10 Real-Life Wrestling Heels Who Turned Babyface
8. John Cena
Was a heel because...
He seemed to revel in undermining certain opponents he felt weren't on his level.
His matches all too often degenerated into farce when he transitioned into a comeback quicker than Masato Yoshino running the bastard ropes. Virtually everybody with a deep voice hated John Cena for almost a decade, and this sentiment was shared by more than a handful of those in the back. Tyler Reks and Alex Riley, to use just two examples, accused Cena of career sabotage, and they weren't even given the infamous verbal massacre treatment. Cena was a whiner in his programme with the Rock, and ultimately a hypocrite. Was almost impossibly homophobic in many of his freestyle rap segments. His childish sense of humour incited many an existential crisis within adult fans.
Turned babyface by...
Because wrestling fans, your writer included, are too quick to conflate the work with the performer, that blinding 2015 US Title run did brig into focus the whole "John Cena is a real hero we should cherish" thing. Cena did own up to the hypocrisy thing, but then he had to, because he followed the exact same career trajectory. When he cycled himself out, he did start putting people over.
Except Baron Corbin, whom he mercilessly killed, but that was probably for the best.