When will John Cena Turn Heel

["Cane Dewey" Johnson]

Why does 'heel' automatically equal 'be more edgy'? If you want to make sure that fans boo a heel John Cena, you take the things people already don't like about him (the shirts, the smugness, the inconsistency, the petulant humour) and push all those things to 11. Of course turning Cena into a badass heel would only make fans cheer for him again (which solves the problem of the split audience, a concept that I don't believe is the 'best of both worlds' as many people believe it is with Cena working as both a heel and a face simultaneously). You have to make Cena more unlikeable than he already is now. Doing a 180 turn with the character does not accomplish that.

And even then, you need to have a decent enough face to fill the void to counteract his heelishness. Right now, that guy is either Ryback or Sheamus, and they really don't cut it. I'd say Bryan, but his tweener status and business with Kane takes him away from being a mega-face.

Mind you, if there isn't a good enough face to fill the Cena void right now, that completely ignores the fact that there aren't any credible main-event heels for Cena to face after once's he's done with Ziggler and the Rock (and likely another rematch with Punk at Elimination Chamber).

[Deleted]

He was going to turn heel on Dec. 20, but he had to remain face to thwart the Mayan Apocalypse. The time wasn't right.

[onestepplan]

I can't see him not turning if he wrestles Rock again at Mania 29. The table is too perfectly set. He fought the Rock straight up and lost clean. That doesn't happen to Cena. Maybe this time, he takes a shortcut. If it doesn't happen then, then I doubt it ever will.

[SEAN CARLESS]

Jan 3, 2013 5:54:27 GMT -5 onestepplan said:

I can't see him not turning if he wrestles Rock again at Mania 29. The table is too perfectly set. He fought the Rock straight up and lost clean. That doesn't happen to Cena. Maybe this time, he takes a shortcut. If it doesn't happen then, then I doubt it ever will.

It should happen there. The two stories coming out of Mania should be Ryback winning the WWE title from Punk; and Cena turning heel on Rock, after cheating to win in the most cowardly fashion. That way you have a ready made program set up for down the road. If not, Cena will just beat Rock, get shit on by the whole crowd, and then come out the next night and do the same tired ass shit he always does on RAW as the show gets a 2.7. Rinse & repeat.

[g1megatronfan]

He's pretty much already a heel to those who are old enough to understand his actions and how he's such a jerk by doing them. He acts more heelish than most heels do really. He's a self-centered, arrogant and manipulative jerk.

As for when they make it official...when the kids wise up and see though his character...then they'll go ahead and turn him heel.

[BigWill]

Jan 2, 2013 18:13:36 GMT -5 "Cane Dewey" Johnson said:

Why does 'heel' automatically equal 'be more edgy'? If you want to make sure that fans boo a heel John Cena, you take the things people already don't like about him (the shirts, the smugness, the inconsistency, the petulant humour) and push all those things to 11. Of course turning Cena into a badass heel would only make fans cheer for him again (which solves the problem of the split audience, a concept that I don't believe is the 'best of both worlds' as many people believe it is with Cena working as both a heel and a face simultaneously). You have to make Cena more unlikeable than he already is now. Doing a 180 turn with the character does not accomplish that.

But the whole point of the heel turn is to create a different character because his current one is stale. Having him just play an exaggerated form of the same character defeats the purpose of the heel turn, and doesn't even bother trying to address the problem of why fans dislike Cena. They don't dislike him in the heel sense. They are plain tired of his character. They hate the way he's booked. They don't like his carefree attitude, when he should be showing more emotion. They think think his wrestling style is boring. They aren't booing him because he's playing an effective heel. They're booing him because they're tired of the same old crap that they've been seeing for the past 8 years.

[Deleted]

Jan 3, 2013 12:47:15 GMT -5 BigWill said:

Jan 2, 2013 18:13:36 GMT -5 "Cane Dewey" Johnson said:

Why does 'heel' automatically equal 'be more edgy'? If you want to make sure that fans boo a heel John Cena, you take the things people already don't like about him (the shirts, the smugness, the inconsistency, the petulant humour) and push all those things to 11. Of course turning Cena into a badass heel would only make fans cheer for him again (which solves the problem of the split audience, a concept that I don't believe is the 'best of both worlds' as many people believe it is with Cena working as both a heel and a face simultaneously). You have to make Cena more unlikeable than he already is now. Doing a 180 turn with the character does not accomplish that.

But the whole point of the heel turn is to create a different character because his current one is stale. Having him just play an exaggerated form of the same character defeats the purpose of the heel turn, and doesn't even bother trying to address the problem of why fans dislike Cena. They don't dislike him in the heel sense. They are plain tired of his character. They hate the way he's booked. They don't like his carefree attitude, when he should be showing more emotion. They think think his wrestling style is boring. They aren't booing him because he's playing an effective heel. They're booing him because they're tired of the same old crap that they've been seeing for the past 8 years.

That wouldn't be the point of turning him heel though. It might be what you'd like to see but it wouldn't be WWE's goal. Their objective if they ever turned Cena heel would be to make a heel Cena more profitable than a babyface Cena. And since history shows that that would be near impossible it's easy to see why they haven't attempted it yet. Any critical acclaim a heel Cena might get from those fans you're talking about after a turn would likely be negated by a much more important (to them) commercial loss.

A lot of people thought Austin's work during his brief heel run in 2001 was the best stuff of his career but even Austin himself admits that in the long run it was a mistake which severely damaged his drawing power and he never got back to where he was even after turning back face. "Hollywood Rock", which most people loved, didn't make the money that the "stale and boring" babyface Rocky who was getting booed a year earlier was making and he also turned back face just months later. If Cena turned heel it would probably follow the exact same route as those. Most people like us would probably agree that his heel character was better but he would sell less merchandise and after the initial shock wore off, ratings and PPV buys would go back to normal (and might even go down if it follows the Austin/Rock patterns). Then he would be turned back babyface less than a year later but would probably be damaged by the turn and wouldn't make as much money as he did before. It worked in WCW with Hogan (because something like the NWO had never been done in mainstream US wrestling) but in the modern era no major WWE babyface has ever turned heel and not made less money than they did before.

Ultimately, appeasing those fans you're talking about by turning Cena and changing his character would probably make Cena a less profitable character overall, like it did to Austin. So it comes down to whether WWE wants to throw those particular fans a bone and probably make less money in the long term or continue pissing them off by keeping his current character intact and being the heel to them while remaining loyal to his current fans.