Turnbuckle BEATdown: 21 Things That Happened In The 21 Years Since John Cena Was Last Heel

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At WWE Elimination Chamber 2025, John Cena did the unthinkable: he won a match. His first one in over 1,000+ days to be exact.

Oh, and I guess he also shattered the hearts of millions by turning heel for the first time in twenty-one years, sold his soul to sworn enemy The Rock, left WWE Undisputed Champion Cody Rhodes a bloody heap at this feet, and made wrestling a trending topic in mainstream media for something happening purely inside of storyline and the world of kayfabe.

Indeed, the main event of Wrestlemania 41 is set; we will have Cody Rhodes taking on John Cena in a match where theoretically John Cena could finally break Ric Flair’s vaunted record of 16 world championships by winning his 17th. That’s likely the prevailing logic behind this evil turn of the character to begin with, as a glory-obsessed Cena has sold out the ideals he’s been parroting around for two decades just for one more shot at the top.

It is difficult to explain just how monumental an event this is in the world of wrestling, and perhaps even more difficult to explain how it exploded out of the sphere of the niche. It likely begins and ends with John Cena having been the representative of not just WWE, but the entire wrestling medium in the eyes of the world for the better part of the last twenty-one years.

He did it as a squeaky-clean good guy with colorful shirts, a bright smile, record setting Make-A-Wish fulfillments, an unbreakable never-say-die attitude, memetic music and movements, and a signature move that’s a euphemism for masturbation. In kayfabe (or in-story or canon), he just turned his back on every ideal he’s ever had. It’s like if Mickey Mouse said “I hate imagination” and lit the Magical Kingdom on fire all while stomping Pixar in the nuts.

Twenty-one years is a hell of a long time to be playing the exact same character; maybe only Kelsey Grammar can commiserate with Cena on this. Funny enough, the original run of the Frasier Crane character would end in early 2004, which is exactly the last time John Cena played a bad guy in a wrestling ring.

Twenty-one years is a legit lifetime, especially in show business, so I put together a list of things that have happened in the insane world of wrestling (and some outside of it) since John Cena last hated children.

CM Punk’s Entire Mainstream Wrestling Career

Crunchy and straight from WWE archives

CM Punk, then a mainstay for the young Ring of Honor promotion, famously won the ROH World Championship for the first time in the summer of 2005. By that point, it had become well-known that he was on his way out the door and about to head off to WWE’s developmental territory, OVW. From there, Punk would make the main WWE roster the next summer and be a permanent fixture in the company until he unceremoniously and infamously left in early 2014.

He’d stay away from returning to any sort of active wrestling capacity until 2021 when he would return to All Elite Wrestling that August. Following an eventful and tumultuous run in the company, Punk would be fired with cause in 2023, only to turn back up in WWE that November after a ten-year absence and continues to compete as of this writing.

Punk’s mainstream wrestling career will now outpace Cena’s former alignment with this turn, but everything before this year could fit inside it.

All of Adam “Edge/Cope” Copeland’s World Title Victories AND Retirement

While a mainstay on WWE programming for several years (since it was still WWF, at that), Adam “Edge” Copeland still hadn’t won a world title in the company. He did win the Money in the Bank briefcase at Wrestlemania 21 and held onto it for 10 months before cashing in on Cena himself for his first world title.

Over the next five years, Edge would win an astonishing ten more world titles for an even eleven before being forced to retire for nearly a decade. He was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2012 and made a miraculous return in 2020. He would win many of these titles at the expense of Cena, cementing himself as one of the best heels of the 2000s.

The Evolution of Money in the Bank

Speaking of the Money in the Bank Briefcase, the entire Money in the Bank concept debuted at Wrestlemania 21 in 2005 and has evolved to become one of the most memetic uses of “Chekov’s gun” in media. The match turns twenty this year and has evolved from a once-a-year concept to being its own event event to becoming multiple briefcases to becoming one of the five biggest shows of the year on the WWE calendar.

