John Cena Reveals What He Wants to See AJ Styles Do Next and What He Meant to His Own Career [Exclusive]

As WWE prepares to pay tribute to the recently retired AJ Styles during Monday night's episode of WWE Raw in Atlanta, Georgia, John Cena has been effusively bestowing admiration upon The Phenomenal One.

Styles would, after all, become one of Cena’s last great rivals upon debuting in WWE 10 years ago. The pair’s matches at Money In The Bank and SummerSlam 2016, before they dueled for the WWE Title at the 2017 Royal Rumble, instantly became the work of legend.

Their swansong, at Crown Jewel in Perth, Australia, in September of last year, is a final frame worthy of Butch and Sundance. Cena and Styles, two masters of their craft, are now wounded warriors facing the inevitable confrontation with the mortality of their respective careers.

Their bodies weakened by the toll of endless battle and life on the road. Only the final sounds greeting the two former WWE Champions as they rode into the sunset were of applause and ovation, rather than the hail of gunfire that greeted Cassidy and the Kid in a Bolivian mining town.

Recently, I had the opportunity to spend a quarter hour or so in John Cena’s (virtual) company, as he promoted his latest ‘Strong Choices’ campaign with Hefty. With Styles’ in-ring WWE career coming to an end within the same confines of GUNTHER’s relentless sleeper hold as Cena’s did just over a month previously, flowers will soon be given to Cena’s fellow WWE Grand Slam Champion.

The 17-time World Champion took to social media in the immediate aftermath of The Phenomenal One’s career-ending match at the 2026 Royal Rumble. Having already sent a few flowers the way of one of his most defining opponents, Cena then delivered a further few bouquets when I asked him what Styles meant to his own career.

“Every opponent you have should mean something to you. You should learn from them,” Cena begins, “Where AJ is concerned, not only does he have such an incredible wrestling vocabulary, fluency and ability, but I would be hard pressed to find somebody who would say, ‘AJ Styles treated me unfairly’ or ‘AJ Styles was mean to me’. Allen, AJ, is just a really good person.”

In fact, Styles being such a good person almost curtailed his maiden match with Cena.

“When we had our first issue together, our first program,” Cena continues, “Normally I can go find a ‘why?’. Why are we fighting? Because I think that’s the attraction. I couldn’t find anything for AJ."

“Honestly, I thought that maybe in all of our years in separate promotions, with him being the lead dog in TNA, did he ever say anything or even hint at a notion that I could, in the heat of the moment, bring up and make people say ‘I wanna see this!’. No, not at all. Because he’s such a nice person.

“So I had to sit him down, and it was the day of our first promo, and I’m like ‘hey, we got to understand why we’re fighting. And honestly, this is how decent a human being he is, after two-and-a-half hours of prodding, he finally was like, ‘OK, listen, now this isn’t Allen, but maybe AJ might say that if it weren’t for John Cena, I would be the face of WWE’ and I was like, ‘bingo!’ and we’re off to the races."

“So I guess what AJ Styles means to me is that you can do it at a high level for a long time and be kind. And that’s super important. I was privy to a bit of inside track on AJ’s career path, obviously working with him and discussing what we could physically do and not do, so I really wanted to do my best in Perth, to try to give him a send off that I thought was worthy of such a gentleman.”
John Cena

What does John Cena want to see AJ Styles do next?

With Cena’s own heroic career now two months behind him, he enjoys the WWE product purely from the point of fandom, rather than a performer who may be tasked with accentuating it further. Given the Never Seen 17’s longstanding admiration for his fellow former WWE Champion, I wanted to know what Cena wanted to see next for AJ Styles.

“What do I think AJ Styles should do next? Gosh, he has earned the right to do whatever he damn well wants. He has spent so much of his life really risking his health for all of the fans of sports entertainment. He was NWA World Champion, he dominated over in Japan, he worked for TNA, he worked for WWE. He can do whatever he wants. He has earned that right.”
John Cena

With Styles recently appearing on Stephanie McMahon’s What’s Your Story? and dropping a “Never say never” when asked about being completely finished inside the squared circle, debate has raged among fans as to whether we could see the former IWGP Heavyweight Champion don the gloves at least one more time.

WWE’s Chief Content Officer, Paul ‘Triple H’ Levesque, meanwhile, has stated multiple times that he would love to see Styles take up a coaching role within the company, believing his experience and talent to be invaluable to the next generation of stars.

Of course, with Styles having more than a bit of history, to say the least, in TNA and New Japan Pro-Wrestling, discussions continue to rumble on as to whether he will revisit former stomping grounds as part of an extended farewell tour. Not to mention there remains chatter surrounding a revenge mission against GUNTHER.

Whatever Allen Jones ends up doing, one thing is for certain, and that is John Cena will be enjoying the hell out of whatever it is, delighted for his long-term rival and favorite dance partner. With The Phenomenal One set for an emotional night on Raw in his hometown, this evening, perhaps we will even discover what the future holds for AJ Styles sooner rather than later.

The TakeDown on SI’s exclusive interview with John Cena came as part of Hefty’s ‘Strong Choice’ campaign, which will roll out across channels nationwide, beginning February 2026. For more information about Hefty® products, visit Hefty.com.

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