The reason why John Cena’s WWE retirement match took place in December instead of at WrestleMania

There’s not a lot of stuff going on in December in the WWE calendar. Survivor Series is the last big one, and then everyone waits for the Rumble. December is like a month in limbo. They’ve never really been able to crack that code.

And with people on holiday, until the holiday season is over — until like the 26th — tickets are tough to sell because people are spending on holiday presents. So it’s weak for viewership. It’s weak for live attendance. And the fans are like, ‘Wait till January. That’s when the road to WrestleMania starts.’

When I presented this idea to Nick Khan and Triple H, they were awesome.

Who do you want to work with? What event do you want to retire at?

I simply said, ‘Hunter, who I want to work with is up to you. That’s your department. I’ve never been that guy. I don’t want to take this last year and change who I am.’

Nick, from a business perspective, the data I’ve gathered over 23 years of doing business says December is soft. WrestleMania is going to sell itself. So retiring at WrestleMania is selfish. It doesn’t do anything for the business.

We retire in December — our weakest month — and we take the middle of December, the dry zone, that desert from the end of Survivor Series to the beginning of the Rumble. We put it right in the middle of December because I know once you do the holiday tour, the houses will come back. You guys will make money. Let’s show a profit in Q4.

You can put it in whatever arena you want. It doesn’t matter. I have no affiliation with any geography. Let’s get ourselves in the best position to have the best December we can, because I feel this is an event people will pay to see.

And sure enough, it worked.

But that was my thought process. Selfishly, do you want to be the last match at WrestleMania? Sure. But the event sells itself, and in doing so, you get the trickle-down economics of, like, okay, now we’ve got a freebie in December.”