John Cena Subtly Addresses Travis Scott’s WWE Controversy

John Cena’s retirement tour saw guest appearances from the famous rapper Travis Scott in important moments

John Cena’s Retirement Tour in 2025 saw Travis Scott make his first WWE appearance at Elimination Chamber 2025, where he sided with The GOAT and The Rock to take out Cody Rhodes, effectively completing John Cena’s shocking, much-debated heel turn.

He then reappeared, much to many fans’ dismay, at WrestleMania 41, where he helped Cena defeat The American Nightmare to win the WWE Undisputed Championship. WWE, at the time, had big plans for Scott, but because he reportedly struggled to adapt to the demands of WWE, he later vanished, making his partial involvement controversial.

The John Cena heel turn angle was later dropped in August when, in an episode of SmackDown, The Champ apologised to the fans, saying that he had realised his mistakes in the past 5 months and was abandoned by The Rock and Travis Scott before turning face again for the remainder of his run.

John Cena Hints At Possible Reason For Travis Scott’s Sudden Disappearance from WWE TV.

Speaking to Cody Rhodes on his “What Do You Wanna Talk About” podcast in the latest episode, Cena states that changes in creative are probably one of the reasons behind the Travis Scott controversy. He also alludes to the fact that the nature of the business and creative has changed multiple times during his tenure.

What I love about the past year is so many people have been critical about so many moments and blamed it on this fictitious book or like creative direction. This always happens. I never..what a f**ckin’ ironic statement to make. I never speak in absolutes. I rarely speak in absolutes. In my 23 years of time under tension, creative has changed so many times. That is the nature of the business. It is also ok for us to say we have a lot of eyes, we wanna make a moment. because we don’t know. And I say we as if i’m involved in this creative body but I feel as if I am.

Cena went on to say how WWE has always “meshed worlds” which seemingly means that celebrities and people from outside of wrestling have made appearances in the WWE in the past (Donald Trump, David Arquette) and while some of them worked, others did not. But they always had to try. He gave the example of musicians Cyndi Lauper and Liberace’s involvement with the company in the 80’s. And while WWE had similar plans for Travis Scott, things didn’t turn out as planned.

You can’t tell if someone’s gonna run with it. But you gotta give ‘em a chance. You’ve got to. We have an opportunity to mesh worlds and gosh we’ve been doing that forever since Cindy Lauper and Liberace. And sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t Annd i’m not gonna beat up a tree about like well what was your why? Why did you not continue being on my favorite program? Maybe it’s just cuz you had life. And thats ok.

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Also read: John Cena Admits WWE Fans Didn’t Necessarily Get His Retirement Tour