The Rise to (Super)Stardom of Dave Batista

While we’re on the subject of Wrestlemania 21, that was the show in which both Cena and fellow megastar Dave Batista would win their first world titles. Not only did Batista’s time at the top parallel with Cena’s, but Batista’s retirement, two returns, and his ascension to mainstream superstardom thanks to his role as Drax the Destroyer in the MCU’s Guardians of the Galaxy films. Not bad for the “lesser” of the top two faces of the 2000s.

The Rise, Fall, Exile, and Recovery of Muhammad Hassan

The only photo I could find on the official WWE site showing Hassan’s face

This one is less than a span of time thing, but more of another acknowledgement of just how much time has passed. Muhammad Hassan was a twist on the “foreign heel” trope in wrestling that debuted in December 2004. The twist was that Hassan was born and raised American and was drawing ire by simply being Arab-American following the wave of xenophobic sentiments against those of Middle Eastern descent during the early 2000s.

The Hassan character hit it off almost too well, as he had a meteoric rise to becoming one of the top heels in the company in just a few months and was possibly being planned to capture the World Heavyweight Championship from Batista in the summer of 2005. Unfortunately, in the summer of 2005, Hassan went full Othello and played into some terrorist-esque actions on-screen the same week as a major terrorist attack (the show was pre-taped and aired just a few hours after said attack). He was removed from television and has not been seen or spoken about on WWE television since.

The entire thing left a pretty traumatic scar on the man who played Hassan, Mark Copani, who had not been open to talk about the situation at all in interviews until the last couple of years.

More Time Passed Without WCW Than It Existed

World Championship Wrestling was the biggest competitor to the then-WWF and the two had competing programming in the famous Monday Night Wars of the 90s. The legacy of WCW is one of great magnitude, but in the end, WCW itself only existed from 1982 to 2001 for a span of just under twenty years…which means Cena has been a face longer than the entire existence of the greatest rival WWE has had to date.

The Motorola RAZR Had Us In a Chokehold

Return to me, mi armor

Looking back on what life was like in 2004 when Cena was still playing baddie, you can’t mention it without mentioning the technology touchstone that was the Motorola RAZR line of phones. These sleek as hell, blade-thin cell phones were already on their third generation in 2004 and at the top of anyone’s list who needed a phone (or even if you really didn’t, like many middle schoolers).

While brainstorming, this entry was “what iPhone was out when Cena was last heel,” but the iPhone wouldn’t come about for another few years, meaning face Cena also well eclipses the existence of the smartphone.

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and the Original God of War Were Game(s) of the Year

Killing gods: Respect +50,000,000

Another period looking back on what life was like 20ish years ago.

Currently, The Game Awards exist as the video game awards with the most promotional power behind it. And promotional it seems to be, as the broadcast has become rather bloated with more ads and trailers than genuine appreciation for the video game industry. Before The Game Awards were its own thing, however, they were known as the Spike Video Game Awards, sponsored and presented by Spike TV.

In the last year that John Cena played a dastardly rule-breaker, the game that won the coveted Game of the Year Award was the all-time classic Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, the final of Rockstar’s vaulted “Trilogy” alongside GTA 3 and GTA: Vice City. As a special bonus, the title that won GOTY the next year was the original God of War for the PS2, which also means Cena as an-all time good guy outdated iconic video game franchises that have since been rebooted (with sequels)!

The Influence of Sara Amano AKA The Women’s Revolution

Courtesy of Triple H’s Insta the night of NXT: Brooklyn in 2015

Back in the late 2000s, there wasn’t a better women’s wrestler in North America than Sara Del Rey. She never reached mainstream status, however, as WWE (specifically the bastard John Laurinaitis) at the time was mostly only interested in the model-esque looks of their female wrestlers over any sort of ability. By the time mainstream women’s wrestling started shifting to something with more depth, Del Rey’s perceived prime had passed.

