Tom Earnshaw
Legendary WWE superstar John Cena has made a cryptic GTA 6 reference on Instagram. But fans reckon they know exactly what it means, with him poking fun at the game's looming release.
It comes after the legendary professional wrestler-turned-actor shocked the entire WWE universe after Cena 'turned heel' on Saturday night's Elimination Chamber live on Netflix with millions watching on.
Winning the big match to secure himself a place at WrestleMania in April against world champion Cody Rhodes, the legendary baby face (wrestling terminology for a good guy) turned heel (became a big old bad guy) by turning on Rhodes.
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In doing this, he became the sidekick of The Rock during his 'Final Boss' run, which is kind of like a 'do what he wants overlord' of the whole thing.
It sent shockwaves throughout the WWE universe, with it being called the biggest moment in professional wrestling for decades and going completely viral, viewed millions of times outside of the live event.
Undoubtedly for some, it will be the biggest moment in their lifetime.
But what's the link to GTA 6?
Well, taking to Instagram in the days after the huge twist, Cena posted the GTA 6 poster that we've all become familiar with since it was first released back in December 2023.
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As always, Cena never posts words with his Instagram images but they usually have a link to modern pop culture or something he's done.
In another post, he posted a picture of Aaron Eckhart as Harvey Dent in The Dark Knight Rises, who goes from saintly mayor of Gotham City to the supervillain Two Face.
Fans immediately got what this meant, with one person quoting the famous Dent dialogue from the movie: "You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain."
Deep stuff. But the Grand Theft Auto VI reference is seemingly a lot more light-hearted and a reference to a longstanding meme about the game.
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With it now being 12 years since the last GTA instalment, huge moments in pop culture are used to show just how long it's been since GTA 5 with the 'we got ... before GTA 6'.
In this case, it seems we most definitely got the biggest moment in WWE history, with the nicest guy in the industry turning in to the most shocking of bad guys, before we got GTA 6. You've just got to laugh at this stage.
It's definitely one for both video game and wrestling fans, but if you understand either of them you understand the magnitude of what happened.
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Cena is set to retire from professional wrestling at the of 2025, with him moving in to an out-of-ring career with the WWE, while he continues his time exploring Hollywood in a similar vein to his WWE colleague, The Rock.
For many, a villainous Cena was the dream but seemed too far away from anything that was ever going to really happen.
Times, though, they are a changing.