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One of the most important wrestlers in WWE history will hang up his boots on Saturday when John Cena wrestles his final match. Like so much of his career, Cena's 2025 retirement tour has been full of critical ups and downs, but the ride is about to come to an end when Cena faces Gunther on Saturday Night's Main Event.

The year has seen Cena accomplish new career achievements while also pinballing between roles as a babyface and heel. Some matches have failed to deliver, while others rate among the best of Cena's storied career.

In short, fans have gotten the full John Cena Experience over the past 12 months. Let's take a look back.

A critical flop of a heel turn and a record-breaking title win

Looking to break his tie with Ric Flair for most world title reigns at 16, Cena entered the Royal Rumble in a bid to secure a world title match at WrestleMania 41. The Rumble came down to Cena and Jey Uso, and it felt as though a Cena win was inevitable only for Uso to get the win in a surprising moment.

A disappointed Cena said that wrestling in the main event of WrestleMania was "best for business" and that he'd earn that honor by entering the Elimination Chamber. Cena doubled down on the situation by saying that "23 years of loyal service to this company" meant he did not need to qualify for a spot in the match, something the other five competitors would need to go through.

Cena would punch his ticket to WrestleMania inside the Elimination Chamber. When the match was down to Cena and CM Punk, the eliminated Seth Rollins stomped Punk's head into the metal grating surrounding the ring. Cena unheroically locked Punk in an STF to get the victory.

Cena's decision to take advantage of Rollins' actions was not enough that night, as Cena turned heel at The Rock's urging, leading to a brutal attack -- joined by Travis Scott -- on Rhodes.

The moment of Cena's heel turn did exactly what WWE intended, going viral on social media and drawing widespread media attention.

The problem is, WWE didn't seem to have plans beyond that one great moment.

Cena went on to beat Rhodes in a 25-minute slog at WrestleMania to become undisputed WWE champion and set the new record for title wins. Cena's win ultimately came as a result of interference from Scott, with The Rock never appearing. Cena explained his actions as the result of being in an abusive relationship with the fans and wanting to ruin wrestling for them by being the "last real champion."

The situation never hit right, as Cena was repeating the same half-hearted messages about hating the fans while draped head-to-toe in merchandise advertising his retirement tour. Meanwhile, The Rock and Scott had disappeared entirely, completely removing any remaining impact from the viral moment of Cena's heel turn.

In a recent interview, Cena suggested that the decision for the turn wasn't based in much more than creating that single moment.

"No, that stuff you see on [WWE] Unreal is real," Cena said. "'We need to make Chamber big, so let's do something that'll shock everybody. Hey man, we got this idea.' 'No problem, I'll do the best I can.'"

Old rivalries renewed and a turn back to the light

As stated, Cena's heel run never really clicked, but WWE leaned into history in an attempt to keep things interesting. That started with Cena defending his title against Randy Orton. Cena and Orton have a "storied rivalry" that is based more in both holding such prominent spots in the promotion than ever really clicking in-ring.

The pair would have a decent match at Backlash, with Cena retaining the belt and moving on to a brief program with R-Truth that kicked off when Truth confronted Cena at the Backlash press conference, leading Cena to put him through a table. Cena defeated Truth at Saturday Night's Main Event in May before losing by disqualification in their June rematch on SmackDown.

The R-Truth story was a fun diversion that leaned into years of comedic interaction and Truth's long-held claim that Cena was his childhood hero. In the midst of Cena's floundering heel run, Truth brought some fun over two matches that combined to last just slightly over 10 minutes.

Another classic Cena rivalry was reignited for Night of Champions, with Cena facing CM Punk. The build to the match was the best Cena fit into the heel character he was portraying. Cena and Punk had enough history to draw on where Cena had real grievances to play off of, including doing his own recreation of Punk's famous "pipebomb" promo from their 2011 program. That promo came as Punk was WWE champion and planned to leave the company with the championship, and Cena was able to flip that as they were in entirely reversed positions in 2025.

