Update on why John Cena decided to return to WWE - Reports

John Cena is scheduled to return to the company tonight on the final edition of SmackDown before WWE Payback tomorrow night.

The veteran will be making his return tonight at the Giant Center in Hershey, Pennsylvania. Jimmy Uso will also be making his return tonight after his brother, Jey Uso, walked out of the promotion earlier this month on SmackDown.

United States Champion Rey Mysterio will be teaming up with his LWO stablemate Santos Escobar to battle Austin Theory and Grayson Waller in a tag team match. The Miz and LA Knight are scheduled for a face-to-face tonight before their bout at Payback tomorrow night.

According to a new report from Fightful Select, John Cena was made available for a WWE return due to the ongoing writers' strike in Hollywood. A WWE higher-up informed Fightful that if the strike ends, they will wrap up everything Cena is involved in and he will return to his other projects outside of the company. The report noted that there is no concern that Cena will miss his advertised dates if the strike were to come to an end.

Former WWE writer Vince Russo praises John Cena for losing to Austin Theory at WrestleMania 39

John Cena battled Austin Theory for the United States Championship at WWE WrestleMania 39. Theory hit the veteran with a low blow and followed it up with the A-Town Down to retain the championship.

However, Austin Theory failed to capitalize on the biggest victory of his career, and his reign as United States Champion was underwhelming. The 26-year-old recently dropped the title to Rey Mysterio and is scheduled for a rematch against the Hall of Famer tomorrow night at Payback.

Speaking on Sportskeeda's The Wrestling Outlaws show, Vince Russo claimed the loss at WrestleMania was an example of how nice of a person John Cena was. Russo suggested Cena knew that the win wasn't going to help Austin Theory but did it anyway.

"We said that last time with Austin Theory. What a joke. I never met John Cena, and that truly shows me what a heck of a nice guy Cena is. Because if you and I are sitting here and saying Austin Theory is going nowhere fast, if we saw it, Cena knew it, but he did it anyway. Bro, that tells you the kind of guy Cena is, and everything we said about Austin Theory was correct because a victory over Cena meant zero," said Vince Russo. [From 05:55 to 06:31]

You can check out the full video below:

Cena remains as popular as ever in the WWE Universe and most fans are excited to see the legend return tonight on SmackDown. Only time will tell how long the 46-year-old sticks around before he returns to Hollywood.

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