John Cena to compete in his first WWE SmackDown match in 623 days tonight? Exploring potential surprise on the season premiere

The upcoming edition of WWE SmackDown is expected to be grand because it's the show's season premiere on the USA Network. On Monday, when RAW presented its season premiere episode, fans were treated to the return of professional wrestling legend Bret Hart.

Hart's comeback has led many to believe John Cena could appear on the upcoming episode of SmackDown. If these speculations turn out to be true and Cena does appear tonight, he could team up with Kevin Owens to wrestle in his first match on the blue show in 623 days.

On the upcoming episode of SmackDown, Owens and a mystery partner will team up to face A-Town Down Under (Austin Theory and Grayson Waller). While many believe The Prizefighter's mystery partner will be Randy Orton, WWE could shock fans by booking Cena to combine forces with Owens.

If this happens, it won't be the first time Cena will be teaming up with Owens. Previously, The Cenation Leader teamed up with the Canadian on the December 30, 2022, edition of SmackDown and successfully beat The Bloodline (Roman Reigns and Sami Zayn). This is a strong reason why the 16-time World Champion could team up with Owens.

Besides this, the last match Cena wrestled on WWE programming 158 days ago was a tag team bout on RAW. In that contest, Cena helped Awesome Truth overcome The Judgment Day (Finn Balor, JD McDonagh, and Dominik Mysterio).

WWE legend commented on John Cena's retirement tour

At the Money in the Bank 2024, John Cena made a surprise appearance and announced his retirement tour, which will begin in 2025. Since Cena made this announcement, WWE fans have been pretty emotional and are looking forward to seeing what he will do next year.

Recently, a WWE legend commented on John Cena's retirement tour. The name in question is Batista. During a conversation with Chris Van Vliet, the wrestler-turned-actor mentioned he could never do a retirement tour like Cena.

"This is how we [John Cena and I] are different. I would never do this [retirement tour]. I wouldn't. I couldn't. It would feel disingenuine to me to go around. I just couldn't. I see his point where he wants to go around and he wants to personally thank the fans. But there's something in me that I couldn't do it. It would feel uncomfortable to me. Like, accolades feel uncomfortable to me."

Further in the interview, Batista added that he couldn't be the type of babyface who said things to get the crowd to cheer for him. The Animal concluded by saying that while he loved and respected what Cena was doing, he and the 16-time World Champion were different in this regard.

About the author

Varun is a Golf and MLB journalist for Sportskeeda with over 4 years of work experience in his bag. Currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Journalism and Mass Communication, he worked for many sites, including EssentiallySports, FanSided, Khel Now, Get Football, and a few others.

Varun is a fan of golfer Scottie Scheffler due to the latter’s mindset, and he admires Aaron Judge and his ability to keep being consistent. As a purist golf fan, he would love to compete at the Masters if given the opportunity, but is also happy with LIV Golf driving more eyeballs towards the sport. If he gets the chance to play for an MLB team, he would love to play for the New York Yankees.

Varun’s mantra for writing factually correct feature articles is thorough verification. Another key element in his writing is staying updated with both sports through the official websites of pro wrestling and Golf. He has had the privilege of interviewing MMA legend Greg Jackson in his career so far.

Varun likes to spend his free time reading or writing poetry and fiction. He also plans to learn and play golf in his spare time.

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Edited by Pratik Singh