10 Times Babyface John Cena Was A Heel

After 22 years on the light side, John Cena did the unthinkable and turned heel at WWE Elimination Chamber 2025, attacking Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes and aligning with The Rock. 

Despite being a babyface for much of his WWE run, that doesn’t mean John Cena always acted with ‘Hustle, Loyalty, Respect’ towards his opponents and friends on WWE programming. 

This is 10 Times Babyface John Cena Was a Heel.

10. Showing Up Roman Reigns ahead of No Mercy 2017

Heading into their first-time singles match at No Mercy 2017, it was obvious that WWE saw Roman Reigns as the man to replace John Cena as the long-term face of the company.

The all-babyface affair was viewed by many as a potential ‘passing of the torch’ moment, where part-time Cena would endorse and then do the honours for The Big Dog in a highly respectful manner. That isn’t exactly how the feud played out, though, as Cena absolutely blistered Reigns on the microphone during their contract signing on the August 28 episode of Monday Night Raw. 

Cena called Reigns a ‘cheap-ass, corporately-created John Cena bootleg’, while completely laughing off and no-selling any retort that Roman could muster. He even got a shot in on The Undertaker, referring to him as a ‘battered veteran at the end of his career with a bad hip’ in warning Reigns that he’d be a tougher task than what he’d faced in the main event of WrestleMania 33.

The worked-shoot segment certainly drummed up interest in the No Mercy match, but Cena heelishly made Roman look less than his equal in doing so.

Reigns, of course, defeated Cena at No Mercy 2017 in a match that didn’t quite reach the heights it was expected to. It would take until Reigns turned heel for him and Cena to have a very good match at SummerSlam 2021.  

9. The Firefly Funhouse

The COVID-19 pandemic completely threw the original plans for WrestleMania 36 out of the window and forced WWE to get creative. Beyond the Boneyard Match, one of the most novel things to take place across the two-day presentation was the Firefly Funhouse Match between John Cena and Bray Wyatt. 

More of a mind-bending performance art piece than an actual wrestling contest, the Firefly Funhouse saw The Eater of Worlds take Cena on a journey through different stages of his career, as well as an alternate reality where Cena was a member of the New World Order, which included Cena waltzing out in the black-and-white attire like Hollywood Hogan and giving Bray the ‘too sweet’ in the middle of the ring. 

The Firefly Funhouse also showed Cena in other situations where he displayed heelish tendencies, like when he became The Doctor of Thuganomics again, and a moment where Cena tried to bash Wyatt’s face in with an unprotected chair shot, before Bray vanished into thin air.

This all led to Cena falling victim to The Fiend and disappearing until his re-emergence at Money in the Bank 2021. 

8. Stealing Zack Ryder's Girlfriend

Everything was going well for Zack Ryder at the beginning of 2012. He was super over, thanks mainly to his own online efforts, he’d won the United States Championship at TLC 2011, he was courting Eve Torres, and he had become best friends with John Cena. 

Unfortunately for Long Island Iced Z, his fortunes began to change when the newly-masked-again Kane started attacking him and Torres, with supposed friend Cena unable to prevent the beatdowns on Zack.

Kane's attacks left Ryder wheelchair-bound but, fortunately, Cena was able to make the save for Eve Torres, although he didn't exactly do it for Ryder's benefit. On the day before Valentine’s Day 2012, Cena came to Eve's rescue, saving her from being driven away in an ambulance by Kane. Cena then planted his lips on hers as a heartbroken Zack literally sat and watched him do it.

Ryder was understandably annoyed at supposed good guy Cena stealing his woman away, though John professed his innocence in a segment later on that episode of Raw. Cena then did absolutely nothing to prevent Kane from pushing Ryder off the Raw stage as Big Match John just stood in the ring and watched The Big Red Machine do the deed, ‘bringing medical help’ to Ryder after he had been left in a heap.

7. Attacking His Opponents After Winning I Quit Matches

One of John Cena’s mantras throughout his career has been ‘Never Give Up’ and he has certainly lived up to that mentality when it comes to I Quit matches, of which Cena has a perfect 5-0 record. 

