John Cena’s recent babyface run may not have been what WWE originally envisioned, but it is clearly what the fans wanted. After weeks of teasing a darker side, Cena ultimately embraced the support of the crowd on WWE SmackDown and carried that energy into his SummerSlam Street Fight against Cody Rhodes, where he fought as a fan-favorite once again.

Despite initial plans pointing toward a heel turn, WWE Hall of Famer JBL believes the audience never truly accepted that version of Cena. Speaking on the Something to Wrestle podcast, JBL suggested that the company may have overestimated how far fans were willing to go in booing the 16-time World Champion.

“I think sometimes when you draw something up, it’s a great plan, and all of a sudden it doesn’t work. And I think that’s what it was… you put it out there on the field or the ring or wherever you put it out there to implement it, and it doesn’t work like you thought it would. And I think that’s what happened here.”

JBL went on to say that Cena’s legacy and emotional connection with the WWE Universe were simply too strong to overcome with a character shift.

“You got one of the greatest of all time, in John Cena, certainly on the Mount Rushmore of almost anybody’s Mount Rushmore for people. And he had something that was not resonating. I didn’t think it was resonating, you know, as well as the people wanted to see Cena. I’m not sure they wanted to see the heel Cena. I think they just wanted to like, ‘you know what? We just love this guy. We want to see him.’”

Whether or not a full heel turn was ever truly on the table, it appears that John Cena’s enduring connection with fans made that path nearly impossible to pull off.