For quite a while it was clear John Cena was on borrowed time as a professional wrestler. Even before he made his retirement announcement last year, his stretches of active duty had diminished and his matches per year decreased. He is hardly the first wrestler to taper their ring time down as they age, but whether you love him or hate him, Cena is also a unique case.
A couple of years ago when it seemed like Cena only ever returned during openings in his movie schedule to put over upcoming talent, I continually argued his last great story needed to be his quest to break Ric Flair’s WWE-recognized world championship record of 16 reigns. I argued that when the time was right, that needed to be the nexus of what his last story was founded on. In my mind it was a legacy-defining benchmark that would punctuate his decorated WWE career.
Following that announcement last year I started to really think on what a final Cena run could actually look like. Obviously a title chase made sense, but beyond that I imagined a quest where he fought and failed, stumbling against adversity in an attempt to sit atop the mountain one last time. When you think of Cena, you think of his unwavering nature and ethics, and you think of his credo — Hustle, Loyalty and Respect. You work hard, you remain loyal to the people who do right by and you show respect to the people who deserve it.
If you wanted to sum that up in a few words, simply put I suppose you could say: Work hard, be respectful and don’t be a jackass.
That doesn’t seem complex, but I think we’d be surprised. However, for 20+ years that was the foundation of who John Cena was as a man and a character on WWE television. That’s what I expected — a hard working guy who has been down on his luck busting his ass one last time to either win one last championship, or go home knowing he gave us and wrestling as a whole everything he had left. This year certainly started off with that being a possibility following his failure to win the Royal Rumble. However Elimination Chamber came around and that’s where everything we thought could happen was flipped on us. WWE shifted the narrative to the dark timeline we gave up on — the John Cena heel turn.
When that move was executed in March, the turn alongside The Rock and Travis Scott at the detriment of Cody Rhodes was likened to Hulk Hogan forming the nWo with Scott Hall and Kevin Nash in 1996. It was shocking, it was jarring and it was a moment that in an isolated snapshot will always be one of the most unexpected moments in WWE history. Its timing, story and execution made it special. That it happened during Cena’s curtain call made it that much more impactful. His heel turn flipped what you could do with Cena as a character on its head, premised on his disdain for the fans, his unrest with modern WWE, and his desire to fuel his ego, steal the title and break Flair’s record.
Cena’s 2025 began pedestrian and safe, however by March 1 everything we thought we knew was irrelevant. And then when he walked out of WrestleMania with his 17th title win, we were in the midst of what could have been an all-time great WWE heel run. Looking back on those first few months of 2025, with his career now three months shy of its conclusion, you can’t help but look at the trajectory in two ways.
First, for something that had such promise, the heel run on its own merits flopped. The turn itself was perfect, but the post-Chamber execution missed the mark. That is unfortunate as it’s something fans had wanted to see for a long time. However, it’s clear WWE did it for the “moment” without a clear, definitive endgame. While we were given a good series of “final matches” with his past rivals, the heel run itself sputtered by mid-summer in the absence of the narrative’s catalysts (Dwayne Johnson and perennial flunky Travis Scott), as well as fans’ refusal to organically boo him. Although some gave up on it arguably far too soon, I tried to be less critical of it hoping it would pan out. Unfortunately, as it turned out everyone else was right to give up on the heel run.
Secondly, because it was executed in the absence of a solid long-term plan, what could have been a fantastic heel run that actually threatened Cena leaving with the title just feels like a less significant piece of the whole. It ultimately serves as a slightly more interesting version of what most expected his last run to be prior to March. With the turn as a complement it still gives the story weight because it essentially says I made a mistake, I’m going to try to learn from it and move forward.
The Bigger Picture Beyond the Turn
When you expand the critique away from just the heel turn and look at the whole, understanding what has been reported, the retconning of his turn amounting to a bad day is the lesser of two evils. Conversely the heel turn could have just continued with no legs and just sputtered into his retirement with no fuel left. There’s no real value there though.
