John Cena News: 16-time Champion may not wrestle at the Royal Rumble

What's the story?

Although last night's episode of WWE RAW was actually pre-taped with fans knowing the results a week in advance, WWE decided to throw a curveball by making 3 important announcements.

The announcements were made by Vince McMahon who was dressed as Santa Claus. Vince Claus announced that women's tag-team championships would be coming to WWE in 2019 and also revealed a steel cage match for the last episode of RAW for 2018 with Dolph Ziggler taking on former tag-team partner Drew McIntyre.

The last announcement Vince McMahon made was regarding John Cena's return to WWE, stating that Cena would be back on both brands. With that being said, what is Cena's status for the Royal Rumble?

In case you didn't know...

John Cena has only made a handful of special appearances in WWE this year with the 16-time champion busy with his career in Hollywood which seems to be going really well.

Cena's latest film, the Transformer's spin-off Bumblebee, released in early December and has a 94% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

The heart of the matter

Despite John Cena's return to WWE being announced, Dave Meltzer said the following on Wrestling Observer Radio:

“I mean he starts the movie January 20th so that pretty much takes him out of the Royal Rumble so if he’s not in the Royal Rumble then he has no ticket or direction for [WrestleMania].” H/T: RingsideNews

Meltzer's comment is very interesting because if Cena does indeed start shooting a new project on the 20th, how will he compete at the Rumble and during Mania season?

What's next?

The WWE Royal Rumble 2019 takes place on 27th January from Phoenix Arizona. We will have to wait for confirmation regarding Cena's role.