Earlier this year, The Rock helped John Cena turn heel.
At Elimination Chamber 2025, John Cena turned heel following his victory in the eponymous 6-man match. Joining forces with The Brahma Bull and Travis Scott, Cena launched a shocking assault on Cody Rhodes. Later, at WrestleMania 41, Cena defeated Rhodes to win his 17th World Title after an interference from Travis Scott.
However, in the last few months, despite Cena’s shocking heel turn, fans have heavily felt the absence of The Rock. Last seen at Elimination Chamber 2025, The Final Boss has remained absent from televised WWE appearances, focusing solely on his Hollywood career.
Recently, during Sean Ross Sapp’s Fightful Select Q&A session, it was noted that Dwayne Johnson’s ongoing absence in the promotion had impacted Cena’s heel run. Sapp claimed that while he believes, based on the poor quality of the heel run, there are very few chances of Cena hanging up his boots as a villain. He further explored the idea of how The Rock’s lack of involvement required the Stamford-based promotion to change several planned aspects of Cena’s final run as a heel.
Current WWE Champion Believes Working With The Rock ‘Changed Him’
Recently, during an appearance on Chris Van Vliet’s Insight, current NXT North American Champion Ethan Page heaped praise on The Rock, and claimed how working a segment with The Final Boss completely changed him:
To me, doing anything with him was always the dream. I was very fortunate enough to be given the chance to pull him to the side and tell him what it meant to see something that I created on my own and envisioned my whole life would be on screen with my favorites. To do it with my actual number one, and in the position that he’s in, and what he’s been doing for the last couple of years. The amount of things that needed to fall into place for this to happen, pretty crazy.
But I was very glad that I was able to express that to him and to get some one-on-one time, and then it just kept extending, he gave me great advice, and he’s turned me into an absolute menace. Because, I mean, when the person you look up to the most, pretty much tells you to not hold back. Yeah, you ain’t gonna hold back. I’m sorry Ricky Saints about your throat.”
In other news: A former WWE star has recently completed 400 days as champion in AEW.