The True Story Behind John Cena's WWE Heel Turn

The closest we ever came to seeing Big Bad John before Sunday night was way back in 2011. News of a new WWE trademark circulated, protecting the phrase 'Fear my name'. Nothing sprung from this, but rumours began that it applied to Cena, who Vince McMahon was prepping for a turn. Apparently, attire bearing the slogan had even been manufactured - as later confirmed by an episode of Total Divas, during which John had then-belle Nikki Bella in stitches with the get-up. Cena later corroborated the story during a WWE Network podcast opposite Chris Jericho, telling Y2J that turning heel would have supplemented his feud with The Rock.

Vince McMahon's change of heart on the change of character occurred when the penny dropped on just how many pennies he'd be dropped by doing so. As the Wrestling Observer's Dave Meltzer tells the story, McMahon decided at the 11th hour that the idea was "f*cking stupid", and promptly declared there and then that Cena would be babyface forever. Period.

The irony of Bray Wyatt's nWo rib is that the decision, ultimately, was never John's. The delicious truth, to the chagrin of fans who once bayed for his blood, is that turning heel has long been an ambition of his. Whilst promoting his latest Hollywood action vehicle Bumblebee in 2018, Cena - playing a rotter in the flick - admitted he'd love to have played a rotter in the ring. "There are creative feelings inside me that would like to be a bad guy on WWE, but that ain't gonna happen because that's not my job," he told Chris Van Vliet. "My job is to be who I am, and that comes from Vince."

Maybe that was the point of the final part of this little sketch, which saw a marionette of WWE's chairman wryly describe Hollywood Cena's emergence as "such good sh*t". Had this ever actually happened, it's like McMahon, aghast at the hole in his bank balance, would have dropped the superlative.