Jim Cornette reveals how he would have booked John Cena’s WWE retirement tour
While speaking on his podcast, veteran wrestling personality Jim Cornette revealed how he would have booked John Cena’s WWE retirement tour…
“I wouldn’t have turned him heel, obviously. And you can’t just have a greatest hits tour where he comes, you know, 35 times or whatever the number of dates were, and beats 35 different people, or, you know, just do that. The thing they have done right is that they spread out his appearances between various television shows and different types of live events — whether it be pay-per-view, the premium live event, or Saturday Night’s Main Event or whatever. You see what I’m saying?
I would have, at the start of the year, had him three or four main opponents sketched out for the year that he wanted to work with and maybe wanted to, you know, work with a couple of times — one or two of them. And then I would have had some other guys that, you know, it would have been a great money match or, you know, whatever the case for a lesser event. And then just ran that plan and had him make the TVs not only to sell the tickets in all these major markets, but to do sh*t to build the matches, as everybody always does. But I would have had a plan at the start where he’s going to have the four main shows he’s going to be on, he’s going to have the four main opponents, and they’re all going to be heels. And then maybe he could have a babyface match on one of the secondary programs — him and AJ Styles or whatever the case.
I would have tried to figure out two heels that it would advance their cause in life if they were to beat him, and let him do, over the course of a year, two jobs. Because people weren’t wanting to see him lose, and they especially didn’t want to see him get the tea total sh*t beat out of him by Brock Lesnar — unless he’s coming back to get even, which looks more and more unlikely. And I know they wanted to do things with Brock in the future, and he’s in the WrestleMania commercial. Great. I think he’s got enough standing in the community, Brock Lesnar, and enough cache in the industry — he didn’t have to just demolish John Cena and just bum the f*cking people that paid all that money out.
What about Cena loses one to this guy and then gets a rematch and wins? But the other one — he beats the guy at first, but he gets a rematch and he loses, so that heel gets the last word. Would it have done good for Bron Breakker? Maybe it’s still a little too soon. But might he have slipped up and been one of the guys there to actually beat John Cena — just have that in his resume?
But for the most part, it was a ‘see John Cena one last time in this market’ tour. And I would have made the people happy with major promo segments, angles when necessary, and matches where he was competitive and it was main event opponents — but he won by the skin of his teeth in most, but not all. The losses would come later in the year.”