Ranking John Cena's Most Desirable Matches on 2025 WWE Raw, SmackDown Retirement Tour

On WWE Raw's Netflix premiere, John Cena made his mission statement for his 2025 retirement tour clear. He announced his intentions to eventually earn an opportunity at a world championship, starting by winning the men's Royal Rumble.

Otherwise, very little is known about what else this final run will consist of. Cena has claimed he'll be wrestling fairly regularly throughout the year, which opens the door for many marquee matches.

Cena doesn't necessarily need to feud with any one particular person. Still, several stories can be told between him and members of the current roster through mini-matches on Raw, SmackDown, or premium live events.

The Rumble specifically can be used to test the waters for multiple matches that WWE can potentially revisit later on in the year. If Cena's involved for an ample amount of time, he can interact with plenty of familiar foes and fresh faces.

Between now and the end of 2025, these are the eight opponents the 16-time WWE world champion must clash with, ranked from least to most desirable.

Logan Paul has been longing for a match with John Cena since coming to the company in 2022 and had at a point pitched it to Triple H as happening in Hollywood at WrestleMania 39.

Of course, the contest didn't happen that night, as both were busy with other opponents, but that hasn't stopped Paul from petitioning for the marquee matchup.

Although it's been confirmed by Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter that they aren't slated to face off at Cena's final WrestleMania in April, they should cross paths at one point or another in 2025.

Paul simultaneously excels at being an unlikable on-air personality and exceeding expectations in the ring for someone who wasn't formally trained. His résumé of matches speaks for itself and he's proven he can more than hold his own on the microphone.

Cena is one of WWE's most beloved and celebrated Superstars, and the social media sensation would be the perfect foil for him. Their dynamic alone could elevate the quality of the match, not to mention the potential of the promo battles they could have leading up to it.

WWE has done an exceptional job of booking Bron Breakker since calling him up to the main roster from NXT almost exactly one year ago. He followed up his dominant stint on SmackDown with even more intensity on Raw, leading him to clinch his first Intercontinental Championship at SummerSlam.

He now finds himself in his second run with the title and has already successfully defended it against Sheamus and Ludwig Kaiser in a show-stealer at Survivor Series.

Breakker briefly clashed with Cena on the Oct. 10, 2023, edition of NXT when the 16-time WWE world champ made an unprecedented appearance and nearly felt Breakker's wrath. It'd only be appropriate for WWE to revisit that with the second-generation star wanting to take Cena out for good this time.

Putting the Intercontinental Championship on the line would make matters all the more interesting, considering Cena has never before captured the prestigious prize. Doing so would finally make him a Grand Slam champion (for what it's worth).

Regardless of whether gold is up for grabs or not, Cena vs. Breakker would be a fun passing-of-the-torch-type matchup that Breakker could benefit from if he were to win.

Cena and Drew McIntyre have been involved in many multi-man matches together throughout the years but have never collided one-on-one. That must change during Cena's retirement tour, especially now that McIntyre is seemingly in his final form as a performer.

They would have had a solid match when Cena was still in his physical prime, but the feud would mean so much more with McIntyre having since achieved main-event status and evolved tremendously in every respect.

At long last, McIntyre is on Cena's level, which could be further established if they wage war this year.

In fact, McIntyre would be an ideal opponent for Cena at WrestleMania 41 if WWE ultimately opts not to have Cena challenge for a world title this early into his retirement tour. McIntyre deserves a high-profile matchup at 'Mania and an outing against Cena would guarantee that.

The Scottish Warrior has recently been at odds with members of The O.G. Bloodline, but Cena would be an acceptable consolation prize of sorts if his WrestleMania direction doesn't end up being something Bloodline-related.

He's already conquered the likes of CM Punk, Brock Lesnar and Goldberg, so adding another notable name of Cena's caliber to his list of victims would hardly hurt.

Had it not been for his unforgettable feud with John Cena, it's entirely possible AJ Styles would not have reached the heights he has in WWE, or at least not as quickly as he did.

Targeting Cena and defeating him on back-to-back occasions in 2016 instantly put Styles on the map as a main-event performer and caused his stock to skyrocket. It wasn't long after that he won the WWE Championship and became the face of the SmackDown brand.

Their terrific trilogy of matches culminated in an epic encounter at 2017's Royal Rumble event where Cena finally bested The Phenomenal One for his record-tying sixteenth world title. Aside from a one-off outing on SmackDown in early 2018, they haven't interacted much in recent years.

