John Cena's unexpected heel turn at WWE Elimination Chamber 2025 caught fans entirely off guard.
For years, people debated if he'd ever shed his heroic persona, but on March 1, it finally came to pass. Under The Rock's silent cue, Cena turned on Cody Rhodes, betraying him in front of the world and setting social media on fire.
This moment blew up in the wrestling world, starting debates and discussions and somehow turning into one of the year's biggest crossover memes. Fans were still reeling from the shocking betrayal when a joke made the rounds: "We got Cena's heel turn before GTA 6."
After Rockstar Games' long run of teasing GTA 6 without a release, fans couldn't help but laugh at how something as wild as Cena going full villain happened first. Before long, the joke went viral on social media.
However, the meme really took off when Cena got in on the joke. Classically, he hopped on Instagram and dropped an image of the GTA 6 poster: no caption, no explanation, just pure meme material. Anyone familiar with Cena's social media antics knows he loves posting random, context-free images, but this one definitely left an impression.
Fans flooded the comments, laughing at how he was in on the joke: "Bro's leaning into the GTA 6 jokes," "You literally made my whole year, dawg," and "You just killed Cody Rhodes before GTA 6."
Some speculated that Cena doesn't run his own Instagram, but whether he does or not, the timing couldn't have been more perfect. While WWE was still riding the wave from Elimination Chamber, the gaming world found its own reason to get in on the action.
With WrestleMania 41 coming up fast, the big question now is how Cena's new persona will play out. Will this be a one-off shock before he bows out for good, or is he about to go full villain for the final chapter of his career? Either way, it's safe to say this moment will go down as one of the wildest in WWE history.
And with GTA 6 still slated for a 2025 release, the joke isn't going away anytime soon.
We got heel Cena before GTA 6, and honestly, no one saw that coming.