Former AEW champion moves one step closer to facing John Cena

John Cena will be competing in his final WWE match at Saturday Night's Main Event. Tonight, a former AEW champion moved closer to facing Cena.

A few weeks ago, John Cena announced the Last Time is Now Tournament to determine who would earn the right to face him in his final WWE match. Stars from RAW, SmackDown, NXT, and TNA showed up to compete in the tournament. Tonight on SmackDown, the final first-round match of the tournament took place when Penta faced off against Finn Balor.

Penta and Balor delivered an extraordinary match on the blue brand. Both men showcased how much they wanted to be the one to face Cena in his final match. Despite JD McDonagh being on SmackDown, he wasn't at ringside to help Balor during the bout. In the end, the former AEW star defeated Balor with the Mexican Destroyer.

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John Cena revealed the idea he proposed to Triple H for Saturday Night's Main Event

John Cena is scheduled to compete in his last-ever WWE match at Saturday Night's Main Event against the winner of the Last Time is Now Tournament. However, he has an interesting idea to make his final show special.

During a recent edition of RAW Recap, Cena revealed that he called Triple H to make this tournament happen. He said that he didn't want a tribute show as many people would be disappointed. Instead, he proposed to showcase some bright NXT talent against some of the best stars on the main roster.

"I love the Time Is Now Tournament, that we have some way to earn the chance to be, to qualify as my last opponent. And I really wanna take my hats off to Triple H. I called him up. I said, 'I got an idea. We gotta do two hours for the tribute show. And if you do a whole John Cena tribute, two things are gonna happen. You're either gonna go too much or too little. Never gonna please everybody. I would like to propose that we have big-name WWE Superstars fighting exhibition matches vs. the brightest in NXT. So that way we have a sold-out building,'" he said.

It will be interesting to see who will get the chance to be featured on Cena's final WWE show.

Edited by Sunil Joseph