During an episode of the No-Contest Wrestling podcast, WWE legend and 17-time World Champion John Cena discussed various topics, including his choice of December 2025 as the final month of his WWE career.
Cena said, “There is a lot of stuff going on in December, and in the WWE calendar, Survivor Series is the last one, and then everyone waits for the Rumble. December is like a month in limbo. They’ve never really been able to crack that code. And with people on holidays, there’s until the holiday season is over, until the 26th, tickets are tough to sell because people are spending on holiday presents. So, it’s a weak month for viewership; it’s a weak month for live attendance. And the fans are like, ‘Wait till January!’ When I presented this idea to Nick Khan and Triple H, they were awesome. ‘Who do you want to work with? What event do you want to retire?’ I simply said, ‘Hunter, who I want to work with is up to you; that’s your department. I’ve never been that guy. I don’t want to take this last year and change who I am. You deal with my plan.’ ‘Nick, from a business perspective, the data that I’ve gathered over 23 years of doing business is that December’s soft. WrestleMania is gonna sell itself. So retiring at WrestleMania is selfish. It doesn’t do anything for the business. We retire in December, our weakest month, and take the middle of the month, the dry zone, that desert from the end of Survivor Series to the beginning of the Rumble. We put it like in the middle of December because I know once you do the Holiday Tour, the house will come back, and you guys will make money. Let’s show a profit in Q4. And you put whatever arena you want; it doesn’t matter, no affiliation to geography. Just let’s get ourselves in the best position to have the best December that we can because this, I feel, is an event that people will pay to see.’”
You can check out the complete podcast in the video below.
(H/T to 411Mania.com for transcribing the above quotes)
