In March 2024, I wrote about how professional wrestling offers a vivid dramatization of neoliberal ideology—especially through its archetypes of the "babyface" and the "heel." These two roles, though theatrical, mirror real-world cultural narratives. The babyface is the moral individualist, the hardworking paragon of virtue who earns success by playing by the rules. The heel, by contrast, is the one who cheats, manipulates, or simply takes—often reflecting what the audience secretly wishes they could do in a world stacked against them.
What happens when the ultimate neoliberal babyface—the all-American, virtuous, charitable, disciplined superhero—turns heel? What happens when he looks into the camera and says: You used me. I’m done playing nice. That moment has now arrived. On March 3, 2025, John Cena—arguably the most iconic babyface of the 21st century—turned heel in a storyline that has quickly become one of the most layered and culturally significant narratives in modern wrestling history. And unlike the heel turns of past icons like Hogan or The Rock, Cena’s isn’t about ego or rebellion. It’s about retribution. It is the culmination of everything that neoliberal culture demands from its heroes: perfection, self-sacrifice, resilience—and the resentment that follows when they finally snap.
John Cena: From Virtue to Vengeance
For those less familiar with WWE, John Cena is not just a wrestler. He is, without exaggeration, the face of 21st-century professional wrestling—a figure who has defined the sport for an entire generation. Debuting in 2002, Cena rose to prominence at a time when the company was in search of a new icon—someone who could succeed where others had floundered in the shadow of Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock. Cena became that icon. His rise was meteoric. Cena was engineered to be the modern Hulk Hogan: a larger-than-life hero who always did the right thing, never gave up, and inspired millions. He stood for "Hustle, Loyalty, and Respect." He wore brightly colored merchandise, saluted the troops, rallied the crowd, and embodied the company’s family-friendly, PG-era branding. He wasn’t just a character—he was the corporate backbone of WWE’s entire identity. Over the course of two decades, Cena would win 16 world championships, headline multiple WrestleManias, and become WWE’s most-requested Make-A-Wish celebrity—granting over 650 wishes, a record unmatched by any public figure. His contributions went beyond the ring. To a generation of children, he wasn’t just a wrestler; he was a real-life superhero.
And yet, for all his success, Cena's relationship with the fans was always complicated. As early as the mid-2000s, a growing segment of the audience began to turn on him—not because he wasn’t performing, but because he never changed. Yes, younger audiences adored him—he was their hero, their Superman. But the iconic chant that followed him for years—“Let’s go, Cena! / Cena sucks!”—wasn’t a simple rejection. It was a paradox. It wasn’t that people hated Cena. Most fans, even the older, more cynical ones, respected him. They admired the work ethic, the consistency, the legacy. But they also wanted more. They weren’t booing him to make him go away. They were booing him to liberate him. To many, Cena had become too perfect. Too corporate. Too invincible. In being the face of the company for so long, he became the very power structure that every other wrestler had to fight against. He wasn’t just the top guy—he was the system. And in that role, Cena stopped feeling human. What fans wanted—what they had longed for—wasn’t Cena’s fall. It was his evolution. They wanted to see him turn heel, not out of bitterness, but because it would finally make him real. Vulnerable. Human. A man confronting his own limits after spending decades trying to be untouchable. Because no one, no matter how good, can climb that high and still carry the weight of perfection forever. They didn’t chant “Cena sucks” to reject the man. They chanted it to release him.
Now in his late 40s, Cena has become a bona fide Hollywood star. Like The Rock before him, he transcended wrestling, appearing in blockbuster franchises (Fast & Furious, Suicide Squad, Peacemaker) and late-night talk shows. He became mainstream—marketable in ways few wrestlers ever are. He no longer needed WWE. But WWE still needed him. And so, as he returned for what was billed as his final run, many expected nostalgia. A heroic farewell. One last ride into the sunset. Instead, Cena gave us something else entirely: A heel turn that was 20 years in the making—and absolutely, devastatingly personal. And the fans love him for it.
