It’s unclear how many opponents John Cena has remaining in his WWE career, which is set to end as an active in-ring competitor on December 13 in Washington, D.C. ESPN’s Andreas Hale shared a prediction on who Cena might face in his next match, and it won’t leave many fans happy.
On multiple occasions during his assessment of WWE Wrestlepalooza, Hale suggested a rematch between Cena and Brock Lesnar is the potential direction based on the match’s booking.
“Cena and Lesnar's seventh WWE singles encounter felt more like a prelude to their next encounter than an actual match. It was a brief and dominant win for Lesnar, which served to extend this rivalry for at least one more PLE. The match itself wasn't much of a match. Lesnar dominated early, reintroducing Cena to Suplex City. Cena regained the momentum and swiftly hit Lesnar with a trio of Attitude Adjustments. Unfortunately, he couldn't keep Lesnar down and went for a Five-Knuckle Shuffle, which The Beast intercepted. He leveled Cena with six F-5s to pick up the dominant win. There were about six moves in the 9-minute match. It's pretty much what you would expect out of Lesnar,” Hale wrote.
“The excellent Vaquer vs. Sky match saved this show from being truly average. It was a phenomenal display inside the squared circle. Everything else was either underwhelming (the short Rhodes-McIntyre match) or a setup for a future match (Lesnar dominating Cena). For a card that promised to have epic moments, it fell a little short of expectations.”
Lesnar’s involvement in a federal lawsuit probing into former WWE CEO Vince McMahon has made him a legitimately unpopular figure in the Internet Wrestling Community. Lesnar, however, is a big reason why the company was able to sign a $1.6 billion deal with ESPN in the first place. His crossover success in the UFC helped bridge the gap for WWE to the mainstream sports world. He purposely got the win in WWE’s first match on the ESPN app for that reason.
Cena only has five appearances left, though. It’s unclear how many of those will be matches.
Facing Lesnar twice in his final months would leave many of Cena’s fans eternally angry at Triple H.
We’ll see if the WWE’s COO is willing to take that risk.