About

John Cena's Heel Turn, also known as John Cena Heel Gear or John Cena's Villain Arc, refers to a moment in the WWE Elimination Chamber event, which ended with pro wrestler and actor John Cena embracing fellow "face" (i.e. heroic character) Cody Rhodes, before following a prompt by The Rock to perform a heel turn, which means betray his partner and join forces with former rival ahead of Wrestlemania. The event gained significant attention among WWE fans in early March 2025, as it marked a shift in Cena's character and led to speculation about his retirement. Cena and Rhodes' hug became an exploitable and object-labeling meme on Reddit and X / Twitter, often used to represent someone's inner thoughts or intentions as John Cena's evil smile.

Origin

On March 1st, 2025, WWE shared a clip to its official X^[1] account of John Cena’s unexpected betrayal of Cody Rhodes and coalition with former rival The Rock at the end of the Elimination Chamber event. The video (seen below) amassed over 10 million views and 166,000 likes in a day.

According to Radio Times,^[2] John Cena's heel turn was considered an "epic twist" in the WWE universe, as he had spent the majority of his WWE career as a protagonist of the wrestling organization's many storylines.

On March 2nd, 2025, YouTuber^[5] Pllana posted a video explaining why Cena turned heel at WWE Elimination Chamber (seen below), which received roughly 179,000 views and 7,000 likes in a few hours.

Spread

John Cena's heel turn spawned an array of reactions from fans and wrestling enthusiasts across social media as it went viral in early March 2025.

For example, on March 1st, 2025, TikTok^[3] user @shaddow.vfx posted a video of Cena stepping on Rhodes' head, captioning it, "They done turned bro into Homelander." The video (seen below) received roughly 721,000 plays and 86,000 likes in a day.

On the same day, Redditor^[4] u/Lockeisms shared an image of John Cena hugging Cody Rhodes from the match, which was turned into an object-labeling meme format about a drunk boyfriend thinking about doing something his girlfriend advised him not to. The post (seen below) amassed over 4,900 upvotes and 27 comments in a day.

On March 2nd, 2025, Barstool Sports^[6] then notably covered the influx of memes about the event as they continued to spread online.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References