John Cena had his last ever WWE SmackDown match during tonight’s September 5 episode, and there was a championship on the line.
Tonight’s show for Cena’s final SmackDown is at Allstate Arena in Chicago, which is poetic as it’s the same venue that played host to his SmackDown debut in 2002 against Kurt Angle.
Cena came out at the very start of the show tonight to thank the fans, and implied that tonight was going to be a very memorable show, seemingly playing up the rumored appearances of Brock Lesnar and AJ Lee.
However, Cena was interrupted by United States Champion Sami Zayn, who won the title from Solo Sikoa last week.
Zayn received boos from the crowd, but came out to thank Cena as it was against Cena that he got his big break on the WWE main roster in Cena’s US Title Open Challenge back in 2014.
Now that he’s US Champion, Zayn asked for Cena’s permission to continue the legacy and bring back the open challenge, to which Cena agreed, but that’s not where the story ended.
As Cena was about to leave, Zayn said he wanted to defend his title against Cena tonight – and Cena took him up on the offer.
The match began immediately, with Zayn still very much getting a hostile reaction from the crowd throughout and Cena being the fan favorite in a big way.
Much like his match against Logan Paul at Clash In Paris, Cena used several moves in reference to other landmark opponents from throughout his career that he wanted to give a shoutout to as part of his farewell tour.
They included a reference to Kevin Owens with a Pop-Up Powerbomb, and two references to the aforementioned Kurt Angle with an Angle Slam and an Ankle Lock.
Michael Cole didn’t seem to realize the Angle reference with the Angle Slam and just called it a “back suplex”, before Corey Graves jumped in and specifically said it looked like an Angle Slam.
Cena also went on to use a GTS in reference to hometown hero and another of his landmark opponents, CM Punk. After that, he landed a Spear as a shoutout to Edge.
Again, Cole didn’t understand what was happening and said it was a reference to Roman Reigns instead, despite Cena’s obvious Edge-like mannerisms in the corner to set the move up.
The crowd chanted for Cena to hit an RKO, which he attempted but was blocked by Zayn.
After an avalanche Attitude Adjustment from Cena led to both Cena and Zayn being down in the ring, Brock Lesnar, who returned at SummerSlam to attack Cena, came out.
Lesnar dragged the referee out of the ring, then hit an F-5 on Zayn, followed by two to Cena as well.
Lesnar then left and the match didn’t have a finish as the show went to commercials.
Ever since Lesnar returned at SummerSlam, the belief has been that he and Cena would have a match at WWE Wrestlepalooza on September 20.
When the show came back from commercials that match was officially announced.
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