WWE: The Challenges Surrounding John Cena’s Next Return Explained

John Cena made it clear during his most recent return to Monday Night Raw that he doesn’t know when he’ll be back in a WWE ring to compete, only that he knows it won’t be for just one match. Rumors of Cena preparing for a match at WrestleMania 39 are already floating throughout the Internet, with Logan Paul trying to position himself as Cena’s opponent for next April. However, Cena’s successful career in Hollywood presents quite a few hurdles for WWE to use him, as Road Dogg explained on his Oh You Didn’t Know Podcast this week. Dogg (real name Brian James) is currently back with the WWE as the Senior Vice President of Live Events. 

“He can’t come back forever, you know what I mean? He’s only going to come back for a certain amount of dates, because he’s got other you know, career opportunities. So that would be great, you could bring Cena back. You put him over, you put him up for the title, he wins the title,” he explained (h/t Inside The Ropes). “Yeah, it’s not possible because he’s not gonna be there. I got three dates. I can show up on the go-home, I can show up on the pay-per-view, and you got one more so sprinkle it in where you can, you know what I mean? Like that’s the deals that are made.

“It’s not we got Cena, let’s do whatever we want,” he continued. “So who beat Cena in that, was it Kurt? So Kurt, they were putting some equity in Kurt to try to make Kurt and Hunter a thing going forward to build toward that big mania match. And so it all made sense. If you don’t have all the information, of course things don’t make sense to you. You know what I mean?”

Cena’s last run with WWE — dubbed the “Summer of Cena” — took place over a span of a few months in 2021. It involved Cena taking part in over a dozen live events, a handful of TV appearances and a match with Roman Reigns for the Universal Championship at that year’s SummerSlam. It ended with him taking part in an untelevised dark match at Madison Square Garden before returning to his filming schedule.