John Cena suggested this week that he doesn’t invest any time into “what if” scenarios, particularly as they relate to his controversial heel turn earlier this year.
When Cena turned heel at Elimination Chamber in March, it was at the behest of The Rock, who had him and rapper Travis Scott attack WWE champion Cody Rhodes.
However, The Rock was not involved with the Cena vs. Rhodes feud from that point forward, leaving fans to speculate on what could have been.
When asked about it during an appearance on Insight with Chris Van Vliet (h/t Felix Upton of Ringside News), Cena decided against speaking in hypotheticals:
“Who cares? It doesn’t matter,” Cena said. “We can talk about what could have been until the cows come home. And I think that’s what’s great about the people who are left standing. Certainly me and Cody. What’s the change? This? All right, let’s go. I don’t dwell for one second on what could have been, because what could have been is Brock [Lesnar] doesn’t leave for the NFL and there’s no John Cena.”
Cena continued by intimating that he simply goes with the flow behind the scenes and does what the creative team wants to the best of his ability, saying, “So I don’t sweat the [small stuff]. ‘Yo, we don’t have those guys anymore.’ ‘Cool, what do you want to do?’ ‘We would like to do this. We need you to start being more competitive. We want to put you in these matches. We were going to build to this. That’s over.’ I didn’t even get that. ‘Okay, fine, great. What are we doing now?”‘
Given how things played out at Elimination Chamber, it was widely assumed that The Rock would be a big part of the storyline moving forward, but that wasn’t the case.
Instead, Cena and Rhodes were left to their own devices with the exception of Scott interfering in their main event match at WrestleMania 41 and helping Cena become a record-breaking, 17-time world champion.
The match was universally panned, and fans were gobsmacked by The Rock’s lack of involvement despite him being the catalyst for Cena’s heel turn from a storyline perspective.
Famously, The Rock appeared on the Pat McAfee Show a couple of days after WrestleMania 41 and explained why he wasn’t part of the build and why he didn’t appear on the Grandest Stage of Them All:
The Rock explained that he made the decision to step back from the storyline and allow all of the spotlight to be on Cena and Rhodes.
While that is what happened, it can be argued that it was a major creative blunder to not properly follow up on such a big moment in WWE history.
Cena’s heel turn ended up being a mixed bag, and fans were more than ready when he reverted back to his familiar babyface character ahead of SummerSlam.
Now, Cena is preparing for the final match of his illustrious career this weekend when he takes on Gunther at Saturday Night’s Main Event.
His retirement tour wasn’t always smooth, and there were plenty of bumps in the road, but it is a testament to Cena as a performer that fans are still invested in him and his retirement bout.
