WWE Legend Claims John Cena Going Heel Was Big Miss In 2025
This former WWE Hardcore Champion expressed his disappointment with John Cena’s 2025 heel turn.
John Cena’s retirement tour in 2025 was polarising to say the least, with the majority of fans and critics feeling like it was a missed opportunity by WWE to give a proper send-off to one of the company’s biggest stars.
It began when Cena announced his retirement at Money In The Bank 2025.
He turned heel after winning the Elimination Chamber match at the namesake PLE and earning a WWE Championship title shot. Cena viciously attacked WWE Champion Cody Rhodes after the match, with involvement from WWE Legend The Rock and musician Travis Scott. In storyline, Cena “sold his soul” to The Final Boss to turn heel and turn on the fans the following week on Raw, criticizing them for not always being by his side despite him giving them his all.
The move turned a lot of heads, and many tuned in to watch wrestling again to experience The Champ’s first proper heel run since his Doctor Of Thuganomics rapper heel character in the mid-2000s.
However, WWE failed to capitalise on it and turned him babyface again at SummerSlam 2025 after Cena apologised to the fans.
The retirement tour ended with Cena losing his final match to Gunther via tap out, which enraged fans and critics further because the man who preached never give up for over 20 years gave up.
Tommy Dreamer Calls John Cena’s Heel Turn The Biggest Missed Opportunity.
WWE hardcore legend Tommy Dreamer also felt that John Cena’s retirement tour was one of the biggest missed opportunities in wrestling history. He said it was second only to The Undertaker’s WrestleMania winning streak ending at the hands of Brock Lesnar, which was also widely criticized for being a shock moment and not making logical sense.
Speaking to Busted Open Radio alongside AEW’s Thunder Rosa. dreamer said
I thought, probably money-wise, merch-wise, it didn’t make a difference, but I would talk about the John Cena heel turn, which was perhaps the biggest miss of 2025. Maybe the biggest miss in WWE history, for some.
For me, it’s number two in the misses of WWE, where the Undertaker losing at WrestleMania would be number one. And then this would be number two.
Dreamer went on to say that he knew WWE would turn Cena babyface before he retired, but still considered the whole thing a blemish that could have been avoided.
I feel it’s a blemish. It’s an asterisk. You know me, and I know you, we love real sports, it’s an asterisk on your career, a blemish that didn’t need to happen, right?
h/t:wrestlinginc.com