Five WWE Stars John Cena Needs To Face Before He Retires

His time is up, his time is now, you won't see him, after 2025. That's right ladies and gentlemen, 2025 will be the final year that anyone will get to see WWE icon John Cena wrestle, as he has officially announced that will be retiring from in-ring action at the end of next year. 

Cena made a surprise appearance at Money in the Bank 2024 to formally confirm his plan to retire, later stating that he will have around 35 to 40 dates on his schedule before December 31, 2025. While the 16-time World Champion has already claimed to have agreed to a contract that will keep him in the WWE family past 2025, it will be in an ambassador role and more along the lines of what a Legend's contract entails. Now, with his final year looming, several WWE Superstars, and even some from around the wrestling world, have publicly expressed their desire to get in the ring with Cena before he hangs up his jean shorts.

There are only a limited amount of spots to fill, so only the best of the best will get the chance to wrestle "The Doctor of Thuganomics." With that in mind, here are five WWE Superstars that absolutely have to mix it up with Cena in his final year as an in-ring performer.

When including Royal Rumble matches, John Cena and Randy Orton have wrestled each other on pay-per-view a total of 27 times. They have had a total of 10 singles matches on some of WWE's biggest stages, with the stipulations varying from TLC and "I Quit" matches, to two Hell in a Cell bouts and an Anything Goes 60 Minute Iron Man match. As such, it's hard to imagine what else Cena and Orton could do with each other, even if it was just a throwaway TV match.

However, both men have grown and matured massively since then, with even the biggest haters of the initial feud coming around in the modern era to appreciate the chemistry and hard work Cena and Orton put in during their rivalry. In fact, their last singles match on pay-per-view, Hell in a Cell 2014, came before Cena became something of a super-worker overnight and put together a catalogue of matches in his 2015 run with the WWE United States Championship that made people go, "Hang on a minute, Cena can actually go." 

Orton has made it clear that he would love to get back in the ring with Cena, noting that WWE might have overdone it with their initial feuds and understands why people may have gotten sick of it. With that said, Orton is one of Cena's greatest rivals, and in some people's minds, the definitive rival of Cena's career given that they were in the same OVW class that broke through in 2002. One more go around for Cena and Orton doesn't have to be an epic title match that people were so accustomed to during the height of the PG era, but it absolutely has to happen, even if it is booked solely for nostalgia purposes.

There was a point in time where it looked like John Cena and CM Punk would never share a ring together ever again. Punk infamously quit WWE in 2014, stayed away from wrestling for seven years, and resurfaced in AEW in 2021, where it looked like he would stay for a very long time. However, hell has since frozen over and Punk is back in WWE, and since he returned from injury at SummerSlam 2024, he hasn't gotten hurt again — who said miracles couldn't happen?

Now that Punk and Cena are in the same company again, this bout needs to happen one more time, much for the same reasons why Cena should face Orton. However, Cena's rivalry with Punk is a little more layered than the one he had with "The Viper." The two men had shared the ring many times before Punk dropped the infamous "pipebomb" promo in 2011, but once that had happened, every match that Cena and Punk had something unique to it. The story was the man WWE had chosen to be the guy vs. the man the fans had chosen to be the guy, and every match seemed to feel alien to the in-house WWE style. They were unpredictable, dramatic, and the Superstars involved would literally do whatever came to mind in the moment because WWE was never going to fire Cena or Punk at the peak of their powers. Furthermore, both men have grown as performers since then, meaning that a final match could be even more unpredictable.

Punk has publicly stated that he wants one more match with Cena, calling him one of his greatest rivals. Given the magic they have already made together, WWE would be foolish not to let them cast a spell one more time.

Not every match that John Cena has in 2025 needs to be a rundown of his greatest hits. In fact, it shouldn't as WWE's roster has a whole host of fresh match-ups Cena could have, with this one being a bout that we have already seen a glimpse of.

The only televised meeting between Cena and Dominik Mysterio came at the episode of "WWE Raw" after WrestleMania 40 when they crossed paths in a six-man tag team match. However, these two have impressed fans whenever they've ended up in the same ring as each other at live events, whether that's one-on-one or tag team action. 2025 should be the time where WWE lets Mysterio get a big singles match, because it's not like officials haven't trusted him with big responsibilities before.

Mysterio had the honor of being CM Punk's first opponent in WWE during the company's 2023 holiday tour, with the fancam recordings of the bout showing that Mysterio can absolutely hang with a star like Punk, and has all of the fundamentals down so well that he can easily garner heat while learning from the best in the process. Why wouldn't you want someone like that going against one of the greatest babyfaces in WWE history?

Cena can even draw upon the history that he has with Dominik's dad Rey, as they both debuted on "WWE SmackDown" within weeks of each other in 2002, and were key reasons why WWE's blue brand was as popular as it was after the initial brand extension. If there was ever a man who could make Cena look like even more of babyface than he already will be in 2025, it's Dominik Mysterio.

John Cena going against this generation's John Cena. It literally writes itself.

If there is one thing that needs to happen during Cena's final year, it's pasing the torch to the next generation. Sure, he can put people over — he can put everyone over if he really wants to — but the torch of being "the guy" in WWE needs to be passed permanently, and Rhodes is absolutely the man for the job. They tried to do it with Roman Reigns in 2017 and that went down as well as a fart in church because the fans, at that point anyway, didn't want Reigns as the next guy. 

In that respect, Rhodes is very different because not only is WWE behind him, the fans are as well. Sure, there are a few people calling for a Rhodes heel turn due to how suited he was in that role in his first WWE run, as well as ROH, NJPW, and, if you believe what Cody says, AEW. However, he is the main babyface in WWE right now and is exactly the type of guy the company had been looking for since Cena started winding down his in-ring career. Getting that nod of approval from Cena would cement Rhodes in the eyes of everyone, and it would be a dream match for those tuning in.

There is the small matter of Rhodes' Undisputed WWE Championship, though. Cena only needs one more title win to surpass Ric Flair's record and become a 17-time World Champion. That said, Rhodes dropping the title to Cena wouldn't be the right move, even if it was to give the legend the record, as there is another champion that the veteran could tell a better story with.

It remains to be seen if GUNTHER will still be the WWE World Heavyweight Champion by the time John Cena's final run kicks into gear. However, assuming he is, Cena needs to get his 17th World Title by beating "The Ring General."

On the surface, the match ticks off so many boxes. It's a first-time match that fans wouldn't get to see anywhere else. It's against a man in GUNTHER who seems incapable of having a bad match with anyone. But mainly, it would be a classic tale of the old gunslinger looking for one more high before he rides off into the sunset against an unstoppable force who has beaten everyone in his path.

After all, GUNTHER's reign as the WWE Intercontinental Champion is so beloved because of that simple premise: he is so good at what he does that it seems inconceivable that someone could beat him. Put him against Cena, one of the most decorated champions in the history of WWE, and have him pose a genuine threat to GUNTHER's reign that no one else on the roster would be able to bring to the table. Even then, GUNTHER is so dominant and has brutalized so many people that it would be an unpredictable match that could have people thinking, "Maybe this isn't the guy to beat him," solidifying "The Ring General" as the final boss of WWE.

However, GUNTHER has been around the block long enough to know when the right time to do the job is. If he does, losing to Cena would be the perfect centerpiece of what should be a legendary year for "The Doctor of Thuganomics."