Cody Rhodes Explains Why He’s Not Jumping at the Chance to Face John Cena in His Retirement Tour

John Cena’s 2025 retirement tour has WWE stars lining up for a shot at facing him one last time—but Cody Rhodes isn’t one of them.

Ahead of the WWE Royal Rumble, Rhodes sat down with TheOneMona and opened up about why he hasn’t thrown his name in the mix to battle Cena before he hangs up his boots.

“One thing that’s been on my mind, I think when he announced he was retiring, is a lot of guys jumped to the line of, ‘I want to wrestle John.’ A lot of guys jumped to the, ‘I want to do something with John.’ I’m probably the one who didn’t hold his hand up and that’s simply because John is everything to me,” Rhodes explained.

Rhodes made it clear that Cena played a pivotal role in shaping his career, crediting him as the biggest influence on his journey.

“There have been so many guys I’m a product of, who I took a little something from. The most that I’ve taken from anybody ever would be from John. That was from driving those few years with him, seeing how he did his interactions with fans, how he would do main events, to see how he did the quarterback, the leader, all those things.”

Rhodes admitted that part of him doesn’t want to accept that this is truly Cena’s last run and prefers to watch his farewell tour as a fan rather than an opponent.

“When I hear ‘this is it,’ it’s still not fully real for me. I don’t love ‘this is it’ and I know he means it when he says it. But I want to watch like a fan. I almost dread the idea of what that would look like. Because when you’re up against John now, you’re tasked to beat John Cena in his final run, and that’s why I’m not raising my hand to be in that spot.”

While Rhodes might be sitting this one out, he’s got his hands full at the Royal Rumble, where he’ll defend the WWE Championship in a ladder match against Kevin Owens.