The Betrayal Heard Around the World: March 3, 2025
Cody grew up in the shadow of that legacy. After spending nearly a decade in WWE with a career that never fully clicked, he left the company, frustrated with how his character was being handled, and set out to prove himself elsewhere. He helped found AEW—WWE’s rival promotion—and became a major star on his own terms. But in 2022, Cody returned to WWE not for money or prestige, but for unfinished business. His mission was clear: to “finish the story” by winning the world championship his father never could. Over the next two years, that mission became the emotional and symbolic center of WWE programming. Cody’s arc played out like a classic hero’s journey. He returned home to WWE not as a prodigal son welcomed with open arms, but as an outsider with something to prove to the WWE roster he left behind years prior. What he found was a landscape dominated by The Bloodline, a dynastic faction led by Roman Reigns, who had held the Undisputed WWE Championship for over three years. Roman, whom I wrote about in my first article on professional wrestling and neoliberalism, had himself undergone a dramatic transformation—once rejected as a corporate-engineered babyface, he found meteoric success only after turning heel. By embracing the darker side of the neoliberal hero archetype—shedding purity for control, vulnerability for dominance—Roman became the face of WWE’s power structure. He was no longer positioned as the people's champion, but as a tribal king demanding acknowledgment. To defeat Roman wasn’t just about winning a match—it was about dismantling a symbolic monarchy.
Cody challenged Roman at WrestleMania 39 and came up short. But unlike so many before him, he didn’t disappear. He refused to fade into midcard purgatory. Instead, he rebuilt. Slowly, methodically, he re-earned the audience’s trust. He didn’t just chase a title; he reclaimed his identity. And just when he seemed poised to finally complete that redemption arc at WrestleMania 40, another figure stepped into the spotlight—one who threatened to reframe the story entirely. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Roman’s real-life cousin and one of the most famous wrestlers of all time, returned to WWE in early 2024. But this wasn’t the charming, wisecracking Rock of the late 1990s. He re-emerged as a cold, calculating figure calling himself “The Final Boss”—a legacy king who had returned to claim what was his. Aligning himself with The Bloodline, The Rock challenged not just Cody’s place in the main event, but his right to be there at all. He dismissed Cody’s story as manufactured, his legacy as borrowed, and his fans as deluded. For weeks leading up to WrestleMania 40, The Rock tried to push Cody out of the spotlight and claim the main event for himself.
Cody and the fans pushed back. They rallied behind Cody with overwhelming support, making it clear who they saw as the true protagonist. In the end, Cody and the fans got their main event. At WrestleMania 40, Cody finally defeated Roman Reigns, ending the Bloodline’s era of dominance and completing the story he had been telling for two years. The Rock, forced to watch from the sidelines, had failed to stop it. But The Rock didn’t go away. Over the next year, The Rock lingered like a shadow. He made cryptic statements, took veiled shots at Cody, and warned that things between them weren’t finished. Their war reignited, not as a formal match, but as a slow-burning feud rooted in legacy, power, and pride. And through it all, Cody held firm. For all his influence and star power, The Rock couldn’t shake him. He couldn’t beat him. But he could find someone who might.
That brings us to Elimination Chamber, held on March 3, 2025. The main event was a six-man Elimination Chamber match—one of WWE’s most violent and unforgiving structures. The winner would earn the right to face Cody for the Undisputed WWE Championship at WrestleMania 41. The participants included a mix of legends and current stars: CM Punk, Drew McIntyre, LA Knight, Logan Paul, Seth Rollins, and, most notably, John Cena, returning to action for what had been promoted as the final run of his legendary career. But in the 2025 Elimination Chamber match, something was different with John Cena, something was off. During the match, after Seth Rollins was eliminated, Seth re-entered illegally and curb-stomped CM Punk. Punk was left unconscious. Cena took advantage, applying his signature STF submission hold. Punk never tapped out; he passed out. The referee called for the bell. Cena had won the match—not through resilience or honor, but by seizing an opportunity in a moment of chaos. It was technically legal. But morally compromised. Still, what happened next eclipsed even that. After the match, Cody Rhodes came to the ring—not as a rival, but as a peer. The moment felt symbolic: the aging legend and the reigning champion, standing together on the road to WrestleMania. It looked like a torch-passing moment. The crowd responded with genuine emotion. Two eras were converging, and for a second, it felt hopeful.
