John Cena rejects claims he 'sold his soul' to The Rock after Elimination Chamber 2025 heel turn

John Cena said at a recent FAN EXPO that he did not "sell his soul" to Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson following his heel turn at WWE Elimination Chamber 2025. The denial addressed fan speculation about his alignment with The Rock during Cena's retirement tour.

After failing to win the men’s Royal Rumble match, Cena won the men’s Elimination Chamber match to secure a spot at WrestleMania 41. Shortly after that victory, Cody Rhodes appeared for a face-off and The Rock arrived with Travis Scott, asking Rhodes whether he would "sell his soul" to the Final Boss; Rhodes rejected the offer and told The Rock to "go f*ck himself." During that segment Cena, then on his retirement tour, turned heel for the first time in his WWE career, aligned with The Rock and attacked Rhodes to build their WrestleMania match.

The alliance with The Rock prompted widespread fan talk that Cena had "sold his soul," a claim Cena addressed directly at the Fan Expo. He rejected the narrative and said his sole objective in the storyline was to win a championship, not to make any supernatural bargain. Cena emphasized there was no "soul deal" between him and The Rock.

"So everybody says I sold my soul. A few people say I sold my soul to the Rock just because Cody and the Rock were talking about soul selling and I happened to get in there. Does that mean Travis Scott sold his soul as well? I don’t know. Is there a soul for sale thing? No. No. I just wanted to win a championship. The Rock doesn’t have my soul. He doesn’t. I don’t think he ever got Cody’s. I just want to make things clear. We did not have a soul deal, DJ and I. We have a good relationship. I don’t need to also give him my soul," John Cena said.

Cena went on to capture the Undisputed title in the main event of Night 2 of WrestleMania 41 against Cody Rhodes, breaking the tie with Ric Flair and becoming the one and only 17-time World Champion. He concluded his retirement tour with his final match against Gunther on the December 13, 2025 edition of Saturday Night’s Main Event.

Cena's clarification at Fan Expo came amid The Rock's absence from WWE programming since Elimination Chamber; the timing of that absence was referenced in the original coverage of the Elimination Chamber segment. The remarks leave the sequence of events—Elimination Chamber, WrestleMania 41 title change and Cena's final SNME match—on the record as presented by Cena and WWE programming.