Cena’s conduct during his I Quit matches is becoming of a valiant babyface, but sometimes his conduct in the immediate aftermath has been questionable. At Judgment Day 2005, for example, a bloodied Cena survived a vicious onslaught by JBL to retain his WWE Title when the tall Texan begged off as Cena was about to blast him with a giant exhaust pipe. 

Cena could have just walked away with his head held high after an exhausting struggle, but the champion had other ideas and smashed JBL with it anyway, sending him through a sheet of glass that formed part of the set.

Five years later, Cena attacked his opponent after the match once again, drilling Batista with an elevated AA through the stage at Over The Limit 2010 after Batista had quit, with the resulting injuries forcing The Animal into (kayfabe) retirement.

6. Losing His Head At ECW One Night Stand 2006

By the time John Cena walked into the Hammerstein Ballroom to defend his WWE Title against Rob Van Dam at ECW One Night Stand 2006, he was already starting to experience the boos that would form part of the negative reaction he’d continue to receive for the rest of his full-time career. 

One Night Stand was something else entirely, though, and Cena found himself entering a cauldron populated by fans who hated everything he stood for and threatened to riot if he walked out with the title. This extended to ‘You Can’t Wrestle’ chants and Cena couldn’t even get rid of his trademark towel as it was repeatedly thrown back to him before the match.

The visceral response to him threw Cena off his game in storyline, because he did something very out-of-character towards the end of the match. Cena had RVD trapped in the STFU when Van Dam made it to the ropes and the referee called for John to break the hold. Cena, perhaps justifiably, was irked by this, since it was an Extreme Rules match and rope breaks shouldn’t have counted.

The referee practically manhandled Cena to get him to break the hold, dragging the WWE Champion off Rob Van Dam. This led to a brief verbal argument which quickly turned physical after Cena pushed the official. After the referee retaliated with a push of his own, Cena handled his frustration in a very heelish manner, decking the official with a clothesline. 

This would ultimately lead to Cena’s downfall as Edge in a bike helmet speared him through a table. One Five Star Frog Splash and a Paul Heyman pinfall count later and RVD was the WWE Champion. 

5. Attacking Todd Grisham

The day after losing the triple-threat match main event of Cyber Sunday 2006 thanks to Kevin Federline, John Cena was given the night off by temporary Raw General Manager Eric Bischoff. There couldn’t be a single episode of WWE’s flagship show without Cena on it, though, so the WWE Champion showed up and cut a promo about how nothing made any sense, including Bischoff as GM and Kevin Federline challenging him to a match. 

WWE interviewer Todd Grisham wanted to grab a word with Cena who, out of nowhere, accused Todd of taking "naked pictures" of himself for his MySpace account. Not content with that little bit of light-hearted ribbing, Cena surmised that Todd was in the ring because he "wanted a fight" and proceeded to lift him up and deliver an emphatic FU in an unprovoked attack as Jim Ross shouted "John no!" on commentary. 

Cena then told Eric Bischoff to "f*ck off" to end the promo because the man just absolutely loves being at work. 

4. Humiliating Michael Cole & John Laurinaitis

Fans absolutely despised Michael Cole and John Laurinaitis in 2012 as they were both beyond grating as a heel announcer and authority figure, respectively. Someone needed to take them down a peg and that person was, of course, John Felix Anthony Cena. Within two weeks, Cena humiliated Cole and Johnny Ace so badly that, by rights, they should have never shown their faces in public again.

At Over the Limit 2012, Cena clashed with the tyrannical Raw GM in the show’s main event. Laurinaitis knew he was out of his element and attempted to run away, which is when Cena decided to torture the former All-Japan standout for what felt like an eternity before Big Show turned heel again and gave Laurinaitis the cheap win. Cena would then torture Laurinaitis some more at No Way Out, putting him through the announce table after Cena defeated Big Show in a Steel Cage Match to cost Johnny Ace his job. 