…but she was, in fact, part of the engine for that change. Signing as Head Women’s Coach for WWE’s developmental territory NXT at the WWE Performance Center in 2012 and going under her real name, Sara Amano was the woman responsible for whipping the “Four Horsewomen” – Charlotte Flair, Sasha Banks/Mercedes Mone, Bayley, and Becky Lynch – into the primetime shape they’d be known for. Her influence was an unheralded engine behind WWE’s “Women’s Revolution” that still continues to this day, where she’s now co-head trainer of the Performance Center.

(Why yes this topic deserves a whole article on its own, but I think I’m running out of words…)

Virtually The Entire Histories of TNA/Impact Wrestling and Ring of Honor

With the collapse of both WCW and ECW in 2001, WWE had no competitors left on its level (if ECW was ever really on their level financially). But from power vacuums form new identities, and 2002 saw the birth of TNA Wrestling and Ring of Honor, two promotions with some of the highest highs and lowest lows wrestling companies could go. Still running to this day, all but the first couple years of their respective existences could fit within Big Match John’s top face run.

25 Different First-Time WWE Champions, Including Cena Himself

The list of men who have first won the greatest prize in twenty-one years in the company span from Eddie Guererro in 2004 to Cody Rhodes in 2024 with a bevy of HOF and future HOF names in-between. There’s the aforementioned CM Punk, Edge, and Batista, but there’s also the likes of Rob Van Dam, Randy Orton, Rey Mysterio, AJ Styles, and John “Bradshaw” Layfield. In addition, an entire new generation of grapplers would win the big one including The Miz, Bryan Danielson, Seth Rollins, Sheamus, Drew McIntyre, and others.

Random tidbit of trivia: Cena was involved in a stretch of the WWE Championship changing hands almost exclusively to first-time winners from 2004 to 2007. Guerrero would win his first, which was ended by JBL’s first reign. JBL lost it to Cena for his first time, who was then cashed-in on by Edge for his first. Cena then won it back, but would lose it to RVD that summer as his first big one. The title would swap back between Edge and Cena before staying on Cena for over a year, who had to vacate the title…and it was promptly awarded to Randy Orton for his first reign.

19 Different Big Show Face/Heel Turns

Every Villain Is Lemons

The Big Show is infamous in the world of pro wrestling for just how many times he’s changed alignments at any random moment. This isn’t just exclusive to WWE, but also includes his time in WCW as well. For many performers, a change in alignments marks a significant change in their career or at least a shift in how they are as a performer. Big Show, however, would turn as commonly as most people sneak eat cheese out of their fridge at night. As an example of this, in the same time it took John Cena to turn alignments once, Big Show changed nineteen times according to my count.

This is also me being generous at some points, because there’s even times you could count Big Show turning heel while he was already heel, such as when he turned heel by jumping to ECW in 2006 when the brand was revived and then massacuring RVD to steal the ECW Championship from him. It also includes at least a couple times he turned multiple times in the same month, such as his returns in 2008 and 2020. You could also argue Show was changing roles weekly during early 2013.

The irony here is that Big Show is historically one of Cena’s more consistent rivals in his career, meaning the two would meet dozens of times no matter the alignment of the confused giant.

The Undertaker’s Streak Becomes “The Streak” And Is Broken

The Undertaker’s famed Wrestlemania winning streak is something of a sacred and holy item amongst wrestling fans, however the concept of this streak becoming “The Streak” only turns twenty this year, which seems rather young in relation to Taker’s illustrious career.

There were nods to the Wrestlemania undefeated streak by ‘Taker himself and on commentary by Jim Ross, but it wasn’t elevated to his sort of mythical idea until the build to Wrestlemania 21. Jake “The Snake” Roberts challenged a young Randy Orton, still in his “Legend Killer” persona, to kill the unkillable and do what no one has ever done and defeat The Undertaker at Wrestlemania. From this point forward, it became “The Steak” with its own build as a main event match every year.

…that is until Wrestlemania XXX, when Brock Lesnar inexplicably broke “The Streak”. Cena, alongside Orton and Rey Mysterio, are the only active roster members to still be on WWE’s main roster in 2025 that were there for The Streak elevation in 2005 (though Punk and The Miz come dangerously close).

