John Cena Recalls Conversation With Vince McMahon About Potentially Turning Heel

John Cena recently appeared on The Pat McAfee Show, and one of the topics he discussed was a conversation he had with Vince McMahon about a potential heel turn in WWE.

Cena revealed that Vince had brought up the possibility ahead of the WrestleMania 28 main event involving The Rock, with Cena making it clear how he would’ve wanted his character to be portrayed (via Fightful):

“I remember Vince toyed with the idea of turning me heel versus The Rock in Miami. I said, ‘No problem, I understand, I’ll do it. Just remember that we are so deep in at this point that we can’t do it and then jump back because we’ll be sunk at both ends.’ If we do it, I have to be the opposite of virtue, I have to be pure evil and we go all in.’ From a believability standpoint, people always see me in uniform because I want people to know that what they see is someone they can relate to. He decided against it and at that point he said, ‘I don’t think we’re ever going to do it.’ I have the luxury of playing this character, but I always play this character, which is great because it got me to dive into nuances like the Firefly Fun House match where I was like, ‘what if I have a meta experience through all of my flaws, all my timeline,’ and do stuff like that.”

Cena’s most recent match on WWE programming came at last year’s SummerSlam, where he lost to current Universal Champion Roman Reigns.