With Styles also near the end of his run in the ring, it's imperative that they have one last match on WWE TV this year.

It wouldn't be anywhere near as outstanding as their past bouts, but their chemistry is strong enough that it'd be entertaining at the very least. Styles being sidelined with a foot injury at the moment will prevent this match from happening until he's cleared to compete, which may not be any time in the foreseeable future.

When he departed WWE in 2016, Cody Rhodes was nothing more than a meandering midcarder being vastly underutilized as Stardust while Cena was still the face of the franchise.

Rhodes' journey outside of WWE—which included being one of the founding fathers of the competing promotion All Elite Wrestling—was well documented and culminated in his return to the company in 2022. In the three years since he's grown into the role Cena once occupied as the appointed flagbearer of WWE.

On the March 6, 2023, edition of Raw, Cena essentially endorsed Rhodes simply by sharing an embrace and exchanging a few words on the stage. Even then, seeds were unintentionally planted for a future program, and only now could that dream feud become a reality.

As of Jan. 3, the plan for WrestleMania 41, according to Fightful Select, was for Cena to challenge Rhodes for the Undisputed WWE Championship. Cena shouldn't complete his chase for the record-setting seventeenth world title until later in the year, but that would be a huge attraction for The Show of Shows, nonetheless.

By beating the soon-to-be WWE Hall of Famer, Rhodes can cement his spot atop the totem pole in WWE.

If Cena vs. Rhodes is indeed penciled in for WrestleMania 41, that would eliminate Cena as a potential opponent for World Heavyweight champion Gunther at the event—provided The Ring General still has the gold in his grasp by then.

Gunther is the type of Superstar that Cena would have overcome with ease in his prime. He routinely took down destroyers and giants and defied the odds enough to where it was hardly impressive, but modern-day Cena versus Gunther would be much more of a challenge.

Gunther has had quite the ascent in WWE in the three years he's been on the main roster. From a historic run as Intercontinental champion to becoming King of the Ring to securing the World Heavyweight Championship, he's been wisely portrayed as an unstoppable force and only an elite few have had his number.

Cena, at this stage of his career, should be no exception, but that doesn't necessarily mean Gunther needs to squash him within minutes. A back-and-forth battle with the World Heavyweight Championship at stake would maximize the drama and give fans reason to believe Cena has a fighting chance.

Gunther is the antithesis of Cena in many ways and would be an excellent matchup him in 2025.

Nostalgia is a powerful drug, specifically for wrestling fans, and the demand for one more match between Cena and Randy Orton is a prime example of that.

Cena has had better in-ring rivals throughout his career, but Orton is arguably his most prolific, if only because of the many matches they had against each other from 2007 through 2010.

The two were constantly intertwined during their time on Raw, and the WWE Championship was almost always on the line. Most of their matchups blended together because they weren't anything out of the ordinary, but a handful stood out, most notably their Iron Man match from Bragging Rights 2009.

Kevin Owens took Orton out of commission with a piledriver in early November, but The Viper is expected back imminently to reignite that rivalry. Once that runs its course, Cena and Orton can begin building toward their final face-off.

Amazingly, Orton and Cena never collided one-on-one at WrestleMania, but it would make more sense for Orton to be Cena's opponent for his retirement match when 2025 comes to a close. Given their storied history, it'd be a fitting way for Cena to go out, no matter the outcome.

Cena and CM Punk had what many consider to be one of the greatest matches of WWE's modern era at Money in the Bank 2011 in Chicago. They mixed it up several times in the two years that followed, ending with a remarkable match on the Feb. 25, 2013 edition of Raw that saw Cena prevail.

Punk returning to WWE was unfathomable to begin with, let alone him and Cena sharing the squared circle again. Somehow, the stars have aligned once again and it's a legitimate possibility for Cena's retirement tour this year.

Punk has his sights set on winning a world championship on the Road to WrestleMania, but beyond that, there are any number of ways WWE can set up Punk vs. Cena for later on in 2025. It would work best if Punk were back in the heel role for old times' sake, but that will depend on the direction his character is headed in.

Punk went so far as to tease squaring off with Cena in the upcoming men's Royal Rumble match, but that'd merely be a small taste of what they're capable of. The match alone would be a spectacle, but for WWE to spend several weeks building up a formal feud between the longtime rivals would be best case scenario.

Graham Mirmina, aka Graham "GSM" Matthews, has specialized in sports and entertainment writing since 2010. Visit his website, WrestleRant, and subscribe to his YouTube channel for more wrestling-related content.