John Cena Crowned WWE Intercontinental Champion On Raw (WWE News)

John Cena defeats Dominik Mysterio to become WWE Intercontinental Champion.

by Andrew Pollard
WWE Raw John Cena Intercontinental Champion
WWE

With John Cena making his second-to-last Raw appearance as an active performer last night, Big Match John added another slice of WWE gold to his stacked résumé by defeating Dominik Mysterio to become the new Intercontinental Champion.

Taking place from Boston's legendary TD Garden, in front of a rampant hometown crowd for Cena, Raw opened with the retiring veteran addressing his people as he gets ready to hang up his boots next month. Ever the no-good scumbag, though, Dominik Mysterio couldn't pass up the chance to rain on Cena's parade, interrupting the record-setting 17-time World Champion, lambasting the Game, and talking up how Dirty Dom isn't even in his prime yet, but that he's already better than John Cena has ever been.

While Cena verbally fired back at Mysterio, he did give Dom the chance to walk away, with John citing his respect for Dominik's father, Rey Mysterio. Still, Dom couldn't help being Dom, and his continued brash arrogance led to Triple H - who was in the ring after introducing Cena to start the show - made it official for last night: Dominik Mysterio defending the WWE Intercontinental Title against John Cena.

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After a quick ad break, Raw returned mid-match with Mysterio on top and flexing to the crowd. However, 15 minutes later, following plenty of back-and-forth action and a nice tribute to Eddie Guerrero by both men - Cena rolled through from a frog splash to hit a second Attitude Adjustment for the 1-2-3 win.

For John Cena, the Intercontinental Championship was the one major WWE title that had evaded him throughout his illustrious career. That IC Title now joins those 17 World Championships, five reigns as the United States Champion, four runs as a Tag Team Champion, and two Royal Rumble wins for the 48-year-old.

As for what remains of John Cena's retirement tour, he'll be at next week's Raw from Madison Square Garden, then he's expected to be in action at the Survivor Series on 29 November, before calling time on his career with his retirement match at the 13 December episode of Saturday Night's Main Event.

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Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main day job, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks/Saints, Jamie Hayter, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg. Where his beloved Wrexham AFC is concerned, Andrew is co-host of the Fearless in Devotion podcast, which won the Club Podcast of the Year gong at the 2024 FSA Awards.