Then Cena stepped back. The Rock’s music hit. He appeared on the stage in silence, dark and theatrical. He raised his hand in a three-finger gesture, a silent command. Cena nodded. And then, in front of a stunned audience, he kicked Cody below the belt. The crowd gasped. What followed was a calculated, ritualistic dismantling. Cena, The Rock, and rapper Travis Scott—who had recently entered WWE as a chaotic wildcard—beat Cody down. They punched, stomped, mocked, and dismantled him physically and symbolically. Then Cena picked up a gold Rolex—the one WWE had returned to Cody in honor of his father. The same Rolex Dusty had once pawned to help fund Cody’s dreams. Cena raised it—and smashed it across Cody’s face.
It wasn’t just an attack. It was desecration. Cena didn’t just betray Cody. He shattered the very mythology WWE had spent years building. He desecrated Dusty’s legacy. He turned against everything he had stood for. And he aligned himself with The Rock—the one man who had tried and failed to stop Cody’s rise. This wasn’t just a heel turn. It was an execution. The message was unmistakable: if you want to kill Superman, you send another Superman to do it. The Bloodline couldn’t stop Cody. The Rock couldn’t stop Cody. So The Rock reached back into WWE's own mythos and summoned its most untouchable hero—John Cena—not as a savior, but as an assassin. For the first time in his career, the crowd didn’t split. There was no “Let’s go Cena / Cena sucks” chant. No nostalgia. No divided loyalties. Just stunned silence—and then boos. And yet, beneath the surface, some fans understood. Some had wanted this for years. Cena had become too perfect, too symbolic, too unchanging. Now, finally, he was real.
March 17: John Cena Speaks
Two weeks after the shocking events of Elimination Chamber, John Cena stood alone in a WWE ring in Brussels, Belgium, and addressed the WWE Universe for the first time since his betrayal of Cody Rhodes. But this wasn’t a traditional heel promo. It wasn’t cartoonishly smug or theatrically villainous. It was something else entirely—something sharper, colder, and far more compelling. What unfolded that night on Monday Night Raw was arguably the best microphone work of Cena’s entire career, which is saying something for a man long considered one of the most charismatic talkers in the history of the sport.
He walked to the ring slowly. No smile. No salute. No theatrics. Cena stood in the middle of the ring, stone-faced. He raised a mic to his lips. Then, he paused. He looked out into the crowd—not defiantly, but blankly. It was a long moment of silence. And then he said: “For 25 years, I have been the victim. I have been the victim of an abusive relationship.” The crowd’s boos grew louder. Cena didn’t flinch. “No. No, you don’t get to talk. You’ve lost that right.” From that point on, Cena’s voice was steady and controlled. He wasn’t ranting. He wasn’t raging. He was explaining, as if calmly presenting a psychological profile of the very audience in front of him. He said the fans had bullied him for decades. That they had turned him into a corporate puppet—cheering him when he did what they wanted, booing him when he didn’t. “You made me your damn puppet and expected me to do it with a smile on my face. No more.”
