Video: Kane tells John Cena to embrace the hate, WWE continues teasing Cena heel turn

If you missed Raw last night (Dec. 26), you missed WWE continuing one of its most intriguing stories in years. John Cena, the man who receives as many boos as he does cheers in cities across the U.S., seems to finally be headed for the heel turn so many fans have clamored for.

Roddy Piper was the first to introduce the concept to Cena that he needed to accept the reality in front of him, that the cheers make him feel good but the boos make him feel equally as distraught. This works on a number of levels, namely the fact that Cena has been a squeaky clean babyface. The guy does a Make-A-Wish almost every day of his life. He represents the guy who, despite all odds against him, always does the right thing, which includes turning the other cheek.

Taking this one step further, WWE has Kane return and appeal to Cena's sensibilities with a promo that was scripted very well but came off horribly on TV. Here's the text:

"You want to know why I chose to make you my victim? It's simple. You have led all of these people astray. You ask them to rise above hate but that's a fallacy. This world is a dark, dark place. It's okay to hate. Humans are hateful by nature. Deep down, everybody hates. Why rise above it when the natural impulse is to embrace it. To let it consume you. People hate. They hate their bosses, they hate their neighbors, they hate their spouses, they hate their miserable existence. Rise above? That's a fraudulent myth perpetuated by you. Hate is the seed from which we are all born. It drives us. It motivates us. It fuels our impulses. And I know that you feel it, John. You feel it swimming underneath your skin like a thousand insects eating away at you. But once you embrace the hate, you become honest with yourself. You become free. Free. What you fail to realize, John, is that with your denial, you grow weaker by the moment. And until you embrace that which you deny, you can never be truly free. But I am going to help you, John. And all of these people are going to help you on your path towards enlightenment. Because right now, the last image that you will see this year, the last thing that you will hear, is each and every one of these people chanting the words which tear your soul apart. 'Cena sucks. Cena sucks. Cena sucks. Cena sucks.'"

This, of course, is all leading to the inevitable Cena heel turn because, well, there's no other option at this point. Yes, the powers that be could bail on the idea at the last minute and have Cena "rise above hate" one more time but then this entire storyline would be a waste.

The key thing to remember here is that no matter what Cena does, he's going to be a heel by default here soon anyway. When he hits Sun Life Stadium at WrestleMania 28 against The Rock, he's going to get booed out of the building. The heat he'll have there is going to be staggering.

So why not finally turn him full blown heel and let him really crank it up?

Everything we've been seeing for the past few months now has been a test case. Seeing how the crowd reacted to Cena at Madison Square Garden at Survivor Series when he tagged with Rock. Hearing the reaction to Piper and Kane introducing these ideas to him. Selling t-shirts that say "CENA SUCKS" and seeing how well they move (they've moved extremely fast and sold very well). All of it leading to that one night when John Cena walks out and finally squares up with the crowd.

If WWE finally has it in them to pull the trigger on what would be the most high profile heel turn since Hulk Hogan was revealed as the third man at Bash at the Beach all the way back in 1996.

Video of the scene with Kane and Cena after the jump. Click here for full results and the live blog from Raw and click here for all the reactions to the show.