John Cena vs. Solo Sikoa Match Announced for 2023 WWE Crown Jewel PPV | News, Scores, Highlights, Stats, and Rumors

WWE officially announced Friday that John Cena and Solo Sikoa will clash in a one-on-one match at Crown Jewel in Saudi Arabia on Nov. 4.

Cena has been embroiled in a rivalry with The Bloodline in recent weeks, and at Fastlane earlier this month he teamed with LA Knight to beat Sikoa and Jimmy Uso in a tag-team bout.

On last week’s episode of SmackDown, Cena and Sikoa got into another physical altercation, which set the stage for their upcoming match at Crown Jewel.

While Cena and Knight were victorious at Fastlane, Cena cut a promo last week on SmackDown about how it had been 2,002 days since he last won a televised singles match.

For a moment, Cena seemed to be hinting toward retirement, but he switched up quickly and vowed to beat down anyone who walked down the aisle and stepped up to him.

Sikoa answered the challenge and had Jimmy Uso in tow, but Jey Uso made a surprise appearance and took out Jimmy, which allowed Cena to hit Solo with an Attitude Adjustment.

Now, Cena will look to end his lengthy drought against Sikoa at Crown Jewel, while the enforcer of The Bloodline will attempt to score the biggest win of his young career.

Adding even more intrigue to the match is the fact that it could conceivably be Cena’s final bout before he goes back to Hollywood and resumes his burgeoning acting career.

The writer and actor strikes opened a window of opportunity for Cena to return to WWE, but Cena admitted after Fastlane that he will have to return to Hollywood as soon as filming resumes for a project he is working on, telling reporters:

“I’ve made it clear that you can’t do both because of the liability insurance. If I were to try and juggle both, that’s very selfish because I would put a whole lot of people in the movie business out of work if something were to happen to me. …

“Yes, I stopped a project in the middle of it, I can’t even talk about the project because of the strike, but we’re in the middle of it. As soon as we get back to work, we go back to work. I don’t control any of that. I’m crossing my fingers and I hope we can find a resolve everyone is happy with. For right now, I feel this is the best way I can help. To come back home to my family.”

However, the 46-year-old veteran got fans talking last week when he posted a photo on his Instagram page that suggested he might hang around longer than anticipated.

The photo was of Leonardo DiCaprio from the movie “The Wolf of Wall Street,” and in the particular scene depicted, DiCaprio’s character yelled, “I’m not leaving!”

As of now, Cena is only advertised for WWE appearances through Crown Jewel, but if the Instagram post is any indication, it is possible his match against Sikoa won’t be the end of the 16-time world champion’s current run.

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