John Cena Makes Honest Cofession About WWE CCO Triple H
Throughout his two-decade-long WWE stint, John Cena has seen Paul “Triple H” Levesque wear different hats.
When Cena debuted in the company in 2002, Levesque was already an established superstar and a multi-time World Heavyweight Champion.
In fact, they would not wrestle on television officially until early 2006, despite competing in dark matches throughout 2005.
At WrestleMania 22, John Cena defeated Triple H to retain his World Heavyweight Championship. He would again retain his title at Backlash, this time against Levesque and Edge in a Triple Threat match.
Their rivalry was a way to build Cena as a top star, who was even touted as the face of the company, which he eventually became.
Their core feud took place between 2006 and 2008, following which other wrestlers were thrown in their midst as well.
In the early 2010s, Levesque took a backstage role, even overseeing the Talent Development department. He produced episodes for NXT from 2014 to 2021. Cena, meanwhile, became a part-time performer starting in 2017.
Levesque officially took over WWE’s creative reins from Vince McMahon in September 2022, thus becoming the Chief Content Officer, a post that he holds to this day.
On Episode 2 of WWE: Unreal Season 3, John Cena spoke about Triple H’s current role in the company, stating that he was doing an excellent job and was a good collaborator.
Paul’s great, and he’s great to work with. He’s a great collaborator. He allows freedom to paint, but no BS. Heavy is the head that wears the crown. [57:03 onwards]
John Cena Recalls Triple H Changing Match Finish
One of the things WWE: Unreal does well is walk viewers through the creative process and explore discussions behind storylines that may or may not work.
John Cena turned heel at the 2025 Elimination Chamber. He explained his actions, saying that he was the last of the veterans in the company and did not like the new talents.
In one of his promos, he vowed to ‘ruin wrestling,’ which he later defined as ‘winning the WWE championship with methodical and catastrophically boring work.
Some of his subsequent matches were criticized for being boring and not having clean finishes, again, something he claimed was the objective.
Episode 1 of the docuseries shows Triple H revealing to his creative team that John Cena had proposed a count-out finish to one of his title defenses.
In response, Levesque explained to him that that would draw too much heat and not as much on Cena as much as on the company.
Then it was explained to me that was too boring. Like, that was too bad. I think people are going to stop coming!
The perspective was ‘Hey, this isn’t heat on you, this is heat on the company.
Since calling a day on his in-ring career at Saturday Night’s Main Event, Cena has remained with WWE in backstage roles and even made appearances at WrestleMania 42 and Backlash.