The eve of John Cena’s retirement is fast-approaching, and to mark the beginning 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 be involved in two bouts of singles action to begin 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, according to Pearce, been picked at random. In the first opening round, Rusev will take on 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 Main 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 remains to be seen.
In the second advertised tournament match, the recently-returned Nakamura is set to take on Sheamus in singles action. Much like Priest, Monday’s upcoming match will mark Nakamura’s return to the red brand after a year spent exclusively on “SmackDown.” Both Nakamura and Sheamus have been on losing streaks, as Nakamura’s most recent 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 set 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.
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