Matt Hardy comments on whether WWE should have turned John Cena heel.
Cena was the face of WWE for several years, starting with his first world title win at WrestleMania 21 in 2005. He went on 15 more world championships, and he was consistently featured at or near the main event scene. In recent years, Cena has become a part-time star as he has started building a prominent career in Hollywood. At his peak, some fans turned on Cena because he was an ultimate babyface, and he never wavered, whereas other stars often turn heel to freshen up their character.
Speaking on The Extreme Life of Matt Hardy podcast, the veteran shared his thoughts on Cena's lack of a heel turn during his run as a top star. He noted that it might have helped Cena in the long run, but the company likely wanted to keep him as a face so he could keep doing his work with the Make-A-Wish Foundation, among other responsibilities he had as the face of WWE.
"There's some times in WWE where those decisions are made because the real person is just such a tremendous asset to the company in so many ways. That's probably why they would never pull the trigger on it. I mean, would it have helped him in the long run? I think so. I think it would have, but I just feel like all the Make-A-Wishes, all the appearances, all the charity stuff he did, they just they wanted to keep him in that role. So that's why they kept him in that same position, kind of like on cruise control," Hardy said.
Cena recently returned to the ring on the December 30 episode of WWE SmackDown. There, he teamed up with Kevin Owens to defeat Undisputed WWE Universal Champion Roman Reigns and Sami Zayn.
On the same podcast, Hardy stated that it'd be fun to have a match in his "Broken Matt" persona against Cena. Check out his comments here.
Hardy also commented on Mercedes Mone's potential AEW debut, Click here to see what he had to say.
If you use any of the quotes above, please credit the original source with a h/t and link back to Fightful for the transcription.