John Cena is a busy man, but he still has WWE fans hoping to hear those famous trumpets in the not too distant future.
Adam’s Apple caught up with the 45-year-old Superstar in New York earlier this week, where he was taking part in the Warner Bros. Discovery upfronts presentation. Cena made two announcements about future TV projects, confirming the second season of his HBO Max “Peacemaker” series, based on the DC Comics character, and revealing that he would be back as co-host of the TBS series “Wipeout.”
But Adam’s Apple asked him the question WWE fans are most curious about: When would he be returning to a WWE ring?
“Aw, soon,” Cena said. “I know in WWE years, I turn 20 pretty soon,” referring to his TV debut on the June 27, 2002 episode of SmackDown.
“That’s a pretty big thing. And from a pretty storied class of folks: Batista, Randy Orton, Brock [Lesnar], we kind of all turn 20 this year. I’m aware that that’s coming around the corner, and who knows?”
Cena added that “there’s a lot of cool stuff going on” and he didn’t want to turn down the opportunities presented to him, making his return date more difficult to pin down.
If he doesn’t show up during the summer, it could be more than a year between times on WWE programming for Cena. His last televised match came last August at SummerSlam, when he unsuccessfully challenged Roman Reigns for the WWE Universal Championship, though he appeared in one more dark match alongside the Mysterios against the Bloodline the following month.
That said, Cena was also absent from on-camera matches for more than a year between January 2019 and March 2020, then again before appearing at SummerSlam in 2021, working only house shows and non-televised bouts during last summer’s buildup. He has, in words Reigns recently used about himself, moved onto a new phase in his career.
But it would also be silly to think we’ve seen the last of him in WWE, and one presumes he’d be welcomed back whenever his schedule allows it. As Cena puts it, that’s more a question of when, not if.
“I don’t know when I’ll be back, but hopefully it’s soon. I’ve been gone for too long.”