John Cena has been one of the most talked about WWE stars for decades now, and he shocked the world when he turned heel at the Elimination Chamber premium live event. Cena was a face for 21 years and many people didn’t expect him to turn heel during his retirement tour.
During a recent interview with Daily Mail, Triple H was asked if it was difficult to convince John Cena to turn heel, and he made it clear that Cena was completely on board with the idea.
“‘No.’ It was a conversation – without getting into the details – it was a conversation that when it was brought up, everybody… I think in John’s mind he was like ‘wow, I didn’t think you were going to say that. I love it.'”
“It’s a challenge to him. John’s not a complacent person, right? I think he would have done it and he would have done it happily and he would have done it for fans, but I think there would have been a piece of him that would have been like “alright, I’m just going to go through my day here.”
“This now, I guess it’s no different than if a Hollywood role for any actor where they say ‘we’d like you to play the character you’ve played in 20 other movies pretty much and just do the same thing.'”
“It’s like ‘OK.’ At a certain point in time they come and they give you something way off something you’ve ever done and you’re like ‘Wow, alright, that’s a challenge I’ve never done before. That energises you and gets your creatives juices going and excites you, it lights you up as a performer. This is going to be special because John is lit up about it. We’re lit up about it. It’s going to be incredible.”