At Money in the Bank 2024, John Cena announced to the world that 2025 would be his final year as an in-ring performer, and that he would be retiring from wrestling at the end of the year. It was a decision that didn’t shock many considering that he’d made it clear he didn’t want to wrestle past 50 years old, and his acting career had come on leaps and bounds over the past decade. Naturally, the story of the year would be Cena trying to reach that fabled number 17 and become the most decorated WWE World Champion in history. That is exactly what he did. 

After failing to win the Royal Rumble, he won the Elimination Chamber match to earn a shot at Cody Rhodes at WrestleMania 41, but decided to turn heel and align himself with the Rock and Travis Scott, with the latter of the two helping him dethrone Rhodes at WrestleMania 41 to become a 17-time World Champion. Cena promised that he was going to ruin wrestling and take the Undisputed WWE Championship away from everyone because they didn’t deserve it, leading ghosts of his past like Randy Orton and CM Punk to fight to try and save the title.

However, Cena’s heel run was not met with a lot of praise, and is now seen as a fun experiment that didn’t really go according to plan. So by the time he dropped the title to Rhodes at SummerSlam, fans actually wanted to see Cena win and potentially carry the title into the end of the year, but that was not the case. Rhodes became champion once more, and unless something miraculous happens between now and December 31, SummerSlam 2025 was the final night that John Cena had a World Championship around his waist. 

Arguably the most decorated career in WWE history, it will be a long time before someone even comes close to replicating what John Cena has done over the past 23 years.