JBL says it was the right call.
John Cena was the face of WWE for years, and some fans turned on him, as he often drew plenty of boos. Still, throughout his road to winning 16 world titles, Cena never turned heel, though many often speculated that it could have been a great progression.
Speaking on Something To Wrestle, JBL commented on John Cena never turning heel, as co-host Conrad Thompson noted that Cena sold a lot of merchandise, so turning him could have been detrimental.
“Those guys that were in that era, they owe Cena a lot, like their cars, their homes, their retirement [laughs] and all kinds of shit. Just like we owed Steve [Austin] in the Attitude Era, and all those guys that were on top. Cena sold so much merch. I was in so many creative meetings, the commentators used to be in the creative meetings on the day of, not the original creative meetings, and I’d see so many guys, you could see a new writer come in who’s very ambitious, it’s not gonna be a few weeks before he pitches the idea of turning Cena heel [laughs], every single one of them would come up with it. Vince [McMahon] was like, ‘No, he sells all our merchandise. What are we gonna do?’ It was the right decision. In hindsight, it was 100% the right decision not to turn Cena heel," JBL said.
In 2025, Cena will go on his retirement tour, starting with the WWE Raw on Netflix premiere.
Cena has said that being a heel goes against what he values. Check out his comments here.
Cena previously said that there was another decade's worth of stories in a possible heel turn. Click here to see what he had to say.
Check out Cena's comments about how he was once supposed to turn heel here.
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