John Cena accepts The Fiend’s challenge for WWE WrestleMania 36
Even “The Fiend” Bray Wyatt got in on sign-pointing season Friday night, offering a WrestleMania challenge to John Cena that was accepted with a hat tip and a hand wave.
In the closing minutes of SmackDown, Cena had just wrapped a promo essentially announcing his retirement in front of his hometown fans in Boston, MA. He was on the top of the ramp doing a military salute when the lights went out with the Fiend’s accompanying sound effects.
He then appeared behind Cena and simply pointed to the Mania sign. Cena looked at the fans and turned back to Wyatt and tipped his cap, giving the “You can’t see me” hand wave. The lights then went out again to close the show.
Wyatt is coming off a widely-panned Universal title loss to Bill Goldberg at Thursday’s Super ShowDown event in Saudi Arabia. To that end, Goldberg accepted Roman Reigns’ title challenge on SmackDown, setting up their Mania match.
This was Cena’s first appearance on WWE TV since last summer and WrestleMania will be his first match since January 2019 where he lost in a no. 1 contender’s four way on Raw.
Since 2011, Josh has been a contributing editor to Wrestling Observer/F4WOnline.com and also hosts the Punch-Out podcast. He has also written for Fight Magazine, Bloody Elbow, Bleacher Report, and other websites. He's a 2000 graduate of the University of Maine, worked in pro sports, and once was an indie ring announcer.