WWE’s YouTube Channel occasionally uploads old segments and matches from episodes of Raw, SmackDown and pay-per-views. Oftentimes, the uploads correlate with something or someone the company is trying to hype up on television. But there’s not much of an explanation for what they decided to upload on Thursday — a 90-second clip of John Cena beating Dolph Ziggler on an episode of Raw before making out with AJ Lee.
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For context, this was the Nov. 26, 2012 episode of Raw during a time when Lee was in the middle of her “crazy” persona while Cena was in a feud with Dolph Ziggler over the Money in the Bank contract. Vickie Guerrero kept accusing Cena of a relationship with Lee, which AJ played along with until betraying him the following month at the TLC pay-per-view. Lee has been out of the company since 2016 and her only involvement in pro wrestling since then has been as an executive producer and commentator for WOW — Women of Wrestling.
Lee has been married to one of Cena’s old rivals, CM Punk, since 2014. Meanwhile, Cena has been married to Shay Shariatzadeh since 2020. It’s unclear why WWE wanted this clip up beyond wanting to upload more Cena footage, though the rumors of him coming back for a match at WrestleMania 39 have been spreading for months. Both Austin Theory and Logan Paul have apparently been considered as his opponents.
Cena returned to action on the last SmackDown of 2022, keeping his two-decade streak of wrestling at least once a year alive. While his Hollywood career continues to thrive, the 16-time world champion still hasn’t officially retired.
“If physically, I’m slower, I’ve said openly to everyone that I will keep doing this until I feel I’m offending the customer,” he told Chris Hardwick back in 2021. “I will continually go out there and do what I can to contribute and add. I don’t want to go out there and be like, ‘Okay, just let him go out there and (do his thing).’ I’m not into that because I know what it’s like to pay for a ticket. If I were to get that on this go-round, it’s a humbling and tough thing that I will have to hurdle. If I get the opposite and it’s like, ‘You’re quicker and can do some things better and define a new personality,’ then that’s a new conversation because I do not have much time left and if I want to give it like, ‘let’s really commit to this thing and really go all in,’ that’s an honest choice where other stuff will have to take a backseat.”
