John Cena is bad. John Cena turned heel. For real. John Cena, the man who has epitomized goodness for 20 years in professional wrestling. The man who, in real life, as a person, sends pithy quotes about being a good person on his Twitter. In 2021, he literally did a positivity book, Be a Work in Progress: And Other Things I’d Like to Tell My Younger Self. He’s granted 650 Make-A-Wishes over the years (probably more since then). The most ever. He’s 47 years old, and in his current retirement tour in WWE. This is his last professional wrestling year as a professional wrestler. He made $23 million last year as an actor, the 16th most successful; he doesn’t need this professional wrestling gig anymore. Yet, he turned bad.
At WWE’s Elimination Chamber event in Toronto, Canada tonight (which, funny aside, the crowd booed the “Star-Spangled Banner” tonight, rightly so), John Cena was one of six competitors in the Elimination Chamber match, along with Logan Paul, CM Punk, Drew McIntyre, Damien Priest, and Seth Rollins. Thanks to Seth Rollins’ continued beef with CM Punk, John Cena won the Elimination Chamber match. That means John Cena is guaranteed a main event match against Cody Rhodes, the WWE Champion, in the main event of WrestleMania 41. Shortly after winning, Cody Rhodes, today’s current ultimate babyface, came out to do a face-to-face with John Cena and to answer Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s proposition to him from a week ago. A week ago, The Rock asked for Cody’s “soul.” If Cody surrendered his soul, The Rock would give him “everything,” whatever that meant. Cody Rhodes, in an astonishing line to utter unbleeped even on a live premium live event, told The Rock, “Go fuck yourself.” Cody stayed a good guy. But John Cena, who was still out there, hugged Cody with a mean mug on his face and turned on Cody. John Cena turned heel! John Cena went bad! John Cena sold his soul! The extra context here — aside from being the ultimate good guy for 20 years; this is tantamount to Captain America turning and saying, “Heil Hydra!” — is that John Cena is a 16-time World Champion. That ties him with the record. He wants his 17th World Title. He’s desperate in his last year after losing this year’s Royal Rumble match. So, his “turn” makes sense (in addition to the further context that Cena essentially apologized to The Rock for not understanding his turn to Hollywood), but it was still astonishing. I’m shook, as the kids say.
John Cena becoming a bad guy is the most shocking moment in the last 11 years of watching professional wrestling — the most shocking moment since The Undertaker lost his WrestleMania streak at WrestleMania 30 to Brock Lesnar in 2014. At this point, 20 years into John Cena’s career, and especially in his “farewell tour” as a professional wrestler, I thought the time to turn him heel had passed. I wanted it for years. I knew John Cena, as a person, was capable of playing a bad guy character. I always fantasy booked (creatively imagined) what it would be like to see John Cena as a bad guy. But they never did it, and at this point, again, I never imagined we would get it.
Tonight, we got it. John Cena sold his soul and aligned himself with The Rock, the “Final Boss,” to essentially guaranteed (presumably) winning his 17th World Title, a record-breaking moment. His desperation pushed him over the edge.
And I love it. Yes, I have all sorts of caveats, like wishing they did this when Cena was still in his prime physically or that I’m not sure about a redo of the “Two Man Power Trip” storyline, Hollywoodized, with The Rock and Cena, two older part-time professional wrestlers, or that I’m not sure about a historic heel turn and then presumably turning Cena back babyface all within an 8-month span, along with a record-breaking world title run. All those caveats aside, wow, do I love professional wrestling. For unbelievable, shocking moments like this. Stunning.
Let’s fucking go!
Milam's Musings 