Moments after John Cena announced his in-ring retirement tour, speculation ran wild regarding who his final opponents will be. Stars from across the industry have campaigned to go one-on-one with Big Match John, including WWE Intercontinental Champion Bron Breakker and TNA’s Joe Hendry, but one name has always been the common denominator of fan conversation: Randy Orton. Per CageMatch.net, Cena and Orton have wrestled each other in a singles capacity on 123 occasions, with their first encounter going down in 2001. Their feud truly began at WWE SummerSlam 2007 when they squared off for the WWE Championship. The two would go on to have ten total matches against one another on pay-per-view, and their most recent televised encounter went down on February 2017 edition of WWE SmackDown.
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Randy Orton Spoke With John Cena About One Final Match
The Viper has Big Match John in his sights.
Speaking on What Do You Wanna Talk About? with Cody Rhodes, Randy Orton revealed he caught up with John Cena this past July at WWE Money in the Bank just minutes before Cena announced his retirement tour.
“I saw John before he went in there and did his retirement speech. I hadn’t seen him in a while. I didn’t know he was going to be there. We caught up in like ten minutes. For all I knew, he was going to be around, like me, for as long as his body will permit him to,” Orton said. “Of course, he has other things going and this is my life. Hats off to him doing the Hollywood thing. If I could, I would, but that takes a lot and I have other priorities, and I don’t think I have it to give.”
Orton went on to gauge Cena’s interest in a final match between the two, but Cena emphasized that he leaves any and all creative plans up to the WWE creative team.
“I said, ‘What do you think?’ He said, ‘Randy, I’ve never pitched anything. I always do my best with whatever they give me,’” Orton continued. “I’m like, that’s me. I’ve never had a pitch. I’ve never set myself up to be let down. ‘Hey writers, here is a six page storyboard of everything I want to do for the next six months.’ Not once. I’ve always been very fortunate. They give me what they give me and I do the best I can with it. That’s what he does. When I brought it up to him, I felt kind of like a mark. He shut it down right away and said, ‘If creative comes up with it, maybe we’ll do it.’
“I would love to work with the man and have a couple of TVs or more to set it up and really make something special of it. No matter how much we faced each other back in the day, almost to the point where people were sick of it, when people look back and think of it, ‘Orton and Cena was this amazing rivalry.’ We can go out there, have some fun, and tear the place down. I would love to do that. I guess, according to John, if it organically happens, it’ll happen. I think it’ll happen. I think it’s in the cards.”
Cena’s farewell tour kicks off in January 2025.