Cena and Punk would go on to have one of the best matches of Cena's retirement tour before a parade of interference overwhelmed the story of the match itself. It was unfortunate, because Cena and Punk have always had strong in-ring chemistry and were telling a fine story without the involvement of Seth Rollins, Bron Breakker, Bronson Reed, Penta and Sami Zayn.

With Punk out of the way, Cena was again paired with Rhodes ahead of SummerSlam.

On the final pre-SummerSlam SmackDown, Cena came face-to-face with Rhodes and ... turned babyface. There was no real strong motivator for the turn, Cena simply said he'd lost his way and declared, "August 1, 2025, the day John Cena came back to WWE." With that, the Cena heel run was over and Cena was set to finish up his career as the character he'd portrayed for nearly his entire career.

Losing the title and becoming a grand slam champion

Predictably, Rhodes would win the title at SummerSlam. He and Cena put together a better match than their bad WrestleMania showing, leaning on "street fight" rules to provide some additional drama. Cena stayed true to his turn back to the light against Rhodes, shaking the new champion's hand before the shocking and controversial return of Brock Lesnar. Lesnar ended SummerSlam by brutally attacking Cena.

Before Cena and Lesnar could meet in a match, Cena was pulled into a short program with Logan Paul.

Having gotten through the most dramatic part of his farewell tour, Cena seemed to be having more fun in the ring and showed that by using several moves from outside his normal repertoire in his Clash in Paris win over the social media influencer-turned-wrestler.

Cena and Lesnar faced off at Wrestlepalooza in a match that called back to their SummerSlam 2014 match, where Lesnar hit 16 German suplexes in a dominant victory. Lesnar again dominated Cena, though the match was widely seen as a disappointment, with even ESPN, whose streaming deal with WWE began with the event, grading it a C- (CBS Sports gave the match a C).

The true highlight of Cena's retirement tour came in October at Crown Jewel. With no build beyond a social media exchange asking if they should have a match, Cena met AJ Styles in Australia.

Some of Cena's best matches had come against Styles, and Crown Jewel was no different. The two went far outside the structure of a typical WWE match, making various callbacks to moments throughout their careers and using moves of many of their past rivals. In structure, Styles vs. Cena functioned more like a match from the independent circuit in the 2010s than a 2025 WWE match.

After Styles, Cena officially hit his final stretch of appearances, but there was one final career achievement left.

In his final appearance in a WWE ring in Boston, Cena was called out by intercontinental champion Dominik Mysterio. This led to an immediate title match that saw Cena pick up the win, capturing the lone championship he had never held in WWE. With the intercontinental championship now on his resume, Cena joined the exclusive list of WWE grand slam champions (those who have held a world championship, tag team championship, intercontinental championship and United States championship).

Cena's run as intercontinental champion was short-lived. After teaming with Sheamus and Rey Mysterio to defeat Judgment Day on his final Raw, Cena faced Dominik Mysterio in a rematch at Survivor Series.

A host of interference, capped off by the return of Liv Morgan, saw Mysterio get the win and recapture the intercontinental title.

Now, all that remains for Cena is Saturday night and his match with Gunther, the man who battled through a tournament to earn the honor of being Cena's final opponent.

Was John Cena's retirement tour a success?

It's difficult to answer whether Cena's final year was truly a success. The booking was a letdown at many points. The initial heel turn on Rhodes was a massive moment, but there was no follow-through, and The Rock never returning made it feel meaningless and left Cena to cut repetitive promos about how much he hated the fans, which simply didn't make sense.

WWE overcorrected by having Cena randomly decide that he was a good guy once again, which was likely because there was no way to have Lesnar return and attack Cena without Cena being back in a babyface role.

Also, many of Cena's matches early in the year were rough. The matches were too long, overbooked and he didn't appear as though he should be going 25 minutes.

However, once Cena got his legs under him, he was able to produce a bit of magic with Punk, as well as one of the best matches of his career against Styles.

There were missteps along the way, but when things worked, it was a reminder that Cena is one of the best to ever do it in WWE. In that way, at least, Cena can consider his final year a success.