He pointed out the supposed hypocrisy. How fans wore his merchandise, paraded his slogans, and claimed to support him, but never actually asked him what he wanted. They didn’t care about him—they only cared about what he represented. He had become an object. A brand. A machine. "All you ever do is steal from me. You steal my time. You steal my personal moments. You made me your toy.” Cena wasn’t a heel turning on a babyface. He was a man turning on the audience itself. He told the crowd they were selfish. That they took and took and took, and never gave back. That even now, their insults only proved his point. “You are rats in a cage. I’ve been studying you. Manipulating you. Rewarding you for your childish rhymes. And in doing so, you told me everything about you.” This was John Cena breaking the fourth wall—not as a wink to the audience, but as an indictment. He declared himself no longer a “babyface” or a “heel,” just a human being who had finally reached his limit. The same man who had once saluted the fans, hugged children, and grinned his way through a thousand boos was now calling those same fans toxic.
He referenced the Make-A-Wish Foundation without saying the name, noting that for years, he had given every part of himself to be a role model. He did everything he was asked to do. He sacrificed more than people knew. And still, it was never enough. When he won too much, fans said he was boring. When he tried to be selfless, fans said it was fake. When he lost, they cheered. “I tried to do something nice for you, and you ruined it. Just like you ruin everything.” He spoke about his retirement tour—that it was meant to be his gift to the fans. One last run. One last thank you. But even that, he said, had been met with cynicism and mockery. So now, instead of a farewell, he was giving them the truth. “Your time is up. My time is now.”
What made the promo so haunting wasn’t what Cena said—it was how much of it felt true. Fans had, for years, projected impossible expectations onto him. His perfection became a prison. His loyalty became his burden. He was the neoliberal hero raised high on a pedestal until he became a symbol of the system itself—and once he embodied that system, the crowd turned on him. This was the Cena fans had spent two decades asking for. The heel turn that had been whispered about since 2006. But when it finally arrived, it wasn’t triumphant. It was uncomfortable. Because it wasn’t evil. It was honest. The segment ended not with a dramatic beatdown or a flashy catchphrase, but with one final declaration. Cena looked into the hard camera and said: “I’m breaking up with you. We’re done. I don’t need you anymore. You don’t matter to me.” He dropped the mic. The crowd exploded. The heel Cena they have wanted for so long, was here. And the message was clear: this wasn’t about John Cena becoming a bad guy. It was about a man reclaiming his agency after 25 years of playing a role. The perfect hero had cracked—and what emerged from that break wasn’t a monster, but a man who no longer wanted to play pretend. In the neoliberal mythology WWE has long trafficked in, Cena was the ultimate product. He stood for discipline, self-sacrifice, patriotism, and hard-earned success. But that mythology has a dark side. It demands too much. It strips away humanity in favor of branding. It deifies its heroes until they either burn out—or, as in this case, burn it all down. This wasn’t the rise of a new villain. It was the public unraveling of a man who had, for too long, carried the weight of being everyone’s favorite symbol. And now, with WrestleMania 41 on the horizon, that man is no longer interested in saving anything. He’s here to destroy it.
March 24: “I Am Going to Ruin Wrestling”
If Cena’s first promo on March 17 was a diagnosis—a cold, clinical breakdown of his relationship with the WWE Universe—then his second appearance, one week later on Raw in Chicago, was a threat. This was no longer about emotional hurt or existential frustration. This was vengeance. From the moment Cena walked into the arena, the tone was different. He stood calmly in the center of the ring and let the audience unload its rage. Then, he smirked. This wasn’t discomfort—it was confirmation. They were proving his point in real time. Cena began not with a promo, but with a warning. He told the crowd that he had been watching them for years—studying them, understanding them, manipulating them. All the catchphrases, all the back-and-forth chants, all the “Let’s go Cena / Cena sucks” call-and-response they had proudly repeated for years—he framed it as data collection. He had been conditioning them, rewarding them for their behavior like lab rats trained to press a button.
