The heel turn of John Cena was always the great big “what if” of the WWE landscape. It was the thing the WWE devotees wanted to see from a character that had become terribly straight-forward, straight-laced, and tonally bland.
Hustle. Loyalty. Respect. The catchphrase and everything that comes with it.
We all got it, and for some above a certain age range it was boring. And while kids cheered their hero, for the rest of us, there was always that “what if.” What if the company actually pulled the trigger on turning Cena heel. For some reason or another it never came to pass. Perhaps it was never truly the right time, or maybe it all came down to the dollars, cents and sense in terms of what any move means financially.
While this might have been true of the perennial WWE babyface in the past, what Cena’s retirement tour has done is open the floodgates of possibility. With nothing to lose and the company going full tilt on the move, the Cena turn is one of the more interesting pieces of short term storytelling the company has done in some time (stressing short term, excluding the years-long Bloodline story). Just from a conceptual standpoint, the prospect of flipping Cena against the babyfaces of the day is enough to grab attention. Doing that in conjunction with how it was executed and what resulted at WrestleMania, this Cena story is the most relevant he has been on WWE television in years.
Cena’s merchandise sales have been strong, dominating the WWE Shop sales chart almost from the point of his turn. However from a content perspective, if you go back as far as the week before WrestleMania signs of classic WWE tropes began to arise. For example, Cody Rhodes got the upper hand on Cena multiple times leading into their match at WrestleMania. This indicated Cena was going to win. The same occurred with Randy Orton, who also continually got one up on Cena leading up to their title clash. Cena defeated Orton as well. Although some of the details are obviously specific to this story, the pathway to the result has incorporated the same story beats Vince McMahon used, and that is startlingly unoriginal.
Other than that initial first month or so, in my view the arc has been stumbling and is getting more contrived. I’d also not be upset if I never saw Travis Scott again. For example, this past Friday on Smackdown Cena launched into a diatribe about how every moment of the last 6 months has been foreseen, accounted for and predicted by Cena as though he has been a mustachioed super villain for the last 25 years. His promo implausibly made it sound like he has been disingenuously portraying a face the whole time, and in the last year orchestrated every detail of his swan song.
That proclamation includes Rhodes taking his eye off the ball, Orton choking in his hometown, Punk and Rollins imploding at Elimination Chamber and now CM Punk proving himself a hypocrite in accepting a match in Saudi Arabia against him with a nod and a wink toward comments he made in AEW. The question we need to ask ourselves as viewers is how believable we find that statement.
In one respect we can argue that lately this story has been playing up the longstanding perception that Cena was a politicking super genius who buried other people’s careers while playing 4-D chess. I think we can agree what we have been seeing on TV is an amplified version of reality. However, accepting that also requires that we accept the entirety of the last decade of his wrestling career has been all smiles through gritted teeth. That perception betrays what we’ve seen unless the good guy schtick and presentation during his one-off appearances has been part of the lie, and that needs us to believe the whole thing has been planned… which it has not.
Let’s be realistic with each other. Are we wrestlers? Probably not. Do we consume the content? Yes. Are we experts in the wrestling business? Certainly not. However, the longstanding WWE-led trope that fans don’t understand basic storytelling, can’t criticize the plot points where it’s due and should altogether shut up and enjoy the show “just because” is laughably absurd.
Bad wrestling storytelling is bad regardless of whether it’s unrealistic Cena-based comments, the House of Torture nonsense in NJPW this past weekend, or any dumb thing AEW has done in its history. They all insult our intelligence in varying degrees and we should have that right to sit here with a platform and comment section as viewers to discuss what we don’t like, enjoy, or even how something can be made better. Understanding story doesn’t hinge on expertise in one realm, but that comes from writing, reading books, watching film and TV, playing story-based video games or even something like playing roleplay-type games like Dungeons and Dragons.
Content consumption and marriage to something like wanting to watch weekly programming, or paying subscription fees gives us the right as consumers to criticize what we consume. That’s why we have product reviews on digital storefronts like Amazon, or why reviews as a whole have a place in our consumer culture. We respect each other’s opinions up to a point and take stock in other’s experiences. So why should that necessarily exclude us from being critical of pro wrestling storytelling like it seems Triple H would prefer us to do based on past comments and the general tone of his reaction to a question following R-Truth’s return at Money in the Bank.
Believability is paramount, and too much of Cena’s final arc has felt inorganic over the last few weeks. It feels less grounded and more like he’s become a Watchmen-like grey area villain like Ozymandias who executes his master plan in the waning moments of the comic and reveals his plot only because the heroes can do nothing to stop him. The conclusion is inevitable. Cena’s arc has been at its best when it was honest and rooted in the reality of his thoughts and sentiments relating back to us and how we mistreated him. Now, the most organic element of this story has become the company’s legitimate release of R-Truth and his return as Ron “The Truth” Killings. It’s almost the most unplanned element of the story and one I hoped would have been touched on naturally.
Killings as a key character in Cena’s final act was something I wanted to see, however the route was not exact but was equally steeped in legitimacy you can’t manufacture. There are obvious examples in the past where firings/rehirings were legitimate, such as the Matt Hardy and Edge angle, but this is different in that Killings was in effect told he was not needed, it angered seemingly everyone in the WWE sphere and they were forced to rehire him to continue the angle. That is evident no matter how much Triple H wants to arrogantly portray it as otherwise.
“Truth” as an ex-factor makes this leg of the Cena arc more interesting, especially when Rhodes, Orton and Punk are all coming off as morally compromised goofs, or just egocentric idiots playing the wrong board games with Mr. Unseen 17. Killings brings an authenticity to the story you can’t fake, and where the latter three come off as forced right now or are simply hypocrites, Killings brings honesty and anger. He has been the joke, he has been the afterthought, and he has been overlooked despite being a great storyteller and former world champion in his own right. He is arguably a perfect contrast to Cena; where Cena has been given everything, Killings has been relegated to only a comedy act when he’s capable of more.
Killings’ return is precisely the injection Cena’s story needs in the interim. It can feed into his match with Punk, and it can be done in such a way that its emotional ripeness builds Killings up to be a thorn in Cena’s side until the end of this run even after losing their upcoming match. And for a run that has been stumbling, reinserting Killings gives its authenticity a shot in the arm. While Cena can plan to his devilish heart’s content, Killings is an unknown factor that was unintended. Killings brings an element that grounds the story in reality because this revised version of Killings is a byproduct of the reality surrounding his dismissal combined with Cena’s view of him being a throwaway side character.
Where the story can wade into waters where it colours by the numbers, something naturally occurring like this brings character to the subplots of Cena’s bigger plotline toward the end of 2025. Truth will not win the WWE title, but he can be a pain in Cena’s backside the rest of the run, and that element alone adds to what is actually planned.
Killings as a running thread through the back end of the story can be just what it needs to keep Cena’s villain arc away from moustache twirling and more grounded and honest. Where Cena now plays the part of the tired “I’m smarter than all you idiots” card, Killings can be the character that proves Cena isn’t as smart as he thinks. This paves the way for the one who will dethrone Cena to prevent the prophecy of “The Last Real Champion.”
