Seth Rollins defends the creative decision to have John Cena tap out at Saturday Night’s Main Event

As seen during Saturday Night’s Main Event on December 13th 2025, John Cena lost to Gunther in his final match by tapping out. While speaking to Ross Tucker, Seth Rollins commented on the creative decision…

“I have so many mixed feelings on it. John’s one of the greatest of all time, and his whole thing is ‘never give up.’ But it didn’t feel like he was giving up. People were all over him for tapping out, but it didn’t feel like that to me. It felt like he was fading off into the sunset, like he had done his job. He was happy to do it, and he was handing the ball off. That’s sort of how I felt about it.

I might be in the minority on that, but at the end of the day, he smiled before he did it. There’s something poetic about that. I don’t know. I love John. It’s hard for me to second-guess anything that he does.”