While appearing on Insight with Chris Van Vliet, Austin reflected on his own controversial turn in 2001, admitting it was a decision that still bothers him. That discussion led host Chris Van Vliet to ask Austin for his honest thoughts on John Cena and his brief heel run in 2025, a move that many fans compared to Austin’s past storyline shift.

“Everybody not everybody a lot of people wanted to see at least one John Cena heel turn in his run. It was okay,” Austin said. “It was okay you know? I like him better as a babyface. I wanted to see him as a heel at some point during his career. The way that it was done and I’m not knocking booking just like man this far in? Forget about it. Just let him do his thing f*cking kids love that guy.”

Cena’s turn took place at Elimination Chamber 2025 and initially sparked heavy buzz. The involvement of The Rock and Travis Scott gave the moment a major mainstream feel, but the momentum quickly faded. Both figures vanished from the storyline soon after, and by the time SummerSlam rolled around, Cena was back in his familiar babyface role, closing out his retirement tour to positive crowd reactions.

Despite the criticism, Cena has since said he has no regrets and viewed the heel turn as a way to create a massive headline moment rather than a long term character shift.

Austin knows all too well how difficult it is to swim against fan expectations. His own heel turn famously came at WrestleMania 17, when he shocked the crowd by aligning with Vince McMahon. The image of Austin shaking McMahon’s hand remains one of the most debated moments in WWE history.

“Nobody wanted me to turn heel but I was just set on turning heel because I’ve always liked working heel so much,” Austin admitted.

“It didn’t work. It wasn’t successful. We got a chance to you know push the character in different directions and different dimensions. But I don’t think we were really ringing up the box office doing that.”

Looking back, Austin has often said the better call would have been listening to the crowd and stunning McMahon instead of embracing him. That hindsight appears to be exactly why he feels Cena’s late career turn never truly needed to happen.