John Cena says the John Cena Classic will crown both a men’s champion and a women’s champion, with Club WWE members voting as soon as the last match ends.
Speaking with Rick Ucchino of The Takedown on Sports Illustrated, Cena also ruled out a bracket-style tournament, which some had speculated the Classic would be. It will instead be a series of exhibition matches pitting current main roster stars against NXT talent, a format he described as “very much like Saturday Night’s Main Event.”
Cena compared the voting to American Idol. His plan is for Club WWE members to vote the moment the final bout is over, with the women’s and men’s champions of the night announced after a commercial break. He hedged on the logistics, saying it depends on WWE having the technology to pull it off live.
Because the vote is separate from the match results, a wrestler can lose and still win the title, something Cena made clear when he announced the Classic at Backlash.
The format question had been open for months. Dave Meltzer reported in May that WWE hadn’t decided between a tournament and individual matches, and PWInsider relayed Cena telling Us Weekly in June that he wanted “a night of exhibition matches.”
The Classic takes place Dec. 14 at ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex in Orlando, Florida, one year and one day after Cena’s retirement match. It opens a two-day WWE and Disney takeover of the complex.
Cena named Cody Rhodes the first invitee on Raw, and Zilla Fatu became the first NXT name on the Nov. 4 episode of NXT. The remaining NXT invitations were filmed last week, and those identities will be revealed in the coming weeks.
Cena thanked Triple H and Nick Khan for letting him try the idea, and acknowledged the risk. If the Classic doesn’t work, he said, WWE doesn’t have to run it again next year.
