“You guys were telling me I suck,” says WWE GOAT John Cena

John Cena officially retired from being an in-ring performer on December 13, 2025, at Saturday Night’s Main Event. There were a lot of critics who were not fond of his farewell tour, but Cena has a blunt message for all of them.

Cena’s retirement run was a mixed bag filled with great matches, an underwhelming heel run, two championship wins and an emotional goodbye. Some people didn’t like how WWE put together his farewell tour, especially the finish against Gunther.

Speaking on the No-Contest Wrestling podcast, John Cena finally called out the critics of his entire farewell tour. Cena pointed out that most of these people were the ones booing him in the first place during his prime, so they haven’t learned their lesson.

“This goes to the critics out there. The people that were all up in arms about like they didn’t do John justice on the farewell tour. You guys were the guys telling me I suck. Like up until up until now, and I mean you’re late, we’ll welcome everybody. But I just want you to kind of remind yourself of history, you know, never forget that,” Cena said.

One of the biggest gripes by the WWE Universe about John Cena’s farewell tour was his lackluster run as a heel and him tapping out to Gunther in his final match.

John Cena explains why he didn’t retire at WrestleMania

In the same appearance on the No-Contest Wrestling podcast, John Cena shared why him retiring at WrestleMania 42 was selfish. The PLE is going to sell itself because it’s WrestleMania, so he wanted to do something in December, which is the usual slow month for WWE.

“Retiring at WrestleMania is selfish. It doesn’t do anything for the business. We retire in December, our weakest month. We take the middle of December, the dry zone, that desert from the end of Survivor Series to the beginning of the Rumble. We put it like right in the middle of December,” Cena said. [H/T SEScoops]

Cena also helped put over young stars like Je’Von Evans, Oba Femi, Leon Slater and Sol Ruca at Saturday Night’s Main Event.

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