The Economics Behind John Cena’s Heel Turn
The past few months have been the wishlist for the Internet Wrestling Community. CM Punk is your top draw in WWE and the WWE Champion, Daniel Bryan is your World Heavyweight Champion, Zack Ryder is the United States Champion, and John Cena is in the back seat. So what’s left? Well, the world keeps asking - when is Cena going heel?
Unlike any other superstar in the company, turning Cena heel is not as easy as flipping his persona. John Cena makes the company a lot of money - a LOT of money - as the kid’s favorite wrestler. The teenage and adult male audiences generally prefer guys like Punk or Orton and that’s why the crowd is often split with the “Let’s Go Cena/Cena Sucks” chants. WWE has also realized there’s a market there, and has begun selling “Cena Sucks” t-shirts at their live events.
Beyond the money, though, Cena is also the PR face of the company. Cena gets more Make-a-Wish requests than any other WWE superstar and his personality and attitude are the reason behind that. Can you imagine what would happen if they turned Cena heel? Sure, he’d still get MAW requests and he’d still fill them with the same integrity that he has. He isn’t gonna start going heel on sick kids, but that isn’t the point.
By turning him heel, you’ll also make it hard for the kids who support him to want to keep supporting him. He’ll be the bad guy and many parents will find it hard to support the bad guy (and I’m not talking about Razor Ramon). So, Cena merch sales will suffer.
But, is it impossible to turn him heel? No, not quite, but it has to be done right.
I’m not here to say there’s only one way to turn Cena heel, but the easiest way is to make a mild change to his character. As it stands right now, women and kids root for Cena. He needs to embrace that and start abusing the people who boo him. Call them out, be over the top with his Five Moves of Doom deliberately to antagonize those who hate him. He keeps going the Make-a-Wish, he keeps posing and high-fiving kids and rudely disrespects the people who boo him.
You can make him heel in a different way than traditional and possibly change up his fanbase. But then the question lies, is it actually worth it to risk it to turn Cena heel?
His current storyline with Kane is at least interesting. It’s putting that anti-Cena sentiment into the forefront and Cena is certainly reacting appropriately to it, but even if he stays the way he is, what damage does it do? The IWC is mostly in an uproar, but Cena still generates a lot of merch sales - even the anti-Cena shirts put a share of the sales in Cena’s pocket - so will WWE risk damaging that just to appease a few fans?
It’s hard to say. Cena’s heel turn is a difficult thing, but perhaps now - during the rise of CM Punk - is the only real time it can be done.
