WWE star Joe Hendry has commented on the fact that he was unable to face John Cena as part of the 17-time World Champion’s retirement tour.
Hendry saw his star power rise even further in 2025 when he made surprise appearances in the Royal Rumble and at WrestleMania. In follow-up interviews, the former NXT Champion put it out in the world that his next big goal would be to share the ring with Cena, as the Hollywood star only had limited time left before calling time on his career.
However, as 2025 drew on, Cena made appearances all around the world, but there was no segment or match with the Scottish star. With Cena then teasing that stars who don’t work for WWE would be part of the tournament to determine his final opponent, fans once again speculated that Hendry could be one of the participants. However, Hendry did not compete in the tournament, meaning that he never got his match against Cena. The closest Hendry got was that he made a cameo appearance on the Saturday Night’s Main Event special where Cena competed in his last match. At the show, Hendry and R-Truth beat up The Miz.
“I Need To Dig Deeper”: Joe Hendry On Not Getting A John Cena Match
Speaking with Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful, Hendry was asked about not getting the Cena match. The former NXT Champion responded that he sees it as a source of motivation moving forward to make more big moments happen:
“I think lit a fire under me actually, because it made me realize that, I guess, my goal was to face John Cena and because it didn’t happen, I was like, ‘Right, well, I need to take this to the next level now.’ I think it motivated me even more. I think the approach I took with going to NXT is I was in the Performance Center every day. I was doing the classes. It was not something that I had to do; it was something that I wanted to do. I really just tried to immerse myself in NXT as much as possible. I think going in with that, [I embraced] NXT to learn how WWE works. I feel I got like extra motivation because sometimes I think if everything just comes to you easily, maybe someone might take it for granted. So I just took it as extra motivation to go, ‘Alright, you know what? I need to dig even deeper to get these big moments to continue to happen.”
Ahead of WrestleMania 42, Hendry is rumoured to be one of the main roster call-ups.
Featured image: WWE
