Steve Austin reacts to John Cena’s WWE heel turn: ‘It was okay’
Steve Austin was neither a huge fun nor a big detractor of John Cena’s WWE heel run.
While appearing on Insight with Chris Van Vliet, Austin reflected on his own heel turn from 2001, admitting that it did not work and should not have happened. Van Vliet then followed up by asking Austin to give his thoughts on Cena’s 2025 heel stint, which has drawn parallels to the Austin turn.
“Everybody — not everybody — a lot of people wanted to see at least one John Cena heel turn in his run. It was okay,” Austin responded. “It was okay, you know? I like him better as a babyface. I wanted to see him as a heel at some point during his career. The way that it was done — and I’m not knocking booking — just like, man, this far in? Forget about it. Just let him do his thing, f*cking kids love that guy.”
Cena’s heel turn happened at Elimination Chamber 2025 and initially drew intrigue from the audience. However, the follow-up was widely criticized. The Rock and rapper Travis Scott played key roles in the initial turn but then disappeared from the angle, with Cena reverting back to a babyface by SummerSlam and finishing out his retirement tour as a fan-favorite.
Though Cena has no regrets about how things played out, he’s said the heel turn was mostly about creating a big moment at Elimination Chamber.
Austin’s turn saw him shake hands with Vince McMahon at the end of WrestleMania 17. The moment was not something fans wanted to see, and Austin has always said that he wishes he would have read the crowd’s reaction and dropped McMahon with a stunner after the handshake.
“Nobody wanted me to turn heel, but I was just set on turning heel because I’ve always liked working heel so much,” Austin said on Insight.
“It didn’t work. It wasn’t successful. We got a chance to, you know, push the character in different directions and different dimensions. But I don’t think we were really ringing up the box office doing that.”
Joseph Currier is the lead editor of F4WOnline.com, directing daily news coverage and writing articles on professional wrestling. He is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts, obtaining a journalism degree in 2016. Joseph joined F4W during his time at UMass and has now been writing about the industry for nearly a decade.
In addition to his work with F4W, Joseph has previously contributed to Sports Illustrated's wrestling coverage. He lives in Massachusetts and is a diehard fan of the Boston sports teams and Liverpool Football Club.