John Cena’s instructions to AJ Styles in Crown Jewel match to avoid using WWE Hall of Famer’s move
WWE Unreal Season 3 premiered today and is centered around John Cena’s retirement tour, AJ Lee’s return and Bron Breakker’s rise among the other young talents.
Cena and AJ Styles clashed for a final time at Crown Jewel 2025 in Perth, Australia. The two paid tribute to veterans in the bout. Cena revealed on the Netflix docuseries that fans were calling for them to use varied stars’ signature moves and one of them was Rey Mysterio’s 619. He told Styles it was an impossible move for him and told him to counter it with a clothesline.
“I can’t do the 619, but I told AJ (Styles), ‘I’ll drop toe hold you.’ You can see me drop toe hold him, and lean against the ropes and I say ‘Clothesline me, clothesline me so I don’t have to do this move.’”
Before their match, Cena handed a personal handwritten introduction to announcer Alicia Taylor and requested her to read it out loud. It praised Styles’ career across NJPW, TNA and WWE. It was an unscripted moment which he had later revealed got him into slight trouble with WWE management.
Cena retired on December 13 with his final match against Gunther at SNME. A month later, Styles competed in his last match too against The Ring General at the Royal Rumble.
Rosanne Raphael is a wrestling writer with over three and a half years of experience covering all things related to the industry. From a kindergarten teacher to PR Associate to turning her lifelong passion for the industry into a career, Rosanne is currently writing for F4W Online where she focuses on wrestling news, analysis, and storytelling.
Rosanne previously contributed to Sportskeeda as an Assistant Content Manager.
When not consumed by wrestling, Rosanne is a musician and an aspiring artist.