WWE legend and 17-time World Champion John Cena participated in a fan Q&A panel at SpaceCon 2026 in San Antonio. During the panel, he covered various topics, including his favorite matches throughout his career and acknowledged that he could no longer dodge the question.
Historically, Cena has avoided reflecting on his past matches, often stating that his favorite match was always his next one. However, now that he is retired from the ring, he doesn’t have the luxury of using that standard response when asked about his favorites.
Cena said, “So, this used to be a cheat code of mine, right? When I was still a wrestler, I used to be like, ‘Oh, that’s easy. My favorite match is my next one.’ Because it’s true, I would always look forward to performing, but now I can’t cheat. I am retired.”
On his picks:
“I don’t think you can have the journey without the first step. So, I really have a soft spot for a match in Chicago with an Olympic gold medalist named Kurt Angle. Speaking of matches that give me the emotions, and maybe the feels and a little bit of a tear or two, I was lucky enough on the retirement tour to face AJ Styles in Perth, Australia. And I really enjoyed that match as well. So, I’ll give you those two as a as a concrete answer for that.”
On the Styles match:
“The reason I showcase that AJ match is because it wasn’t just me and him; it was all of us. I don’t know if you all saw it, but the crowd was calling out spots. Like, we had 55,000 people telling me to hit AJ with the RKO. Hell, I almost did a 619. It was like a 3-.5-4.5. But I don’t know if it can get better than that as far as interaction, because I’ve always encouraged our audience to interact. But man, they felt like they were all in the ring with us, and I just don’t know if it gets any better. I’ve never had that happen in my career, ever.”
You can check out Cena’s comments in the video below.
(H/T to 411Mania.com for transcribing the above quotes)
