Wrestling legends Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff recently shared their perspectives on John Cena’s heel turn at WrestleMania 41, comparing it to Hogan’s own iconic turn when forming the New World Order (NWO) in WCW.
Speaking to Forbes, both men highlighted key differences in the execution and immediate aftermath. While expressing respect for Cena, Bischoff pointed to the narrative structure as a significant difference.
“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,” Bischoff explained. “There’s some parallels, too. John Cena was a babyface throughout the majority of his career. Okay, that’s a strong parallel, 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.”
“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.”
After initially deferring, Hogan echoed Bischoff’s sentiment regarding the build-up and follow-through, praising Cena’s previous run as the company’s top babyface.
“Well, first off, John Cena was my favorite wrestler,” Hogan stated. “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.”
Hogan continued, contrasting 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… 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, ’cause 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 ass, and we just killed it.”
