2026 could be a big year for retirement tours in WWE.
At present, we’re a little over 24 hours away from John Cena’s final wrestling match. The 48-year-old has been on a year-long retirement tour with WWE that will culminate against ‘The Ring General’ GUNTHER tomorrow night, and now it seems as if the company are open to more wrestlers having a retirement run in 2026.
According to Dave Meltzer in the latest edition of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, it’s believed plans for 2026 would see retirement runs for Brock Lesnar, AJ Styles and Chris Jericho should the latter sign with the company. In the case of ‘The Beast’, it was noted he could be set to hang up his boots at SummerSlam although this is unconfirmed.
“There is a story going around that Lesnar will retire at SummerSlam 2026. I can’t confirm that date but did at least a month hear that the working plans for 2026 would be the WWE retirement runs for Lesnar, Styles and potentially Jericho if he signs.”
-Dave Meltzer
Lesnar returned at SummerSlam 2025 having had a lengthy absence from our screens due to his involvement in Janel Grant’s lawsuit against WWE and Vince McMahon. Since reappearing, he’s competed in just two matches, defeating John Cena at WrestlePalooza and coming out on the winning side at this year’s War Games.
Of the names mentioned, AJ Styles is the only one to have already confirmed his intention to retire at some point in 2026. As for Jericho, many are expecting the former AEW World Champion to leave in favour of a WWE return as soon as he’s able, although there’s yet to be any official word on his future.
As always, we’ll aim to provide any further updates on WWE’s plans for 2026 as soon as we hear more.
