Fans are still buzzing over John Cena turning into a villain at last weekend’s Elimination Chamber 2025 WWE premium live event. While some of the fans may have seen it coming, the majority portion found it hard to deal with. There’s no update on how the franchise player will go forward on TV from this point onward and it appears that the WWE locker room is also not getting it over.
In the latest update through Fightful Select via Sean Ross Sapp, the reaction backstage about John Cena’s heel-turn was one of “pleasant shock” as well as excitement with the thought being that it would eventually draw more attention to WWE programming,
“A lot of pleasant shock. This was the type of thing that even people on the roster had thought was possible, but just didn’t think would happen. There was a lot of excitement on the roster, because they knew it would lead to more eyes on the show.”
Reports already suggested that John Cena’s shocking heel turn at Elimination Chamber was a closely guarded secret. Heading into the show, sources assumed that The Rock and Cody Rhodes’ segment was slotted midway through the PLE but WWE always had it planned by the end of the main event since they have planned this major incident.
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John Cena won the 2025 Men’s Elimination Chamber Match
John Cena vs. CM Punk vs. Drew McIntyre vs. Logan Paul vs. Damian Priest vs. Seth Rollins was the lineup for this year’s Men’s Elimination Chamber matchup. The former Cenation Leader won the bout to confirm the Wrestlemania 41 headliner bout against Cody Rhodes over the WWE Championship.
Upon completion of the bout, John Cena shockingly aligned with The Rock and beat up Cody Rhodes. The angle also kicked off the build to the Undisputed WWE Championship match which is now official for WrestleMania 41 in Las Vegas.
The Schmo recently interviewed Stone Cold Steve Austin at a Mint 400 race and asked for his thoughts on John Cena’s shocking turn. Austin responded by saying that WWE couldn’t expect a better kick-off to the road to Wrestlemania 41 without this move,
“They’ve kicked off an epic build into WrestleMania. And that’s what they do every single year. And this year it’s here in Las Vegas, so it’s going to be pretty damn awesome.”