John Cena’s retirement from in-ring competition is drawing closer, as the multi-time WWE Champion previously confirmed at the 2024 WWE Money in the Bank Premium Live Event that he plans to step away in 2025. While speaking on an episode of Stephanie’s Places, Cena opened up about the emotional and physical toll that led to his decision to leave wrestling behind.

He revealed that his personal gym, once a place of motivation, had started to feel like a reminder of what he could no longer physically accomplish.

“By continuously coming here [to his personal gym] and being disappointed and then asking myself the question of this place usually makes me feel good, ‘Why do I feel bad?’ And it was because I’m surrounded by pictures, by numbers. That’s a 600-lb squat, or that’s a cleaning jerk with 330-lb, or that’s a 300-lb snatch. I can’t even do those lifts anymore because my body’s so beat up. So as soon as I got through that jagged pill of like, ‘Oh man, I am never gonna overhead press 374 pounds ever again, but let’s work to see what the best I can for today is.’ You know it’s it it’s a very similar course to WWE.”

Cena went on to compare his physical limitations in training to how he now feels inside the ring, and the impact continuing could have on his personal life.

“My skills are on regress. If I continue at a full-time physical capability or involvement, I’m not going to run right, and my partner is not going to run right, and our relationship isn’t going to run right. ‘Sorry, kid. It’s time. It’s time to close this chapter.’ I wish I was 18. I wish I felt great because I don’t feel more at home besides in in the arms of my wife than I do on a campus. I had to pitch this idea, a real wrestling farewell and hoping that they would see the business in it and they were like, ‘Uh yes, this is this is going to be good.’”