WWE needs to turn John Cena heel

Week after week over the past several months John Cena music hits and what is seen as on television is mainly older men. Yes, Cena is popular with women and children which I think has been only reason WWE creative continues to keep Cena as the top babyface of the company. However, even as a ten time WWE Champion, Cena's current character has grown stale. WWE needs to overhaul his character and do something that nobody expects when it is least expected - turn Cena Heel.

Is turning Cena heel good for business? Because WWE is a publicly traded company, this is a gamble Vince McMahon may not want to take. However, it is a gamble worth trying. In 1996, Eric Bischoff and World Championship Wrestling did the unthinkable and turned Hulk Hogan heel as the third member of the New World Order. No one saw it coming and it made WCW into the number wrestling promotion for the first time.

It appears that WWE might be going into a New World Order type faction storyline with the "firings" of The Miz, R-Truth and Kevin Nash. I would expect to see some invasions or run-ins very soon on Monday Night Raw and even possibly SmackDown. I have read other thoughts from those within the industry on what WWE could do with this storyline that would be a way to make Cena into that unexpected bad guy using the upcoming November Survivor Series Pay-Per View as the platform.

When Cena and The Rock started their feud, more people were cheering for The Rock than Cena. Everyone knows that The Rock and Cena are teaming up at the Survivor Series in a traditional five on five elimination tag team match. What could happen (Credit: Pro Wrestling.net) is Cena, The Rock, CM Punk and one other superstar would be on one team, with the NWO like faction made up of the The Miz, R-Truth, Kevin Nash and another superstar on the other. The NWO faction would announce that they are bringing in a fifth guy from the outside, but at the end it turns out to be Cena turning on The Rock, which would further their feud leading up to WrestleMania 28 in Miami, FL. The PPV would then go off the air and Cena would explain his actions the next night live on Raw, which would be similar to as Hogan did in 1996 when he said "the fans would boo him..."

Turning Cena heel at one of the big four PPV's of the year would establish a lot of buzz for WWE, get people talking, maybe generate higher ratings and could be one storyline that could be bigger that CM Punk walking out with the WWE title as he did at the Money in the Bank PPV.

WWE needs to do more of the unexpected to get people talking and make more fans want to tune into their program without either changing the channel or choosing to watch other programming. Cena has been a heel before, and he can make even a better heel than he did then. With Monday Night football in full gear, WWE needs to do something big and something very different if they want to be the Monday night ratings leader.