JJohn Cena says he went into the Firefly Fun House match believing it would be the last match of his career.
Cena told Alistair McGeorge of Metro that the cinematic bout against Bray Wyatt was built to function as an ending.
“Honestly, no kidding. I thought the Firefly Fun House was going to be the last match of my career. I really did think that the Firefly Fun House match was going to be the tail end,” Cena said. “That was kind of a meta journey for me through facing all of my demons, and then letting go.”
The match closed the second night of WrestleMania 36 on April 5, 2020, shot without a crowd at the Performance Center during the pandemic. It was one of two cinematic matches on that weekend, alongside the Boneyard match between The Undertaker and AJ Styles the night before.
It ran Cena through versions of his own career while Wyatt appeared in a series of guises. A Mr. McMahon puppet asked him whether he had ruthless aggression, in a recreation of the 2002 segment that launched Cena’s run. Wyatt then played a Hulk Hogan character in a Saturday Night’s Main Event setting, introducing Cena as a tag partner and throwing him out when he could not keep up. Wyatt appeared as the Wyatt Family leader from their WrestleMania 30 match and handed Cena a chair, the same offer Cena had refused six years earlier. The final stretch put Cena in the nWo with Wyatt as Eric Bischoff, and intercut footage of Cena’s defeats to The Miz, CM Punk, Brock Lesnar and Roman Reigns as he attacked.
It ended with Cena pinned and then gone from the frame entirely. He did not wrestle again for around 16 months. He was filming Fast 9 and the Barbie movie across that period, and returned at Money in the Bank in July 2021.
The reading at the time was that the match had been written as a retirement. Cena’s own promo from the build, where he called Wyatt the most overhyped and overvalued wrestler in the company, played over the closing moments and landed as something aimed at himself. Cena did not confirm that interpretation then. Speaking to Sports Illustrated shortly afterwards he said the match left a lot of questions and was something people could go back to rather than watch once. He told Den of Geek that he had been handed the idea without anyone being able to explain what it was.
Wyatt died in August 2023 at the age of 36. The Firefly Fun House match is the last significant piece of work the two men did together, and the character Wyatt built around the Fun House and The Fiend was the one that carried it.
Cena’s career instead ran another five and a half years past the match he thought would close it. He announced at Money in the Bank in 2024 that 2025 would be his final year in the ring, worked a farewell tour across it that took in a heel turn and a run with the Undisputed WWE Championship, and wrestled for the last time on December 13, 2025 at WWE Saturday Night’s Main Event, tapping out to Gunther.
He remains with WWE in an ambassador role. He hosted WrestleMania 42 in April and announced the John Cena Classic at Backlash in May, and he told a crowd at FanExpo Canada on Sunday that no promoter has the money to bring him back for another match. On the second point he has been consistent since the retirement. On the first point, by his own account, he was wrong by five and a half years.
