Saturday Night's Main Event XLII

Saturday Night's Main Event XLII, also promoted as Saturday Night's Main Event: John Cena's Final Match, is an upcoming professional wrestling event produced by WWE. It is scheduled to take place on December 13, 2025 from the Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C.. It will be the 42nd episode of WWE's occasional television special Saturday Night's Main Event and the first episode to include wrestlers from the NXT brand.

Saturday Night's Main Event XLII
Promotional poster featuring John Cena
Promotion	WWE
Brand(s)	Raw SmackDown NXT
Date	December 13, 2025[1]
City	Washington, D.C.
Venue	Capital One Arena
Tagline	The Last Real Champion. One Last Time.
WWE event chronology
← Previous NXT Deadline Next → Saturday Night's Main Event XLIII
Saturday Night's Main Event chronology
← Previous XLI Next → XLIII

The event will feature John Cena's final match in his 26-year wrestling career, with his opponent being determined by a tournament being held across WWE's other programs. It will also feature matches between NXT wrestlers and members of WWE’s main roster.

Production

Background

On July 6, 2024 John Cena announced at Money in the Bank that he would retire from wrestling at the end of 2025.^[2]

In December 2024, WWE revived its Saturday Night's Main Event series of specials on NBC as part of USA Network's acquisition of rights to SmackDown. In August 2025, after NBC's streaming service Peacock lost the rights to WWE's main roster supercards in the United States to ESPN, it was revealed that Saturday Night's Main Event would move exclusively to Peacock under a multi-year deal beginning in November 2025, with the December 13, 2025 edition featuring Cena's retirement match.^[3][4][5]

Storylines

John Cena will wrestle his final match in his 26-year career at this event.

The event will include matches that result from scripted storylines. Results will be predetermined by WWE's writers on the Raw and SmackDown brands,^[6][7] while storylines are produced on WWE's weekly television shows, Monday Night Raw and Friday Night SmackDown.^[8]

During the Raw premiere on Netflix on January 6, 2025, Cena officially kicked off his retirement tour by announcing he would compete in the Royal Rumble match at the eponymous event on February 1 to try and earn an opportunity to win his 17th world championship at WrestleMania 41.^[9] He lost the Royal Rumble match, however, he won the Elimination Chamber match at the namesake event on March 1, earning an Undisputed WWE Championship match at WrestleMania.^[10] He would go on to win the title on Night 2 of the event on April 20, holding it until August 3 at Night 2 of SummerSlam where he lost it. In his final SmackDown appearance as a part of the active roster on September 5, he failed to win the WWE United States Championship. On November 1, at Saturday Night's Main Event XLI, it was announced that Cena's final opponent at the Saturday Night's Main Event XLII event on December 13 would be decided in the Last Time Is Now Tournament, beginning on the November 10 episode of Raw in Boston, Massachusetts, near Cena's hometown.^[11]

On that episode of Raw, Cena opened the program by announcing a series of exhibition matches that would feature NXT talents against main roster wrestlers. After being interrupted by Dominik Mysterio, Triple H ordered him to face Cena for his WWE Intercontinental Championship. Cena went on to win the match, winning the Intercontinental Championship for the first time in his career and becoming a Triple Crown and Grand Slam champion in the process.^[12]

Matches

No.	Matches*	Stipulations
1	John Cena vs. The Last Time Is Now Tournament winner	TBA match[13] This will be Cena's retirement match.
*Card subject to change

The Last Time Is Now Tournament

This section is transcluded from List of WWE tournaments § The Last Time Is Now Tournament. (edit | history)

This is an ongoing 16-man tournament that will determine who will face John Cena in Cena's retirement match at Saturday Night's Main Event XLII on December 13, 2025. The tournament began on the November 10 episode of Raw in Cena's hometown of Boston, Massachusetts and is featuring wrestlers from WWE’s Raw, SmackDown, and NXT brands, as well as Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA). On November 21, WWE announced that quarterfinalist Sheamus suffered a shoulder injury and he is no longer medically cleared to compete in the tournament.^[14]

No.	Matches*	Stipulations	Times[15][16][17]
1	Rusev (Raw) defeated Damian Priest (SmackDown) by pinfall	First round match (Raw – November 10, 2025)	8:50
2	Sheamus (Raw) defeated Shinsuke Nakamura (SmackDown) by pinfall	First round match (Raw – November 10, 2025)	10:40
3	Jey Uso (Raw) defeated The Miz (SmackDown) by pinfall	First round match (SmackDown – November 14, 2025)	10:11
4	LA Knight (Raw) defeated Zack Ryder (Free Agent) by pinfall	First round match (SmackDown – November 14, 2025)	8:32
5	Solo Sikoa (with Talla Tonga) (SmackDown) defeated Dolph Ziggler (TNA) by pinfall	First round match (Raw – November 17, 2025)	8:50
6	Gunther (Raw) defeated Je'Von Evans (NXT) by submission	First round match (Raw – November 17, 2025)	15:00
7	Carmelo Hayes (SmackDown) vs. Bronson Reed (Raw)	First round match (SmackDown – November 21, 2025)	—
8	Penta (Raw) vs. Finn Bálor (Raw)	First round match (SmackDown – November 21, 2025)	—
9	Gunther (Raw) vs. Carmelo Hayes (SmackDown) or Bronson Reed (Raw)	Quarterfinals match (Raw – November 24, 2025)	—
10	Solo Sikoa (SmackDown) vs. Penta or Finn Bálor (Raw)	Quarterfinals match (Raw – November 24, 2025)	—
11	TBA vs. TBA[a]	Quarterfinals match (TBA)	—
12	TBA vs. TBA[a]	Quarterfinals match (TBA)	—
*Card subject to change

1. This match will consist of two of four of the following wrestlers: Rusev, Jey Uso, LA Knight, and TBA.