John Cena is now a villain in WWE, some 20 years after he was established as pro wrestling's seemingly most eternal good guy. Wrestling fans have spent the better part of two decades begging for this heel turn to finally happen, and it's the latest pop culture event to get roped into the "we got X before GTA 6" meme. Even Cena himself is in on the gag.
Shortly after his shocking betrayal of Cody Rhodes at Elimination Chamber this past weekend, Cena posted an image of GTA 6's key art to his Instagram. While he didn't offer any comment giving context to this image post, Cena's broadly known for dropping goofy memes referencing wrestling fandom's talking points of the day to social media. In this case, the comments of "We got heel Cena before GTA 6" under the post pretty much tell the story.
If you've never been a wrestling fan, it might be difficult to understand just how seismic Cena becoming a villain really is - in that fandom, it's a GTA 6-level event and then some. Cena made his main roster WWE debut in 2002, and after winning the WWE Championship in 2005, transformed his character into the superhero figure he's been known for ever since. That character was immensely popular with kids, but for teenage and adult fans following WWE throughout the '00s and '10s, the inevitable victories "Super Cena" would register over every fan-favorite up-and-comer got downright exhausting.
Cena has only wrestled sporadically over the past few years as he's turned his attention to Hollywood - proving alongside Dave Bautista that WWE can, in fact, produce much better actors than The Rock. Last year, Cena announced that he'd make a proper return to WWE in 2025 for a final run at in-ring competition. Pretty much everybody expected this to be a traditional retirement tour for a beloved wrestler - one where he'd get some nostalgic victories over low-tier villains before eventually losing to some new wrestler WWE wants to promote and saying his final goodbyes.
For fans who had spent 20 years begging to see a villainous side of Cena, the notion that he'd turn heel now, of all times, seemed like a distant dream. But that's exactly what happened this past weekend, as he turned on Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes in one of the more brutal beatdowns WWE has televised in recent years.
So yes, the 20-year wait for John Cena's heel turn really did come to an end before the 12-year wait for GTA 6 could conclude. The real question is whether Cena will either become a babyface once again or finally retire altogether before the open-world crime game finally launches.
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