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Last week’s appearance by John Cena on Monday Night Raw was not a one off in the lead up to WrestleMania.
The Wrestling Observer is reporting that Cena will be on hand in future episodes of Raw in the lead up to his WrestleMania match against Austin Theory for the WWE United States Championship.
This week on WWE Raw, Cena appeared in front of his hometown Boston crowd and was immediately interrupted by Theory. Theory told Cena that he was his favorite wrestler when he was a child, but that he was going to give Cena an opportunity to take the United States Championship from him on the grandest stage.
Instantly, Cena turned down the challenge and told Theory that the audience felt nothing for him. Cena talked about the similarities between himself and Theory, but decided not to take the match because the fans simply didn’t care enough about Theory. Theory ran down the audience, which prompted Cena to rethink his answer. Later, Cena told Theory that he didn’t deserve a match, but because the audience wanted it, Cena would take it and beat him at WrestleMania.
Cena has not appeared at WrestleMania since WrestleMania 35 in New York. On that show, Cena donned the Dr. of Thug-a-nomics gimmick and took out Elias in the middle of the ring.
Last year, Cena returned for a match against Roman Reigns at Summerslam. He closed out 2022 with a tag team match on Smackdown against Reigns & Sami Zayn with Kevin Owens as his partner.
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WrestleMania 35 was in New Jersey, not New York. WrestleMania hasn’t been in New York since WrestleMania XX in 2004