EAST LANSING- On December 13, 17-time World Champion John Cena told a final story in the ring against “The Ring General” Gunther on the WWE Saturday Night’s Main Event. Gunther earned the opportunity of being Cena’s final opponent by winning WWE’s The Last Time Is Now Tournament defeating WWE superstar LA Knight in the final by submission.
Gunther vs Cena took place in the main event of the Saturday Night’s Main Event card. Other matches that took place on this card included Cody Rhodes vs Oba Femi, Bayley vs Sol Ruca, and AJ Styles & Dragon Lee vs Je’Von Evans & Leon Slater. On Cena’s final PLE, he wanted to bring attention to the young and upcoming WWE stars making a name for themselves.
Saturday Night’s Main Event took place at the Capital One Arena in Washinton, D.C. with a thunderous crowd of 19,000 in attendance for the greatest of all time’s final match. As the wrestlers made their entrances, Gunther was met with heavy boos from the crowd while Cena was greeted with an amazing uproar as he took the mat for the last time.
The matchup between Cena and Gunther was very controversial from the start in the eyes of many fans, with some people believing Gunther didn’t need this match. When it came down to The Last Time is Now tournament, I believe that the better choice was LA Knight, but I also didn’t think Gunther was a bad choice either. Throughout the match it was an exciting back and forth between “The Ring General” and the greatest of all time. The way they portrayed Gunther in this match really solidified his role as one of the top heels in the company. What really stood out to me in not just this match alone, but this entire retirement tour in general was that even at 48 years old John Cena has still proven that he can hang with some of the best in the ring. Towards the end of the main event Gunther continuously tried to make Cena submit by locking in the sleeper hold which Cena eventually tapped out to end the match. This decision has left many fans upset because they had to watch their hero and role model give up.
Personally, I believe that John Cena tapping was the wrong choice because his whole persona for the past 20 years has been “Never Give Up” and tapping out is the opposite of that. The better choice in my eyes was for John Cena to either be pinned or pass out from the sleeper hold rather than tap out.
After the match, the entire locker room came out to congratulate Cena on an amazing career and presented a tribute video to honor everything he has done for the industry. The night ended with Cena leaving his wristbands and sneakers in the ring and walking backstage for the final time as the crowd applauded him. Overall, the match was overall solid but leaves you heartbroken at the end. Part of the reason people are really torn on this match is because the retirement tour as a whole received very mixed reaction from fans. However, despite the mixed feelings of this retirement run Cena went on, it gave us some of the best matches of his career like earlier this year with AJ Styles and at Summerslam against Cody Rhodes. In my opinion Cena is the greatest wrestler of all time and even though the end of match has left a bad taste in fans’ mouths, Cena went out the way he wanted out to.
