Well it finally happened: One of the most successful and famous good guy wrestlers in the world, John Cena, turned heel. After 20 years of fans hoping for this day, it’s finally here as part of Cena’s retirement tour leading up to his final WrestleMania in April.
First, just so everyone understands what happened, a little history: John Cena has been wrestling in the WWE since 2001. At first he portrayed a rapping villain. Over time he became very popular, and in 2005—after winning his first WWE Championship—he became a babyface aka a good guy in all future storylines and events. And for the last 20 years, as he granted over 600 kids their dreams as part of the Make-A-Wish foundation and became a movie star, he’s remained a babyface despite many wrestling fans wishing he’d turn heel aka become a bad guy again. But with each passing year, and as Cena himself joked about it, it became more and more unlikely that the face of the WWE brand would ever be a villain again. And then that changed over the weekend.
On March 1, at the end of WWE’s Elimination Chamber: Toronto event, Cena won the whole thing and was given a championship match against current champ and babyface Cody Rhodes at WrestleMania 41 in April. But after winning, Rhodes entered the ring and stared Cena down.
Then the Rock showed up and explained how Rhodes needed to team up with him and give him everything including “his soul.” Rhodes said no and then embraced Cena. But that was when Cena signaled to Rock that he was willing to make that deal, and the soon-to-be-retiring wrestler attacked Rhodes signaling his heel turn. The moment received one of the loudest crowd pops I’ve ever heard as people lost their mind watching Cena finally go bad.
After the historic heel turn, Cena posted an image of Grand Theft Auto 6 on Instagram, a reference to the meme that we have received so many long awaited things before Rockstar’s open-world sequel. Meanwhile, wrestling fans have started doing what they always do in these moments: Speculate on what will happen next, get excited about the next big event, and explain how actually this wasn’t surprising at all because they saw it coming.
Regardless of all that, Cena turning heel in the final weeks of his WWE career as he enters his last WrestleMania to face one of the company’s biggest new good guys, Cody Rhodes, feels like a exciting end to one of the greatest wrestling careers of the century. Will he turn back to babyface at the very end? Will he win it all? Will he go out a villain? We’ll have to wait until April to find out, but even I, someone who barely watches wrestling, am excited to see how it all plays out.
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