Wrestling News

Home

Quizzes

Newsletter

Joe Camporeale-Imagn Images

John Cena Says He 'Bombed' His First Promo After His Heel Turn

Originally posted on NY Fights | By Ishaan Sharma | Last updated Aug 20, 2025 9:08 AM ET

John Cena’s heel turn was a once-in-a-lifetime experience for wrestling fans. After he became the face of WWE during the mid-2000s, and they transitioned into a PG company, there was no way they would lose their biggest babyface superstar for a heel turn. For years, fans begged The Cenation Leader to turn heel. In fact, there were several occasions where it would’ve made perfect sense.

When Cena finally turned heel, it felt shocking. But as time went on, fans realized this version of him felt underwhelming. Cena also admitted this recently during the 2025 Fan Expo Chicago convention.

John Cena’s Heel Turn Was 20 Years In The Making

There were talks of a Cena heel turn in the early 2010s during his feud with The Rock, but Vince McMahon feared that it would hurt the company. In 2024, John Cena announced that 2025 would be his final year as an active wrestler. That’s when WWE decided to pull the plug on his heel turn. At Elimination Chamber, The Rock returned, and behind the scenes, he had made a secret deal with Cena.

Now Cena was the bad guy, and he was hot again. Fans were convinced that this would be the best run of his career, but during his very first promo as a villain, Cena dropped the ball. He failed to convince fans why he had turned heel. After all, he was the biggest star of WWE for so many years, and fans (well, most fans) had done nothing but support him, especially in his last few years, where even his haters started to cherish his presence.

John Cena Said He Bombed His Promo After His Heel Turn

At Fan Expo Chicago 2025, Cena admitted that his first promo as a heel was bad. He turned heel at Elimination Chamber and took two weeks to show up again on the March 17 edition of Raw. Fans wanted to hear from him. Unfortunately, things didn’t go well.

The audience didn’t react well to Cena’s promo. Like many heel turns before, Cena felt he was the victim here and blamed the fans. To some extent, it was justified as well. Cena has always cared about the crowd, but despite all his efforts, fans still complained. But as time went on, his heel turn started feeling boring.

Cena talked about his promo and said:

“I wasn’t upset. No, I failed. Ain’t nothing wrong with that. You can learn from failure, right? I went up there and bombed. Shit happens.” (H/T The Pop Verse)

It’s not an unpopular opinion to say that Cena’s heel turn wasn’t the best. The initial turn was shocking, but after that, it felt like WWE had no idea what to do with it. Cena being in his retirement year also hurt his heel turn, because who would want to boo him when he’s having his final year? The Rock storyline also didn’t make any sense. Everyone expected The Final Boss to show up at WrestleMania, but we got Travis Scott instead. And after that, Cena and WWE pretended The Rock was never in the story.

On top of that, every promo of his sounded the same. It was always the people, the fans, that caused him to play dirty. He wanted to ruin wrestling for them, but then again, didn’t he turn heel because Cody declined to accept The Rock’s offer? Where do the fans even come into this?

There were a lot of problems with Cena’s heel turn. But this isn’t on him. It was a mixture of terrible booking, a lack of any long-term plans, and the fact that The Rock took himself out of the story for no reason.

This article first appeared on NY Fights and was syndicated with permission.

More must-reads: