John Cena has been the leading babyface of the WWE for over a decade now, slowly taking a page out of The Rock's notebook and turning his status into Hollywood success.
Cena has never "officially" been a heel in the company, staying squeaky clean throughout his career and record-tying 16 WWE championship runs, but that hasn't prevented the crowd from turning on him regardless of how reputable his character has remained.
One of the WWE's top executives, Stephanie McMahon, joined ESPN's Peter Rosenberg's Cheap Heat podcast and discussed the idea of a heel Cena. Surprisingly, she admits that there was a time when she was pushing hard to take his character that direction.
"Do you feel if John Cena hangs it up... and never really has an opportunity to be bad John Cena, would you be disappointed in that at all? Would you like to see him get to do that," asks Rosenberg.
"At one point in his career I really wanted to see him turn heel. I wanted it, as a fan, and I also thought it was the right thing to do. But it turns out I was wrong," McMahon responds.
That's a pretty shocking admission, and while it never came to be, it's interesting to consider what could have been a shocking direction for one of the WWE's golden children. Rosenberg presses on, asking if she fought for Cena to turn.
"Oh yeah, totally I did, yeah. But I'm glad that we didn't go that way. I think now it would be odd for John to turn heel."
"I guess never say never because anything can happen in WWE but I don't think I would really miss it. I think that we would miss him [once he retires], I don't know that we would miss the heel turn."
The beauty, of course, is Cena doesn't need to be a heel to get a heel-like reaction. Fans have booed him regardless of how the WWE has carried his character, and he's been splitting crowds for years. It's a subtle art how he tweaks a crowd that's hot against him.
One of the best examples of from his build up with Daniel Bryan going into SummerSlam 2013, with Cena acknowledging he's been hearing boos for years during a masterful segment of Miz TV:
Cena's taking time off from being a full-time roster member following WrestleMania, and from the sounds of things it might be too deep into his career to turn him heel. Luckily he still draws heel-type heat, even if it's not on purpose.