John Cena Had Complete Creative Freedom Over His WWE Character Except He Could Never Turn Heel

John Cena speaks on his legacy in WWE.

The former 16-time world champion addressed his lengthy babyface run during a recent interview on the Howard Stern Show. Cena reveals that at the top of his run he had complete creative control over his character, except for the fact that he could never turn heel.

I think it was two-fold. One, my body was like, ‘You say you can do this forever. I’m going to give you another five years, max.’ That was me saying, ‘If I super take care of myself, I can stretch it to ten.’ For me, ten years is like, ‘I’m going to live forever.’ That’s a blink of an eye in WWE. You’re on the road so much, you blink, a decade goes by. I realized it’s something that I can’t do forever, combined with the fact that I didn’t have a lot of wild creative freedom in WWE. I had complete creative freedom over how I could curate my character, but I couldn’t turn bad. That limits what you’re capable of. Playing the same character over and over again for 15 years, every week, without an offseason, I still love it, and I still do, that’s why I go back. Then, someone gives you an opportunity like, ‘You want to be this weird, awkward, naked guy?’ ‘Fuck yeah, that sounds great, let’s do it.

Cena never having a run as a bad guy in WWE will be one of the biggest “What-Ifs” in wrestling history.

Elsewhere in the interview, Cena spoke about the horrific allegations made against Vince McMahon in the Janel Grant lawsuit. You can read about that here.

(H/T and transcribed by Fightful)