Steve Austin has explained why he thinks WWE shouldn’t have turned John Cena heel in 2025.
At Elimination Chamber in 2025, John Cena turned on Cody Rhodes to side with The Rock, turning heel for the first time in decades. While the moment will go down as one of the most shocking in WWE history, the execution of Cena’s heel run didn’t go down well with fans. This was largely because the fans who grew up watching the 17-time World Champion wanted to see him be the hero he had always been as he headed towards retirement.
In a new interview with Chris Van Vliet, WWE Hall of Famer Steve Austin gave his thoughts on John Cena’s turn, saying it was “ok,” but came too far into his career.
“Everybody — not everybody — a lot of people wanted to see at least one John Cena heel turn in his run. It was okay. It was okay, you know?
“I like him better as a babyface. I wanted to see him as a heel at some point during his career. The way that it was done — and I’m not knocking booking — just like, man, this far in? Forget about it. Just let him do his thing, f**king kids love that guy.”
Austin is no stranger to poorly received heel turns, having infamously joined forces with Vince McMahon back in 2001 to a mostly negative reaction. The Texas Rattlesnake touched on it during the interview, admitting that it just didn’t work.
“Nobody wanted me to turn heel, but I was just set on turning heel because I’ve always liked working heel so much. It didn’t work. It wasn’t successful. We got a chance to, you know, push the character in different directions and different dimensions. But I don’t think we were really ringing up the box office doing that.”
Steve Austin Believes He Could Wrestle Again, But Isn’t Looking To Return To The Ring
During the same interview, Steve Austin claimed he physically could have another match in him. However, while he would never say never, he isn’t advocating getting back in the ring. The Bionic Redneck is happy that he was able to finish his career where he started in Dallas when he took on Kevin Owens at WrestleMania 38.
H/T to WrestlingNews.co for the above transcription.
