John Cena honoured after retirement match at WWE Saturday Night’s Main Event

John Cena brought the curtain down on his WWE career with an emotional retirement match at Saturday Night’s Main Event.

“This is for real, we’re going to go down swinging. Stu, let’s go to work one last time”: Cena’s final message before making his final entrance for his final ever WWE match.

He greeted a number of legends sitting ringside, shared an embrace with Kevin Owens, received a glowing ring introduction from Lilian Garcia and then locked horns with Gunther.

After taking plenty of punishment, Cena rallied, played all the hits from his trademark arsenal, almost making the former world heavyweight champion tap out before earning a couple of near falls after hitting his finishing move, including an ‘AA’ through the announce table and a ‘Super AA’ off the top rope.

Gunther controlled most of the match, much to the disgust of a heavily pro-Cena crowd, he finally got the victory by way of submission as he locked in a succession of sleeper holds and ultimately it was too much for Cena to withstand.

On a night like this, however, the outcome mattered not so much. After the match, Cena took his final bow but not before the entire locker room made their way out to the ring to pay their respects.

Cena, almost sheepishly, posed with the two main titles, handed to him by Cody Rhodes and CM Punk before being shown a video tribute that visibly moved the legend.

The show ended with Cena removing his trainers, and his wristbands, heading to the top of the entrance ramp before offering one last salute, exiting a WWE arena for the very last time as an active performer.

Kicking off the night after the pre-show, the television special began with the sighting of WWE Hall of Famers, Shawn Michaels, Trish Stratus and Mark Henry in attendance at the Capital One Arena in Washington D.C.