John Cena shocked the world by turning heel on WWE Champion Cody Rhodes at the 2025 "Elimination Chamber" event, after more than 20 years of being a staunch good guy. But should we all have seen it coming? In hindsight, there were some definite signs.
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00:00John Cena shocked the world by turning heel on WWE Champion Cody Rhodes at the 2025 Elimination
00:07Chamber event after more than 20 years of being a staunch good guy. But should we all
00:12have seen it coming? In hindsight, there were some definite signs.
00:16The biggest flashing warning light that something was a little off with Cena came exactly four
00:21weeks before he clobbered Cody with that special Rolex and drew blood. Big Match John had just
00:26lost his biggest match in some time, the 2025 Royal Rumble, after getting to the final
00:31two with Jey Uso. As he sat down for the post-show press conference, Cena immediately announced
00:37that he'd be taking no questions and that he would be making a brief statement instead.
00:42After musing about this being his last Royal Rumble match and final WrestleMania, Cena
00:46noted that his last Mania main event was in 2013. Explaining why he's been elsewhere on
00:52the card ever since then, he said,
00:54"'Cause I've always done what's best for business."
00:57That is a heel line if there ever was one, dating back to Triple H using it as a catchphrase
01:02as the leader of the villainous authority starting back in, well, 2013 or so. Cena added
01:07that what was best for business was him being in the main event of WrestleMania 41 and winning
01:12a 17th World Championship. He put himself in the chamber match without having to qualify
01:17and guaranteed that would happen because he knew he had helped to make it happen.
01:22A consistent element of Cena's babyface character over the years has been that he didn't take
01:27shortcuts to win, or at least he always said he didn't. So the Elimination Chamber match
01:32should have at least given fans at least some reason to think a shift had happened. First,
01:36as noted, Cena simply entered himself into the match without having to earn his way in,
01:41and second, he took advantage of a lucky break to snag the victory.
01:45After an already-eliminated Seth Rollins hit CM Punk with a stomp on the outside, Cena,
01:50without any hesitation whatsoever, slapped him what may have been the most brutal-looking
01:54STF of his career. It looked more like a full-on chokehold. That move put Punk out and won
02:00the match for Cena, who went back to being all smiles, but had already shown his new
02:05true colors by picking up the scraps after the stomp.
02:08Let's set aside whether babyface Cena ever actually took any easy outs in his full-time
02:12career, because he absolutely did, but it was against the general idea of his character,
02:18nonetheless. Also, it's worth mentioning that when he made his entrance for the match,
02:22Cena didn't say what he usually says to the cameraman, Stu. While he typically tells Stu,
02:27let's go to work, this time he said, let's pave the way to the dance. No mention of work.
02:33Cena has been on his retirement tour since July 2024, when he announced to the Toronto
02:38crowd at Money in the Bank that the 2025 Royal Rumble would be his last Rumble match. He
02:44gave a press conference there, too, and actually took questions that time. Cena perhaps protested
02:49too much when asked why he wouldn't turn heel.
02:52So I don't know how much impact that would have, because that goes heavily against what
02:58I value."
02:59Ever since that Money in the Bank appearance, Cena has trotted out several new t-shirts
03:03and hats. In addition to the Last Time is Now, a spin on his My Time is Now theme music,
03:09they're covered in his many other catchphrases, You Can't See Me, Never Give Up, even Rise
03:13Above Hate. But one is largely missing, Hustle, Loyalty, Respect. That phrase was prominent
03:20on his gear in his last run in 2022 and 2023, particularly on his hat. But aside from the
03:26letters HLR on his Royal Rumble shirt, it hasn't been there. And instead of talking
03:30about hustle, loyalty, and respect for the fans, he put a corporate spin on the phrase
03:35in his presser after the Rumble.
03:37I have built my existence here off of hard work, loyalty to this company, and respect
03:44for all of its branches."
03:46This clue was pretty hard to parse when it happened, so it's pretty fair to have only
03:50seen it in hindsight. But now when you see it, it's hard to miss.
03:54Cena has long been associated with the OK hand signal, to the point where it has even
03:58appeared on his merch. At the Bad Blood event in October 2024, The Rock made a brief appearance
04:04where he walked out on stage after the main event and didn't say a word. As Rhodes and
04:09Roman Reigns stood victorious in the ring, the final ball simply counted to three on
04:13his fingers. Now, counting to three is not unusual in wrestling, but when The Rock got
04:18to three, his fingers ended up in the shape of Cena's signature hand gesture before he
04:22then mimed a throat slash, just like he did to Cena to signal the turn months later. Again,
04:28this could easily pass by unnoticed at the time, especially since Cena wasn't even at
04:32Bad Blood.
04:33Now, though, crystal clear.
04:35It's an accepted piece of wrestling lore that there were plans for Cena to turn heel back
04:39in 2012, right around the time of his WrestleMania 28 match with The Rock. Before that idea ultimately
04:45got scrapped, Cena recorded a new entrance theme and got all-new gear for it, looking
04:50to ditch the jorts in favor of boxing-style robes and singlets. He explained the thinking
04:55behind all that to Chris Van Vliet, saying that he'd strive to be the opposite of everything
04:59the John Cena character had been to that point.
05:02So I would begin to not work as hard. I would show up less. I would be untrustworthy, unloyal.
05:09I would lack respect."