3 (Almost 4) Different Brock Lesnar/Undertaker Feuds, Decades Apart

(This one is cheating a little bit, but I still find it impressive, so I’m throwing it in)

Speaking of Undertaker and Lesnar, those two titans crossed paths many times in each other’s careers and Cena was there for pretty much all of them as a good guy on the roster. Cena was in his original face run from his debut in 2002 when the two eventually faced off in a Hell in a Cell. He was in his heel ascension when the two met again in 2003.

Fast forward over a decade later to in the middle of Cena’s run as the top guy and Lesnar broke The Streak with another feud in 2014. They then locked horns once again in the summer of 2015.

An Actual Competitor to WWE Emerges

From WCW and ECW’s deaths in 2001, WWE ran uncontested in the public eye as the only mainstream wrestling company in the US for nearly two decades. That is until the official formation and founding of All Elite Wrestling (AEW) in 2019, a new wrestling league that would become the first real alternative to WWE in years, which is something many thought would never happen.

The Debut, Dissolution, and Decade of Dominance of The Shield

In 2012, the faction known as The Shield debuted to great fanfare. The trio of Rollins, Roman Reigns, and Dean Ambrose/Jon Moxley would become a top act in the company before infamously splitting up in 2014. In the decade that has followed, all three members of The Shield are multi-time world champions and the pillars on which the current wrestling landscape stands.

It is hard to imagine their meteoric rise being possible, however, without the previous pillar that was an ironclad company face John Cena being as constant as he was. For comparison, Roman Reigns, the act once pegged as the guy to replace Cena, has changed alignments as many times since 2012 as Cena has his entire career.

The First Ever Yu-Gi-Oh Forbidden List

And this immaculate monstrosity would still probably tap out to 2010 John Cena

This one’s for my niche homies in the back. Or if you’re just an absolute nerd, which if you’re reading off of this site, you already are. So welcome.

The Yu-Gi-Oh anime and collectable trading card game hit stateside in 2002 and was probably the only IP to replicate any sort of the magic Pokemon did just a few years prior, at least when it came to the “Mon” genre. Quite famously, the trading card game and its rules were put together rather haphazardly, as series creator Kazuki Takahashi (RIP, hero) intended for the series to focus on a variety of tabletop games before the card game chapter took off exponentially.

One of the consequences of having such a game slapped together is when cards started getting printed, the ones that broke the game broke the game over their knee. It took a couple years of play, but late 2004 saw the first ever Forbidden List get released for official tournaments. The cards that were restricted became known as the “Forbidden 13”, and the list would shift and grow from there.

Yes, Big Good Guy John Cena predates Delinquent Duo, Graceful Charity, and (pictured above) Chaos Emperor Dragon being punished for warping a TCG around them. Bet that’s a dorky ass sentence you never thought you’d read.

Triple H Rehabilitates His Entire Wrestling Image

The last time Cena was a heel, Triple H was dominating programming and doing so in the most unfun way possible. An era called the “Reign of Terror,” this era cemented the reputation of Triple H among internet wrestling fans as placing his ego above the needs of other talent, the company, and the business at large. This was amplified by it seeming pretty undeserved, as nepotism and backstage politics were heavy at play. As time would go on, however, Trips would prove himself an ample heir to the WWE itself.

Cena had been a face for so long, Triple H grew to be reviled, detested, dunked on in shoot interviews, publicly ridiculed by CM Punk, semi-retired, fully retired, and his image more or less redeemed thanks to his management and production of the NXT system and his ascension to the top brain of the entire WWE – all by the time John Boy turned heel again. Perhaps even being the brain behind the heel turn in the first place.

Wrestlemania Outgrows Madison Square Garden

Wrestlemania 20 took place in Madison Square Garden in front of a crowd of 20,000+. That would be the last time the Wrestlemania attendance would be anywhere near that small, as every show afterwards trended towards bigger and bigger arenas until now the Grandest Stage of Them All regularly sells out 85,000+ football stadiums.