Michael Cole recently teased the return of John Cena to WWE.
John Cena last wrestled when he squared off against Roman Reigns at SummerSlam 2021 and it now appears as if the 16-time World Champion could be set to return to action shortly.
On the most recent episode of Smackdown, Michael Cole dropped a major hint about a potential return to WWE for Cena. During the Austin Theory vs. Drew McIntyre match, Cole said:
“No doubt Austin Theory is one of most talented we have seen in a while. He could use an Attitude Adjustment though.”
The remark was clearly a reference to John Cena’s finishing move, The Attitude Adjustment and there is speculation that Theory and Cena are to set to do battle at WrestleMania 39 next year.
The prospect of a match between Austin Theory and John Cena seems likely with Theory recently revealing he is confident the two will face one another at some point in the future. Theory spoke with CBS Sports about being compared to Cena and ending up across the ring from him at WrestleMania:
“It’s so weird to meet somebody and pretty much have to explain to them, ‘I modelled my whole life after you.’ It’s one of those things as a kid getting bullied, my dad not being in my life a lot. Cena, I could watch him and just escape. It was the connection to his personality.
And that’s something I learned from him. He told me, ‘Don’t ever think people go out there and want people to connect to their performance. Nobody will connect to your performance unless they connect to your personality.
I started thinking, even with that process through NXT to finally being drafted to Raw officially, it was a time to figure stuff out. How can I connect to them with my personality? This is a world in WWE where everybody can kill it in the ring. Everyone can go hard in the ring. So what’s going to set you aside from killing it in the ring? I learned that from him.
To have that moment with him, the person that — I had to put in my own work — but somebody that got me to the dance mentally, it takes the words out of my mouth to think of that actually happening.”
Michael Cole dropping such a hint on Smackdown is unlikely to have been done unless WWE is confident about the match happening.