9 Ups & 11 Downs For WWE In 2025

Downs…

11. John Cena's Heel Run

Already held aloft as one of the single biggest busts in WWE history, the John Cena heel run saw approximately 50% of a celebratory year squandered thanks to the company's inability to effectively follow up on an all-timer moment The Rock had an unquenchable thirst for.

It's well-trodden ground at this point and the babyface turn halfway through the year has only exposed just how bad the creative was, but to recap one last time in 2025; Dwayne Johnson turned back up in February, allegedly at the behest of WWE higher-ups to flog some tickets for Elimination Chamber, and did so with the pitch of wanting Cody Rhodes to turn heel and align with him ahead of...something at WrestleMania. Rhodes rejected it, the rejection was supported by anybody who had enough stroke to stop The Rock, and Cena's switch was an amazingly well-executed Plan B.

Wrestling works best when it convinces you a certain destination is the end of the world, only to then make you feel like you need to tune into the next show for the real end of the world. And on it theoretically loops. John Cena's turn was an immaculate example of the former but disaster in terms of the latter. Whether down to the never-ending political turf war between Johnson and Paul Levesque, or because Levesque and team didn't like the challenge placed in their laps once the deed was done, Cena's heel character changed shape during just about every appearance.

Amidst transparent PR firefighting, he was angry psychopath against R-Truth, clown buffoon against Randy Orton the next, above-it-all weirdo against CM Punk and a bad actor with it every single time. Feuds became badly, badly bogged down by bad bad feeling, none more so than the one required to give Cena an all-time 'Show Of Shows' sendoff...