How Good Was John Cena Actually?
Range
John Cena’s profoundly ill-fated heel turn exposed, brutally, his lack of range. This was illustrated when Cena first went face-to-face with Cody Rhodes ahead of their match at WrestleMania 41.
Cena said that Cody was a generic mix of every superstar that he’d ever liked, and came off like a 16 year-old taking acting classes who was afraid of public speaking. In response, Cody said that John Cena hangs around with Zac Effron and wishes he was 16 years old.
How was Cody Rhodes afraid of public speaking? Seriously: the guy was the WWE Champion, entrusted to open WWE TV shows constantly, and the consensus is that he was/is one of the best talkers of his generation. It was actually the last thing you’d use as ammunition with which to fire shots at Cody. And it’s not as if Cody was a compelling promo who was prone to flubs. Bret Hart was that guy: an impeccable pro who presented himself as clean-cut athlete who wouldn’t take any sh*t. He was also, until 1997, anyway, a decent talker who lacked composure. Cody was outright brilliant at the art of public speaking.
This Cody/Cena face-off was all very baffling. Cena’s stuff often was; his aim was to make the crowds gasp at the things he supposedly isn’t allowed to say, but he’d often spout pure nonsense to get there. Cena has a weird brain generally - look at his tweets, watch his press interviews - which doesn’t help.
As this scene unfolded, the fans volleyed chants of “Let’s go Cena / Cena sucks!”
Worked shoot lines designed for empty pops against the backdrop of a split crowd: while Cena was nominally the heel here, literally everything about this was indistinguishable from his key segments as the top babyface in the company. In Cena’s defence, when he first played heel, he was green. When he last played heel, he was washed-up. He spent the vast majority of his time in the ring playing a babyface.
He was still a rubbish heel.
It’s barely worth discussing his in-ring work as the ‘Doctor of Thuganomics’, certainly in the context of a wrestler’s G.O.A.T. case. It was green, early career stuff. As a heel in 2025, Cena was actively atrocious. His performances were oddly joyless. He didn’t receive the heel turn as an opportunity to unleash years of creative stagnation. He went the “methodical” route, which was always a euphemism for boring, and wasn’t good at getting his ass kicked. Cena lacked the athleticism to execute WWE’s bump-and-feed formula, often falling gingerly on his ass at half-speed.
Cena could do trad babyface incredibly well on his best days, and big match drama even on his worst. That’s about it.
5,5/10