Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff have shared their thoughts on John Cena’s heel turn, drawing comparisons to Hogan’s own switch to the dark side when forming the nWo in WCW back in 1996.
Speaking with Forbes, both Hogan and Bischoff acknowledged some similarities but pointed out crucial differences, particularly in the way the turn was executed and what followed.
Bischoff stated, “Look, I respect the hell out of John Cena. He’s a good man and I consider him a friend, but I’d say the differences are pretty substantial.” He then said, “John Cena was a babyface throughout the majority of his career. Okay, that’s a strong parallel…”
However, Eric emphasized the contrasting narrative build-up, noting, “the ‘who’s the third man?’ storyline that played out for weeks, however long, before Hulk Hogan turned heel. That was an integral part of the story.”
Regarding Cena’s turn, Bischoff explained, “John Cena’s change of character to heel was spontaneous. There were rumors of it, and people speculated about it, but it wasn’t part of a storyline that was being built, and creating anticipation and then delivering at that moment and surprising people along the way.
John surprised everybody because they didn’t know it was coming, but it just wasn’t the same because it wasn’t part of a story.”
Hogan echoed Bischoff’s sentiment after initially holding back. He first praised Cena’s long run as a top fan favorite, “Well, first off, John Cena was my favorite wrestler,” Hogan said. “Because I grinded for years, brother, and there was no Rock, no Stone Cold. There was only me for 20-plus years… So John stepped up and really ran with the ball, and he did a really great job. I think he saw more Make-A-Wish kids than anybody’s ever seen.”
Turning to the comparison, Hulk focused on the immediate impact: “And at the end of the day, when he turned heel, like the nWo storyline, like Eric said, we set it up, we set up, we set up, then we delivered. And then not only did we deliver, we rolled out with me, Hall and Nash. And that story kept snowballing…”
He then contrasted this with Cena’s turn: “And so for me, watching that story with John Cena, when The Rock did the throat thing, cut his throat, and John Cena turned heel, I expected more of the same.
And then John Cena came out and there was no Rock, and I just got disconnected at that point, because I was expecting the characters to keep rolling out like we did… it didn’t feel like that big tidal wave coming at you.
Like when the nWo took over, man… we just cleaned house and beat everybody’s a$$, and we just killed it.”
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