It’s been almost a year since John Cena’s retirement match, and he’s now reflecting on how WWE has handled GUNTHER since that night.
Cena’s final match came at a Saturday Night’s Main Event special in December 2025, where he tapped out to GUNTHER. Speaking on Busted Open during his current media tour, Cena addressed the growing fan sentiment that WWE has mismanaged GUNTHER’s momentum since that win, saying he can see why people might feel that way right now.
Cena was careful to note he isn’t privy to WWE’s internal creative planning and doesn’t know whether GUNTHER is simply being cooled off for a bigger push down the road.
His own stance was that whenever he’s actually in the ring doing business with someone, his job is to make them look as strong as possible. What WWE does with that momentum afterward isn’t something he can control or wants to second-guess.
I know there’s sentiment out there that like, ‘Man, they’re wasting GUNTHER!’ Maybe currently they are. But I don’t see the view from the penthouse. I’m not in those meetings where they’re just looking at the whiteboard, connecting the dots. Maybe they’re just cooling him off. Maybe they’re putting him away from TV.
I don’t know. What I am gonna do is I’m not gonna challenge the opinion of, ‘Aye, I’m not gonna give this for this guy and you’re gonna forget him.’ This is the work that I need to do for today, and we’re gonna make him look the best we can, and I’m gonna give him as much steam as I can, and what you do with it afterwards, that ain’t my call.
The comments come after GUNTHER took a pinfall loss in a Money in the Bank qualifying match involving CM Punk and Finn Bálor on the September 25 episode of SmackDown. He’s also been dealing with ongoing backstage run-ins with Danhausen, who’s been trailing him in recent weeks.