Conversely, we are left with an amalgamation of what we expected mixed with the caveat of a heel turn that informed the final version of Cena we are ever going to see. The company needed to do it to salvage a run that had fallen a part. This Cena is the product of a human being who went through all those things that led to the turn, lived with that decision, was (albeit flimsily) saved by some “tough love” from Rhodes and now wishes to help the next generation learn from his mistakes. This version of Cena reached a legacy-establishing pinnacle and wasn’t satisfied with that glory.
Even with a Lesnar beatdown certainly in his future, Cena’s promo opposite Logan Paul on Friday’s Smackdown makes the point of his last months clear. There’s even more clarity in that point after Clash in Paris. If the ultimate purpose of these last months is for Cena to convey his life’s lessons to the next generation, then his defeat of Logan Paul in spite of the brash star’s arrogance needs to have an effect on Paul’s outlook and presentation. If this can be a turning point for Paul’s character, as unlikeable as he is, that’s where we can start to see value in Cena’s abrupt face turn. Paul is a very one note character, so some evolution would not be the worst result from Cena’s win in France.
Their contentious exchange on Smackdown contrasts against the look of awe and disbelief on the beaten Paul’s face after Cena pinned him. The match was frankly pretty decent from an action and storytelling perspective, but the pained, exhausted stare is what I keep coming back to. Whether this actually materializes or not is anyone’s guess, but I think if we wanted to salvage the disjointed trajectory of Cena’s last year, starting with Paul learning valuable lessons on wrestling and life would be beneficial to his long-term staying power.
A slight tonal shift to Paul’s character, which I don’t think you can believably alter that much, would create some connective tissue between the Cena we started with, heel Cena, and then remorseful Cena who had some sense knocked into him by a buddy. It starts to build bridges between the points that are otherwise isolated. That concept has some value in my eyes, but what they do with Paul now will define the value of this loss. It would be a missed opportunity if they chose to maintain Paul’s status quo.
In a roundabout way we’ve returned to the concept of Cena conveying teachable moments to the roster and fans in his last active days. Cena’s 2025 run has had twists and turns, from a humble start to a fresh heel turn that ultimately bombed in the absence of a good resolution and an objective. So if this is what fans’ last memories of Cena are going to be, I think WWE can really lean into Cena’s version of “fighting spirit” via his “never say die” attitude. We saw that at Clash in Paris with Paul, and I think we need to see it again when he and Lesnar match up one last time. For Paul, if the lesson was learning what it means to invest in wrestling, giving everything and not just taking from it, then there’s intrinsic untapped potential for character growth.
For young fans just seeing Cena for the first time, I think there’s something valuable in telling that story. Lesnar should beat him down, and convincingly so to the point that Cena should quit. However, this entire spectrum of wrestling we watch is built on emotion and believing the impossible, and I think an overmatched Cena toppling Lesnar is a lasting memory that can be appreciated. If that’s where we end up and the point of Cena’s 2025 is the journey whereby he returned, lost himself, learned his own lessons and wishes to teach the youth of the WWE Universe (paid roster members or fans alike) from his errors, that at least holds some merit for a retirement tour that has been hit and miss.
Sometimes the ending is all that matters. If Cena rides off with his head held up knowing he gave every piece of his heart to the company’s fans, and maybe set a pathological knob on the right path along the way, then perhaps we’ll be able to look back and accept the imperfectness of his retirement tour for what it was — a flawed run, that overall had more positives then negatives.
Whatever narrative Cena tells us over the last 8 dates of his wrestling career, he’s earned the right to write his last chapter his way. It might not be perfect with a neat bow tying it together following his final curtain, but Cena has frankly never been perfect. He’s always been a grounded character whether you liked him, hated him, loved him or wished he would go away. Regardless of that response from us, he was consistently authentic.
There are plenty of labels we can attribute to Cena. Some could call him hero, a role model, a teacher, or a rapper with a doctorate who wears colourful gear and often “sucks” in the ring. No matter the designation, the value in him being present for so long is that he’s taught us it’s OK to be who you are unapologetically, to make mistakes and learn from them, and above all the value in passing on what we’ve learned so the future can be made into the best version of itself.
