Reason for John Cena’s Removal from Crown Jewel and Original World Cup Plans

As noted before, John Cena will not be appearing at this Friday’s WWE Crown Jewel event. During this week’s episode of RAW, Acting General Manager Baron Corbin announced that he removed Cena from RAW’s side of the bracket for the WWE World Cup tournament and replaced him with Bobby Lashley.

The Wrestling Observer Newsletter’s Dave Meltzer reported that the reason for Cena removing himself from the card of Crown Jewel was related to his acting career. The belief is that Cena was recently advised to not work at the event in order to not risk negatively affecting his standing in Hollywood and his transition into a full-time acting career.

In regards to WWE’s plans for their World Cup tournament at Crown Jewel, Meltzer reported that WWE originally planned for Cena to face off against Rey Mysterio Jr. in the tournament, with Mysterio emerging victorious. WWE wanted to use the tournament as a way to quickly push Mysterio as the top star for their Latino market after their lack of success with pushing others in recent times. WWE also originally planned for the tournament’s bracket to not be based on brand-specific matchups. Both of those plans were reported to have been tossed after Cena pulled himself out of the event and the World Cup was turned into a Raw vs. SmackDown tournament.