{"id":148546,"date":"2025-12-12T21:24:33","date_gmt":"2025-12-13T02:24:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/?p=148546"},"modified":"2025-12-12T23:12:49","modified_gmt":"2025-12-13T04:12:49","slug":"celebrities-star-athletes-send-heartfelt-messages-on-wwe-smackdown-ahead-of-his-retirement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2025\/12\/12\/celebrities-star-athletes-send-heartfelt-messages-on-wwe-smackdown-ahead-of-his-retirement\/","title":{"rendered":"Celebrities & Star Athletes Send John Cena Heartfelt Messages on WWE SmackDown Ahead of His Retirement"},"content":{"rendered":"

The “Never Seen 17” John Cena will have his final match this weekend against Gunther on December 13, 2025, at WWE Saturday Night’s Main Event XLII<\/a>. There has been an outpour of tributes to Cena over the past few weeks, as well as on this week’s WWE SmackDown<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In a video package, NFL legends like Peyton Manning, Eli Manning, and Tom Brady congratulated Cena on a legendary WWE career, praising his poise as the top guy in WWE for nearly 25 years, and as an excellent representation of what a company flag-bearer should be. Eli Manning even joked that he respected and loved Cena, despite him being a hardcore New England Patriots fan.<\/p>\n

Superstars of the music industry also paid their respects as WWE Hall-of-Fame inductee Snoop Dogg tipped his hat to John Cena, as well as GRAMMY-nominated performer Jelly Roll, who competed on this year’s SummerSlam, made his adulation clear about Cena and his impact on the wrestling industry.<\/p>\n

The Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon also bid Cena a farewell, capping off these tributes from the grander entertainment industry.<\/p>\n

\"A
Photo Credit: WWE<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

WWE Universe, it just goes to show that John Cena has made a considerable impact, not only in the professional wrestling industry, but in the entertainment medium as a whole.<\/p>\n

More From LWOS Pro Wrestling<\/b><\/strong><\/p>\n

Header photo \u2013 WWE \u2013 Stay tuned to the\u00a0<\/i><\/em>Last Word on Pro Wrestling<\/i><\/u><\/em><\/a> for more on John Cena and other stories from around the world of wrestling, as they develop. You can always count on LWOPW to be on top of the major news in the wrestling world, as well as to provide you with analysis, previews, videos, interviews, and editorials on the wrestling world.<\/i><\/em><\/p>\n

You can check out WWE programming on\u00a0<\/i><\/em>Netflix<\/i><\/u><\/em><\/a>\u00a0(Raw),\u00a0<\/i><\/em>USA Network<\/i><\/u><\/em><\/a>\u00a0(SmackDown),\u00a0<\/i><\/em>The CW<\/i><\/u><\/em><\/a>\u00a0(NXT),\u00a0<\/i><\/em>Tubi<\/i><\/u><\/em><\/a>\u00a0(WWE Evolve),\u00a0<\/i><\/em>A&E<\/i><\/u><\/em><\/a>\u00a0(WWE Superstar Sunday \u2013 Rivals, WWE LFG, and Greatest Moments), and\u00a0<\/i><\/em>Peacock<\/i><\/u><\/em><\/a>\u00a0(WWE Main Event, as well as archives and premium live event streaming). Follow WWE on social media to relive top moments and matches on\u00a0<\/i><\/em>YouTube<\/i><\/u><\/em><\/a>, and catch fast-paced action on X (<\/i><\/em>WWE Speed<\/i><\/u><\/em><\/a>).<\/i><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The “Never Seen 17” John Cena will have his final match this weekend against Gunther on December 13, 2025, at WWE Saturday Night’s Main Event XLII. There has been an outpour of tributes to Cena over the past few weeks, as well as on this week’s WWE SmackDown. In a video package, NFL legends like […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3735,"featured_media":145803,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,12,2192,26,4,3],"tags":[165],"class_list":["post-148546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-news","category-wrestling","category-smackdown","category-wwe","category-wwe-universe","tag-john-cena"],"modified_by":"Michael Joseph Sugue, Manager","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3735"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148546"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148546\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":148571,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148546\/revisions\/148571"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}