How John Cena Blocked Cody Rhodes’ WWE Heel Turn
John Cena and Cody Rhodes faced each other on night two of SummerSlam 2025.
The attendance for the second night at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, was 60,000+. Performing in front of such a big crowd can be overwhelming, even for veteran stars like Rhodes. Luckily, he had the legendary John Cena with him in the ring, who helped him avoid a big mistake.
WWE Unreal Season 2, released on January 20, features Rhodes and Cena’s storyline. During one of the episodes, Rhodes revealed that while fighting Cena in the ring at SummerSlam, he was about to turn heel.
John Cena To Cody Rhodes: “Be Yourself”
While the crowd was loudly booing him, he found himself experiencing a strong emotional response. He had a strong urge to attack Cena “with malice.” But Cena caught his feelings and guided him to be himself, urging him to maintain his heroic babyface character and not let his emotions override him.
I will tell you something that John Cena told me in the ring that I’ll never forget. They were booing. This was right before I stomped on his ankle. And he just looked up and said, be yourself. This is very John, because the moment was there to be a bad guy, to beat him up with malice, to beat him up and be that heel.
John can figure that out and realize, no, just be yourself. Because the story that we wanted to tell was two characters being virtuous, let them go through absolute hell, knowing I’m not going to stab you in the back, but I will stab you in the front.
In the new season, Rhodes also talked about his WrestleMania 41 clash with John Cena. He revealed that he didn’t like how his Mania clash with Cena ended.
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