Cena set his sights on Cole on the June 4, 2012 episode of Monday Night Raw as he looked to exact some measure of revenge for all of Cole’s antics over the previous two years. Cena’s anger boiled over after Cole put his hands on him but like a big bully, Cena battered the weaker man around the squared circle before stripping him down to his boxer shorts and placing him in a rear-naked choke while he forced Cole to apologise to Jerry Lawler and Jim Ross as The King laughed along from the announce table.

Cena then smothered Cole in JR’s BBQ sauce and sprayed him with a fire extinguisher before Cole almost won courtesy of interference from Lord Tensai. Cole, still covered in BBQ sauce, then tried to hit Cena with the fire extinguisher before he ran straight into an AA from Big Match John, who scored the win.

John Laurinaitis, of course, deserves little sympathy today based on the allegations made against him by Janel Grant. Michael Cole, on the other hand, has cemented himself as a WWE legend and rose to popularity again after receiving much praise for the manner in which he handled Jerry Lawler’s on-air heart attack later in 2012. 

3. Burying Wade Barrett's Main Event Aspirations Under A Pile Of Chairs

Super Cena certainly became a heel to anyone interested in the booking of pro wrestling when he shrugged off a DDT on the concrete floor prior to eliminating Justin Gabriel and Wade Barrett in the Nexus vs. Team WWE headliner at SummerSlam 2010. 

Yet despite clearly showing how much better he was than the band of renegade rookies, the leader of the Cenation continued to feud with Nexus for the rest of the year. It all led to TLC 2010 and a Chairs Match main event between Nexus leader Wade Barrett and Cena.

In it, Cena caught and compromised Wade’s main event aspirations to a permanent end when he handily beat him thanks to an AA on a row of chairs. Instead of simply walking away after the win, Cena beat Barrett up some more while he was literally crawling away from the ring and buried him under a pallet before raining down chairs on the poor Preston North End fan.

2. Abandoning And Sneak Attacking The Rock

In the closing segment of the go-home edition of Raw before WrestleMania XXVII, WWE Champion The Miz – who was flanked by Alex Riley – had a verbal showdown with 'Mania opponent John Cena and the show’s host The Rock, cutting a promo on both men.

As Miz was threatening to beat up The Great One, Cena slid out of the ring, leaving The Rock at a 2-on-1 disadvantage for when Riley got a cheap shot in and the beating commenced proper. 

Unsurprisingly, Dwayne Johnson made his own comeback by canning both Riley and Miz, at which point Cena slid back into the ring, snuck up behind The Rock, and hit him with an AA before taunting him with a ‘You Can’t See Me’. This was done to add intrigue heading into ‘Mania but it made Cena look anything but the valiant babyface and fans responded by booing him out of the building.

Some at the time speculated that this could have been the start of a John Cena heel turn, something that was initially planned for his programme with The Rock, only for WWE to scrap it.

1. Ruining Rey Mysterio's WWE Title Win

When CM Punk beat John Cena for the WWE Title at Money in the Bank 2011 and walked out of the company with the championship belt, Vince McMahon decided that he would crown a new champion via an eight-man tournament. 

After beating Dolph Ziggler in the quarter-finals and R-Truth in the semi-finals, Rey Mysterio won his first (and only) WWE Title by pinning The Miz in the final. It was a great and well-deserved moment for one of the most beloved WWE stars ever and fans were genuinely elated for the masked man. 

Cena even congratulated Mysterio backstage after the match but Rey’s night would be all downhill from here after new WWE Chief Operating Officer Triple H announced during his State of WWE Address that Mysterio would defend his WWE Title in the main event of Raw against…John Cena.

Did Cena protest this decision, knowing it would surely give him a tainted win over a Rey Mysterio who had already wrestled that night? Of course he didn’t. Cena just smelled gold and went for it, cleanly beating a fatigued Mysterio following an AA. Cena then quickly forgot all about Rey after the match as CM Punk made his return, with the two talents facing off with their respective WWE Title belts.