05:11That interview with Van Vliet happened in March 2024 on the press tour for Cena's film
05:16Ricky Stanicki. Who knows if he knew then that he'd be turning heel for real almost
05:20exactly 12 months later, but it does prove that Cena has known for years exactly what
05:25he would do if he made the long-awaited heel turn. He may not be wearing singlets and boxing
05:29robes, but the behavior? It's there. He's been showing up less for a long time now,
05:34and he found an easy way to win the Elimination Chamber match. Cody sure couldn't trust him.
05:39And as for being disrespectful? Look no further than his sour-faced mic drop at the Elimination
05:44Chamber press conference. He has followed his original roadmap, it seems.
05:56In 2022, Cena set a Guinness World Record for having made the most make-a-wish visits
06:00of anyone ever, at a whopping 650 wishes granted. Just to give an idea of how many that really
06:06is, no one else at the time had even done half as many. While a few had granted 200-plus
06:11wishes, no other person had gone over 300. To put it lightly, make-a-wish is clearly
06:16very important to Cena.
06:17I see the direct effect that it has on people, and it's fantastic."
06:22In that same 2024 interview with Chris Van Vliet, he cited the charity, along with selling
06:27far less merchandise, as key reasons why the planned 2012 heel turn never happened.
06:32I'm not going to do any more appearances. I'm not going to do any make-a-wishes. I'm
06:37not going to do anything like that. I'm going to be a bad guy.
06:39It's hard to know how many wishes Cena grants these days, but it stands to reason that it's
06:43less than it once was. Not because he's unwilling, but because he isn't wrestling full-time anymore,
06:49which means fewer kids are seeing him be a hero every week, unless they really love Peacemaker
06:53or the Fast and Furious series. So he most likely has less to lose in that regard now
06:58than he did in the past.
07:01Some of Cena's earliest film roles, particularly in WWE films like The Marine and 12 Rounds,
07:06absolutely embodied his heroic ring persona. But once he broke out from WWE to start his
07:12full-time acting career, Cena was almost immediately looking to play against type. For instance,
07:17his muscle-bound boyfriend character in 2015's Trainwreck wasn't a bad guy exactly, but he
07:22was more potty-mouthed than Cena was typically known for being.
07:26I will f*** you, alright? I will enter you.
07:29Some of Cena's on-screen characters got harder-edged from there. That same year, he played a tattooed
07:34drug dealer in Sisters, and by 2021, he was the full-on villain in F9, The Fast Saga.
07:39The brother you're looking for is from an old life. He's long gone.
07:47Even though he eventually got a more sympathetic TV show of his own, Cena's murderous anti-hero
07:52peacemaker retraced the team in The Suicide Squad — an actual heel turn. Sure, he has
07:57played plenty of takes on his straight-laced wrestling hero, too, and his Fast and Furious
08:02character turned face pretty quickly, but Cena has proved he has no problem being the
08:06bad guy in his movies.
08:08Few wrestling feuds have been as genuinely heated as the one between The Rock and Cena
08:12in the build to WrestleMania 28 in 2012.
08:16It was so real. Like, we had real problems with each other.
08:20Cena was ostensibly the babyface in that feud, but he went for some proverbial low blows.
08:25His main line of attack was that The Great One abandoned the fans by leaving WWE behind
08:30for Hollywood and had also lost a step in doing so. Most infamously, Cena called out
08:35notes The Rock had written on his wrist for a promo — an unplanned swipe that left Dwayne
08:39Johnson pretty furious in real life. It apparently took quite a few years, but Cena eventually
08:44admitted he was in the wrong for that.
08:47"[Sighs.] Looking back at it, it was f-----g stupid."
08:51Part of what led Cena to that realization was that he also became a movie star, and
08:55he gained a totally different perspective on what The Rock was doing back then, taking
08:59his valuable time to bring eyeballs and ratings to WWE television.
09:03And I now know what that feels like.
09:06While that's all genuine real-life stuff between two professionals, it also makes Cena's storyline
09:11heel turn in 2025 make more sense. At this point, Cena has way more in common with The
09:16Rock than he does with Cody Rhodes or any other full-time performer on the WWE roster.
09:22He's even said as much.
09:24One of Cena's mid-card WrestleMania appearances over the past few years was the divisive Firefly
09:29Funhouse match against Bray Wyatt at WrestleMania 36. People had to get creative that year,
09:35since that 2020 WrestleMania had no audience thanks to COVID. And nothing was quite as
09:40creative as the Firefly Funhouse, which was less a match than a dark look into John Cena's
09:45psyche.
09:46Among the madness of the match, which looked back at all of Cena's various gimmicks over
09:50the years, Cena was also shown giving in to his dark side and swinging a chair at Wyatt,
09:55who disappeared. Cena was then shown making an entrance in an NWO shirt and playing the
10:00WCW championship belt like a guitar. This was clearly a reference to Hulk Hogan, another
10:05seemingly permanent babyface superstar who shocked everyone by turning heel in 1996.
10:11Cena is finally shown ruthlessly and aggressively beating down Wyatt, and it's the loss of his
10:16core values that eventually gives Wyatt's fiend character the opening to put on the
10:20mandible claw and win the fever dream of a match. Cena can even be heard referring to
10:25himself as overvalued, overhyped, and overprivileged.
10:28Again, it'd be ridiculous to say this was a pre-planned setup for the heel turn that
10:33would come five years later, but it did prove that Cena, the character, had a dark side
10:38to explore. And who knows? Maybe we'll learn that the Firefly Funhouse match was the start
10:42on his path to the dark side, if WWE actually wants to bring it up again.