John Cena details final toast he gave to WWE locker room
In his final night as an active wrestler, John Cena gave one last toast to the WWE locker room.
Cena reflected on his retirement match for the first time while appearing on Cody Rhodes’ “What Do You Wanna Talk About?” podcast. Along with discussing the match, Cena opened up about a backstage moment he shared with the other talent at Saturday Night’s Main Event last weekend. With legends, current stars, and NXT prospects all in the room, he gave a toast to the business records they set at the show. Cena credited everyone who came before him for making numbers like this possible — and he challenged the younger talent to surpass them.
“I got to have one last beer in the locker room in my gear, in my socks, my kneepads, the jorts. And I made a toast. And the toast was to the metrics of the evening: largest arena [gate] in WWE history, largest for the building itself. Very rarely do we hit those milestones,” Cena said.
“And the only reason I wanted to showcase those metrics was because I said — you know, Haku was in the room and Je’Von Evans was in the room. And everyone in between. We have legends, we have future stars, we have talent that are front and center on our programming. The locker room was full. I can’t believe that many stayed. So I have 12 ounces of conversation left in me, and I choose to use a moment to say, ‘This is what we did tonight. The reason we did that is because of the effort of people like Haku. Also, the goal is for you younger guys to shove that sh*t straight up my ass. You now have the metric.'”
The Saturday Night’s Main Event special took place from Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C. Cena’s retirement match against Gunther headlined the show, with the undercard featuring exhibition matches between main roster stars and NXT wrestlers. It was Cena’s idea to showcase up-and-coming talent. Evans, Oba Femi, Sol Ruca, and TNA’s Leon Slater are the names who were featured.
Joseph Currier is the lead editor of F4WOnline.com, directing daily news coverage and writing articles on professional wrestling. He is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts, obtaining a journalism degree in 2016. Joseph joined F4W during his time at UMass and has now been writing about the industry for nearly a decade.
In addition to his work with F4W, Joseph has previously contributed to Sports Illustrated's wrestling coverage. He lives in Massachusetts and is a diehard fan of the Boston sports teams and Liverpool Football Club.