“I’ve learned everything I need to know about you.” And then he said what he had learned. Not that the fans loved him. Not that they wanted to see him wrestle one more time. But that they cared—desperately—about one thing: the championship. The WWE title. That was the object they revered. The only thing they respected. The last sacred symbol in a world of fake catchphrases and broken promises. So that, Cena said, was what he would destroy. With no theatrics, no yelling, he announced his plan: at WrestleMania 41, he would win the Undisputed WWE Championship—his seventeenth world title, breaking Ric Flair’s long-standing record. But there would be no title reign. No defenses. No rivalries. No curtain call. Instead, he would take the belt home, retire, and leave the WWE Universe with nothing. “I will be the last real champion in WWE history,” he said. It wasn’t a victory speech. It was a punishment.
Cena framed this not as a farewell tour, but as a carefully designed act of retribution. The fans had, in his eyes, betrayed him long ago. They had mocked him, used him, and discarded him. They didn’t want the real John Cena. They wanted the symbol. The toy. The machine. And now, as one final act of defiance, he would strip away the very thing they cared about most. This wasn’t a heel turn rooted in greed, like many that came before it. It wasn’t even about power. It was about control. Cena no longer wanted to dominate the WWE Universe—he wanted to erase its foundations. To rewrite the mythology that had elevated him for so long. If fans treated him like a product, he would dismantle the product line on his way out.
This was the neoliberal hero gone full scorched-earth. Cena had spent two decades as the living embodiment of WWE’s ideal: discipline, loyalty, charisma, and tireless self-sacrifice. Now, at the end of his career, he was turning those same values into weapons. He wasn’t just challenging the company’s structure. He was tearing down the very idea of legacy. He had become the villain the audience created—and perhaps the one it deserved. And with Cody Rhodes still holding the championship—still standing as WWE’s new Superman—the collision was inevitable. Cody was the hope of the future. Cena was the reckoning of the past. Only one of them will leave WrestleMania 41 next month with the story intact.
The Neoliberal Hero’s Final Form
In my 2024 post, I argued that neoliberal culture doesn’t just elevate professional wrestling heroes—it refines them into perfection until they become detached from the very fans they once represented. In professional wrestling, this is the trap of the long-running babyface. They begin as flawed but relatable figures—fighters who struggle against the odds. But if they win too consistently, if they play by the rules too perfectly for too long, they stop feeling human. They become products of the system. After a while, people want to see Superman let loose. This is what often happens to wrestling’s biggest heroes. They start off by resisting the machine, but eventually they become symbols of it. They stop making selfish choices. They stop expressing anger, doubt, or ambition. Instead, they serve as living billboards for loyalty, humility, and morality. The closer they get to the ideal, the more they drift away from the emotional complexity that made them compelling in the first place.
That’s why fans don’t just want to see these characters succeed. Eventually, they want to see them rebel. And that’s the story being told now through John Cena. His current character arc is not a fall from grace—it’s a deliberate, dramatic transformation. Within the story, Cena’s heel turn isn’t portrayed as a collapse or a breakdown, but as a kind of awakening. The character he’s portraying has realized that decades of playing the hero never brought him peace. That the audience cheered and booed with equal indifference. That the moral code he lived by was only ever appreciated when it was convenient for others. And now, in storyline, he’s casting all of that off. This is the second act of the neoliberal hero’s journey—the rebellion. The Cena character is no longer fighting for the system. He’s rejecting it. Breaking the rules. Seeking power on his own terms. And even though it’s fiction, even though we know it’s scripted, it hits with real cultural weight because it reflects a deeper truth about how we respond to our icons. We want them to change. To evolve. To say the things we can’t say. To burn the system that built them because that system is now rigged.
