John Cena says the Brock Lesnar match led to his final encounter with AJ Styles at Crown Jewel 2025.
The Cenation Leader wrestled AJ Styles one final time at the PPV in Australia last October. The highly praised match saw the Phenomenal One paying tribute to his time in TNA, before his own retirement at the Royal Rumble PPV this January.
During his most recent appearance on the No Contest Wrestling podcast, John Cena revealed that originally, he was supposed to face Drew McIntyre at the PPV instead:
“In the whole story arc of the thing, I try to plan it as a year of creative experiences, but you also gotta be able to pivot. 'Hey you got Travis and Rock.' 'You don’t have Rock; you don’t have Travis.' ‘We’re gonna do this, we're gonna do this this.’ AJ was supposed to be Drew. We pivoted."
They Were Listening: John Cena
The Cenation Leader has referred to the pivots made during his retirement tour in the past and confirmed that his heel turn at Elimination Chamber involving The Rock and Travis Scott was not the original plan.
While explaining the reason why his opponent was changed from Drew to AJ, John Cena suggested that it was a decision based on the negative reaction to Brock Lesnar squashing him at WrestlePalooza:
"But like 'We want to give them a feel-good moment' because they were listening to the data points. Like they listen to you guys. They do. It’s real. So you have the Brock moment, people are pissed off. Then you have the AJ moment, and things are great."
The 17-time world champion went on to discuss how the match with AJ was followed by the rivalry with Dominik Mysterio where he won the IC title and finally the retirement match with Gunther.
