5 Better John Cena WWE Retirement Match Opponents Than Gunther

John Cena's last match and opponent seem headed in a predictable direction.

When Cena hits the ring at Saturday Night's Main Event XLII in mid-December, the general expectation is that it will be Gunther walking down to do the last-match honors. 

Roughly a year ago or so, that would've sounded great. But the recent paths blazed by Gunther and Cena's retirement tour as a whole instead have it feeling like an underwhelming end. 

There are several wrestlers, past and future-minded, who make more sense as Cena's final opponent.

The case against Gunther

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Some of this is on Gunther. He's cooled off considerably in 2025, losing a title to Jey Uso at WrestleMania before one of his marquee matches this year being against…Pat McAfee.

Not only that, Gunther was already put on retirement duty once this year with his match at Goldberg back in July on a…you guessed it...Saturday Night's Main Event show. 

That match wasn't bad by any means, but the buildup to it was messy. And he hasn't exactly built on it much in the aftermath like say, back in the day when Randy Orton had a Legend Killer gimmick. The last thing Gunther's stock needs is for him to become sort of a mercy-killing guy as older wrestlers retire. 

It's the last thing Cena needs, too. He's had a brutally messy retirement tour to date with some shocking highs and lows. Travis Scott, the failed heel turn, and the Rock are mere whispers of the lows, while his highs have come through interactions and matches with guys he's had connections with throughout the course of his career. That's not Gunther.

Randy Orton

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When talking about amazing last opponents for Cena, the vast majority of them share some of that history. 

Nobody, for example, would complain if Cena and Orton got together again one last time. They had that match at Backlash, but a months-long build to a December showdown could loop in the established history there and give it the time it deserves. 

Beyond that, Orton and Cena is one of those in-ring pairings that just uncannily click, so it's not like one will be dragging the other around in the match. It would be similar in intensity and fan investment to Cena's recent bout with AJ Styles. 

CM Punk

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If not Orton, again, fans would be hard-pressed to complain about another match with Punk. 

Authors of several iconic moments in each other's careers to date, the match back at Night of Champions was great and had fans hoping for even more. 

Part of that, of course, is that no two Superstars can really get after each other on the mic the way these two can. They're near the very top of all-time lists in that regard, so seeing their week-to-week creativity while building up the retirement match would be a special nostalgia trip, indeed.

Roman Reigns

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Less nostalgic but more trippy in its examples of career-long transformations would be Cena spending his final goodbye in the ring with Roman Reigns. 

The wrestlers themselves and fans have come a far, far way from the suffering succotash days. Reigns is a Tribal Chief now and took the proverbial torch from Cena long ago. His being the final opponent would be poetic in many ways. 

While Reigns is indeed off busy doing Bloodline-related stuff again, there's plenty of history here and frankly scores to be settled that it would make sense. And like others mentioned, he just happens to have some really good chemistry with Reigns in the ring itself.

Bron Breakker 

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Conventional wisdom says Cena will go out on his back while putting over the next generation, though. He is the guy, after all, who took a whipping at the hands of Brock Lesnar years ago, infamously so as not to spoil Lesnar's ruining The Undertaker's Streak. 

Applying that logic, Cena's likely going to want to give the rub of his retirement match to one of the next big things, like Bron Breakker. 

It might not be a coincidence, then, that Breakker was notably withheld from top title contention recently after Seth Rollins got hurt. Perhaps WWE thinks it's too early to crown Breakker, but perhaps the promotion has eyes on this, too. 

A build and match wouldn't be tough to pull off here, that's for sure. Fans would be invested simply for being in the know with what's unfolding. Breakker folding Cena with one of those quickly-becoming-iconic spears and getting the final pin would be a launching pad and rocketship to the moon for his career. 

Dominik Mysterio

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Perhaps the most slept-on opponent, by far, though, is Dominik Mysterio. To say Cena has a history with the Mysterio family would be a gross understatement. 

And to say there are more deserving Superstars of the Cena retirement bump might just be flat-out wrong. 

Mysterio is just 28 years old, yet is one of the top wrestlers on the planet right now in literally every facet. He's got his own things going on with titles and stables and the like, but it's hard not to fall in love with the idea of how his character could use the fact he retired Cena for the next decade and more. 

Not to mention, of course, just how much history and fun verbal spats could unfold along the build to what would be a banger of a match, too. 

When zooming out, Mysterio might make the most sense of anyone possible, yet also be the outright safest to ensure Cena's retirement tour ends on a positive note.