The eve of John Cena’s retirement is fast-approaching, and to mark the start of his “Last Time is Now” Tournament are two high-profile matches. On the upcoming November 10 episode of “WWE Raw,” Rusev, Damian Priest, Shinsuke Nakamura, and Sheamus will likely be involved in two bouts of singles motion to start their individual campaigns to retire “The Never-Seen Seventeen.”
General manager Adam Pearce took to a video segment on Monday’s episode of “Raw” to announce the tournament’s opening matches, which have, in accordance with Pearce, been picked at random. In the primary opening round, Rusev will tackle Priest in Priest’s return to WWE’s red brand. Rusev is fresh off of a loss after being pinned by Intercontinental Champion “Dirty” Dominik Mysterio at “Saturday Night’s Primary Event,” and Priest has been fighting an uphill battle in his “WWE SmackDown” feud against Aleister Black and partner Zelina Vega. The Intercontinental and AAA Mega Champion seems preoccupied with father Rey Mysterio on “Raw,” but whether Black or Vega have any plans to spoil Priest’s tournament ambitions stays to be seen.
Within the second advertised tournament match, the recently-returned Nakamura is ready to tackle Sheamus in singles motion. Very like Priest, Monday’s upcoming match will mark Nakamura’s return to the red brand after a 12 months spent exclusively on “SmackDown.” Each Nakamura and Sheamus have been on losing streaks, as Nakamura’s most up-to-date televised match seeing him take a loss to MFT members JC Mateo and Tama Tonga, while Sheamus took a pinfall loss against JD McDonagh on the October 27 episode of “Raw.”
Cena’s sixteen-man tournament is ready to feature two more opening matches, to be announced by Nick Aldis on Friday’s upcoming episode of “SmackDown.” While “WWE NXT” and out-of-WWE performers were advertised as tournament participants, no “NXT” or non-WWE participants have been announced as of writing.