WWE: John Cena Confirms Vince McMahon Considered Turning Him Heel During His Feud With The Rock

By Connor Casey

WWE fans yearned for John Cena to turn heel for nearly a decade during his run as the top star in the company, but the 16-time world champion always turned the other cheek no matter how much the fans booed him or how badly his fellow wrestlers coerced him. However, there have been rumors over the years that WWE considered pulling the trigger on a heel turn back in 2011 when Cena was in his multi-year feud with Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. While on The Pat McAfee Show on Tuesday, Cena finally opened up about what the initial plans were. 

"I remember Vince toyed with the idea of possibly turning me heel for (the first WrestleMania match with The Rock) in Miami. And I told him, 'No problem, I understand, I'll do it. Just remember that we are so deep in at this point that we can't do it and then jump back because we'll be sunk at both ends.' So if we do it, I have to be the opposite of virtue, I have to be pure evil and we go all in,'" Cena said. "And from a believability standpoint, people always see me in uniform... because I want people to know that what they see is somebody they can relate to. He decided against it and at that point he said, 'Listen, I don't think we're ever going to do it.' So you have the luxury of playing this character, but you always are going play this character. Which is great because it got me to dive into nuances that got to spawn the creation of like the Firefly Fun House match where I was like, 'what if I have a meta experience through all of my flaws, all my timeline?' and do stuff like that."

The aforementioned Firefly Fun House Match at WrestleMania 36 saw Cena relive the greatest failures of his career while Bray Wyatt personified all the criticisms that had been hurled his way over the years. It eventually ended with Cena snapping (effectively turning heel), only for Wyatt to nail him with a Sister Abigail, win the match and cause him to disappear. He wouldn't return until July of last year for a program with Roman Reigns, culminating in "The Tribal Chief" beating him at SummerSlam to retain the WWE Universal Championship.

Should WWE have gone ahead and turned Cena heel at some point? Or did their decision work out in the end? Let us know your thoughts down in the comments! 

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