Over the last few weeks the WWE Universe has gotten to play a great game of revisionist history with John Cena‘s career. After finding out the 16 time World Champ was nearly fired before his historic run ever began, we’re now also learning that Cena nearly turned heel during a pivotal time as the company’s top babyface.
Former WWE writer Kevin Eck was a guest on Wade Keller’s PWTorch livecast on Thursday. Among other things, he revealed that John Cena was supposed to turn heel in 2012. In fact, Vince McMahon signed off on the idea but later changed his mind.
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Eck said, “We talked about turning John Cena heel while I was there and you may have heard stories before. We were very close [and] we even had Vince [McMahon] sign off on it at one point and Cena was on board to do it.” Eck added, “We started making plans for it and then Vince got cold feet and we had just signed a John Cena exclusive merchandise deal with Wal-Mart and Vince came into a booking meeting one day and said ‘God, I know you guys really wanna do this but I just can’t do it.’” Eck said that the Vince was very close to pulling the trigger on the idea.
It’s the second time in the last seven days we’ve heard that Cena nearly embraced the hate, as Stephanie McMahon also revealed that she once fought for a heel turn for the Cenation leader.
What’s crazier than imagining Vince finally turning Cena to the dark side, is learning who Vince had in mind to replace him as the number one good guy. Eck states that the plan was supposed to be for Sheamus to be the top babyface after Cena turned heel. Hard to believe, but CM Punk was not considered for the spot and Randy Orton was considered too abrasive for someone that would need to be on the road all the time to do media appearances and signings.
The fact that Sheamus was considered over Punk tells you all you need to know about Vince’s philosophy for the “top guy” in his company. Punk was as over as imaginable in 2012 and he did get a lengthy run in the main event (mostly as heel) but Vince still wants his top babyface to have the build of a super hero. Looking at the immensely jacked 70 year old, this should come as no surprise, but it’s still hard to imagine Sheamus getting put in John Cena’s spot.
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