Ranking John Cena’s 5 Sharpest Moveset Callbacks on His Retirement Tour

From borrowing the Code Red to raiding his own history, Cena’s farewell run is a moving museum of finishers — and the deep cuts are the best part.

John Cena’s retirement tour has quietly become one of the most nostalgic in-ring exercises in modern wrestling. Instead of coasting on the Five Knuckle Shuffle and the Attitude Adjustment, Cena’s been reaching back into wrestling’s toolbox and pulling out moves that carry real history. The latest wrinkle even caught the attention of Amazing Red, whose signature offense suddenly showed up on the biggest stage in the business. So let’s rank the callbacks — from the fun to the genuinely meaningful.

5. The STFU Purists Still Want Called an STF

Cena’s submission has been the subject of pedantic fan arguments for two decades, and on a farewell tour it becomes a nostalgia trigger all its own. Every time he cinches it in, you’re reminded of a version of Cena who wrestled longer matches and leaned harder on psychology than his critics ever gave him credit for. It’s low on this list only because it never left — but hearing crowds react to it now hits differently.

4. The Springboard Stunner Cameo

When Cena started flashing more athleticism than his “can’t wrestle” reputation ever allowed, it doubled as a statement. A guy who spent years being told he only knew five moves has spent his send-off proving he had far more in the bag the whole time. It’s a wink to the smart-mark crowd that spent 15 years underrating him, and it lands as both an olive branch and a flex.

3. Leaning Into Prototype-Era Aggression

The best part of a retirement run is watching someone drop the polished corporate version of themselves. Cena reaching back toward the meaner, hungrier competitor he was before the rise to superstardom gives these matches a texture his prime main-event work sometimes lacked. It reframes the whole career — reminding you the smiling franchise player started as a ruthless climber.

2. Digging Into WWE’s Deep History for Tribute Spots

Cena has always been a genuine historian of the business, and his farewell has become a rolling highlight reel of the people who came before him. That instinct is exactly why his run feels bigger than one man’s goodbye — it’s a curated tour through what made him. It’s the same energy WWE is channeling elsewhere right now, whether that’s throwing a Bloodline prospect straight into the fire or building fresh feuds on the backs of established legacies. Cena understands that respect for the past is what makes the present matter.

1. Borrowing Amazing Red’s Code Red

This is the deep cut that earns the top spot, and it’s not close. The Code Red is not a WWE move — it’s an indie and TNA staple most closely associated with Amazing Red, a high-flyer who never got his flowers on the game’s biggest platform. For Cena to bust it out on a retirement tour, on the sport’s grandest stage, is a genuinely classy nod to a wrestler who influenced far more people than his mainstream footprint suggests. Red himself noticed, and that reaction is the whole point.

Think about what that gesture communicates. Cena didn’t need to reach outside his own catalog. He’s got two decades of iconic offense to pick from. Choosing a move tied to a smaller name is the kind of thing only a performer who truly loves and studies the entire industry does. It’s the opposite of the tone-deafness we’ve seen from other veterans lately — you don’t have to look far past the recent Val Venis mess to appreciate a legend using his platform to lift someone up instead of tearing someone down.

The Bottom Line

What makes Cena’s farewell so satisfying is that it isn’t just a greatest-hits playlist. He’s using the spotlight to honor the sport’s forgotten corners, and the Code Red nod is the perfect example — a small moment that means the world to the person on the receiving end. That’s how you leave the business better than you found it.

Which Cena callback has hit you hardest on this tour? Drop your ranking in the comments and let’s argue about it.