At March's Elimination Chamber, John Cena shocked the world when he turned heel and joined forces with The Rock and Travis Scott. While the latter made a hugely unpopular appearance at WrestleMania, Dwayne Johnson has since vanished, making the whole thing feel a tad directionless.
There were some highlights in Cena's heel run, but his early promos, tearing into fans and blaming them for his new persona, largely fell flat. As time passed, it became abundantly clear that fans wanted to cheer for the Leader of the Cenation during his final year in WWE. Fortunately, he went back to his babyface persona shortly before SummerSlam.
Appearing at this weekend's Fan Expo Chicago 2025, Cena was asked by a fan whether he was upset by the mixed reaction to his heel promo.
"I wasn’t upset. No, I failed," the Peacemaker star acknowledged. "Ain’t nothing wrong with that. You can learn from failure, right? I went up there and bombed. Shit happens. I’ve changed a lot over the years. I’m not the same person I was yesterday."
The promo in question took place during the March 17 episode of RAW. In a 30+ minute segment, Cena tore into the crowd, but failed to ever acknowledge The Rock's role in his decision to break bad.
We've since learned that Johnson decided the storyline didn't need him, leaving WWE to try and figure out where to go next after that viral moment showing the Final Boss giving Cena the instruction to attack Cody Rhodes.
Quizzed on The Rock's absence, Cena refused to reveal his feelings on the matter. "What I’m hearing is in a hypothetical universe what different choices would you make? I will answer that with hindsight, it’s a waste of time. We must live right here and now in the excitement and adventure, we got 11 dates left."
He added. "After we’ll be able to talk about all this bupkis in January after the whole thing is over, but we’ve taken the audience on a hell of a ride this year and we still got a ways left to go, so I’m excited about that."
So, we may hear more from the former Undisputed WWE Champion next year when he's no longer under a WWE contract, but time will tell on that front. For now, you can watch a snippet from this interview with Cena in the Instagram post below.