AJ Styles Says There Was "Never A Talk" Of Having John Cena Match On Retirement Tour

Although it was one of the best matches of the year, there was no guarantee that AJ Styles and John Cena would face off one final time.

2025 saw Cena bring his historic career to a close with a year-long retirement tour. Throughout the 12-month period, Cena won his 17th World Championship while also facing off against familiar and first-time-ever opponents.

With limited matches on the schedule, not everyone was going to get the opportunity to face Cena one last time. While the likes of CM Punk and Randy Orton looked to be a lock on the farewell tour, some would miss out.

Speaking with Chris Van Vliet, Styles admitted that there was never talks of having a match with Cena, adding that he does not feel like a “WWE guy” at times:

“Nothing, never a talk of me having a match with John. Listen, I just assume I’m not that guy. I’m not that guy. Sometimes I feel like even though I’ve been in WWE for 10 years, I’m not a WWE guy. So, and that was just one of those times.”

The match came together in an unconventional way. With Cena not set to appear on TV for the build, both men went back and forth on social media to build to the match at Crown Jewel, Australia.

The AJ Styles And John Cena Match Was “A Love Letter To Wrestling”

While fans expected something big from Cena and Styles, few could have predicted what happened at the show. Filled with finishing moves from their greatest rivals such as The Miz, Bray Wyatt and The Undertaker, the finisher-filled frenzy was deemed by many to be the match of the year.

One of the finishers that was teased in the match was Rey Mysterio’s 619. However, despite the move being set up, Styles cut off Cena beforehand. Later in the interview, Styles recalled Cena yelling to make sure the move wasn’t executed:

“So, Fade to Black, shout out to Frankie Kazarian. Yeah, and I’ve never done that move before, and I told John, I said, ‘I don’t know if I can do it. He’s like, ‘Yeah, you can. I’m just gonna tuck my face into your butt hole, and it’ll be fine.’ We watch it back, and I was like, ‘Freak, that’s great.’ Even I think Triple H said something like, ‘I don’t know, man. So it turned out to look really good, as far as I know, from what I saw. There was a point in there where they were chanting ‘619, 619’ because they knew what we were doing at this point. So the ref walks over, and he goes ‘619.’ Me to John? ‘No, John’s going to 619 you?’ John’s going to 619 me?! All right. So I sell over there, he gives me the drop toe hold. I heard him go, ‘Stop me before I get to you.’ I didn’t say anything. He goes, ‘Hey, stop me as I go for this.’ I didn’t say anything. ‘Stop me before I get to this!’ He yelled. I go, okay. He goes, and I clothesline him. I joke around, maybe if John would have tried the 619, it may have turned into the 61 I’m not sure. So that was just kind of funny to me at that time, but for people to understand what we were doing in that match, once they got the gist of it, I thought it was really cool, and to end it with the tombstone that nobody does was pretty freaking cool, right up to his finisher. I was like, wow, that was fun.”