rumble victory is bound to backfire – not that Cena, even in character, truly seems to be believe he is winning a third career Royal Rumble.
Kevin was an editor at Daily DDT, covering professional wrestling, and is now doing the same here at Let Them Wrestle.