And what makes this run so special is that it’s happening with John Cena. A character so thoroughly associated with loyalty and virtue is now performing the role fans spent years dreaming of. And we’re eating it up. He tells the crowd he hates them—and they love him for it. He threatens to ruin the legacy of professional wrestling—and we post the promo clip. He claims he’ll retire as champion and leave nothing behind—and we lean in closer. We’re not cheering him because he’s right. We’re cheering him because this is great storytelling. Because the character is complex, compelling, and long overdue. Cena isn’t breaking free of anything in real life. But in the fictional universe of WWE, his character is doing exactly what we crave from our long-revered heroes: stepping out of the light, into the shadows, and daring to ask what happens when you stop trying to be perfect—and start being your true self without fear of consequence. It’s a dichotomy only pro wrestling can deliver: a villain who’s more beloved than ever precisely because he’s finally playing the role we always suspected he had in him.
Cody Rhodes: The Heir Apparent
Standing across from Cena at WrestleMania 41 will be Cody Rhodes—the reigning Undisputed WWE Champion, and the current moral center of the company’s storytelling. Within WWE’s fictional world, Cody represents everything John Cena once stood for: humility, perseverance, emotional vulnerability, and a sense of personal legacy rooted in sacrifice. He’s not just the top babyface—he’s the idealized heir to wrestling’s golden virtues. And just as Cena once carried the hopes of an entire generation of fans, Cody now shoulders the weight of a new era.
But within the narrative, Cena doesn’t see Cody as a successor. He sees him as a replacement—a symbol of a culture that demands constant renewal and abandons its old icons the moment they outlive their usefulness. When Cena sneered that Cody was “your shiny new toy,” it wasn’t just a jab at Cody. It was an indictment of the audience. In storyline, Cena sees himself as discarded by the same people he once gave everything to, replaced by a cleaner, kinder version of himself that better fits the current cultural moment.
What makes this dynamic so powerful is how closely it mirrors tensions within American society itself. In Cody, we see the return of idealism—the hope that institutions can still be redeemed, that goodness can still triumph without moral compromise. Cody’s character believes in earned legacy. He wants to succeed the right way: with honor, respect, and heart. This speaks to a broader cultural longing for sincerity in an age of irony, for belief in systems that have, in recent years, felt increasingly fragile. In many ways, Cody reflects the way younger generations have re-embraced sincerity, mental health awareness, and emotional openness as a way of rehumanizing public life.
Cena, on the other hand, has become the story’s voice of disillusionment. His character embodies a worldview that’s familiar to many Americans today: that no matter how hard you work or how long you serve the system, you will ultimately be exploited, misunderstood, and replaced. His promo about the fans turning him into “a puppet” echoes the burnout of workers across industries who’ve realized that loyalty and effort aren’t always rewarded. His anger feels like the anger of the millennial employee who stayed late, followed the rules, bought into the dream—and ended up with nothing but a pink slip and a younger, cheaper replacement.
And so, WrestleMania 41 becomes more than a wrestling event. It becomes a cultural metaphor. A battle between two competing American myths. Cody represents the idea that virtue still matters—that if you stay kind, stay focused, and do the work, you can still win the right way. Cena now represents the rupture of that dream—the realization that playing by the rules can hollow you out, and that freedom may only come when you stop trying to be perfect and start writing your own rules.
The outcome of the match will be scripted, of course, but what it reflects is not. We are watching a fictional story that perfectly channels the anxiety of a real one: a society wrestling with its own ideals, unsure whether to restore them—or burn them down. And like all great wrestling stories, this one asks us to choose a side. But deep down, we already know the truth: we’re drawn to both. Because we want to believe in Cody. But we understand Cena.
This article, no doubt, won’t be the final chapter in this unplanned but much-enjoyed and deeply appreciated multi-year exploration of professional wrestling and neoliberal culture—because Cody, I’m watching you. And someday, when your flame burns a little too brightly, when the cheers grow just a little too rehearsed, I’ll be here to write the next chapter. Time will tell. But when the day comes that Cody Rhodes, like John Cena before him, is no longer seen as a rebel but as the system itself—when he becomes too perfect, too protected, too polished—I’ll be asking the same question we’re asking now: who rises next? In wrestling, as in culture, the cycle always continues. The story is never truly over.
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