The 50 Greatest Wrestlers Of The Last 50 Years: John Cena Enters The List

#21 John Cena

Where to rank John Cena? If Triple H isn’t the most controversial star to rank in the Top 50; Cena almost certainly is. For many hardcore fans, Cena has become the poster child for everything that is wrong with professional wrestling. For others however, Cena has been the babyface of a whole generation, still enjoying a lengthy run at the top of the card and still the most recognizable full-time wrestler in the world. Cena grew up in a wealthy family on the north shore of Massachusetts and was a star football player in prep school, eventually playing at Springfield College where he was a Division III All-American as a center. After graduating he moved out to Southern California where he pursued a career in bodybuilding, before breaking into professional wrestling in 1999. He began working for Ultimate Pro Wrestling and developed the character known as “The Protoype” a cyborg-like character that demolished his opponents. Although still very green in the ring, Cena had a great physique and a strong work ethic, and he eventually signed with the World Wrestling Federation in 2001 and began working in their developmental territory, Ohio Valley Wrestling. After appearing as enhancement talent Cena made his official debut on an episode of SmackDown, answering an open-challenge by Kurt Angle and fighting admirably in defeat. Coming up just short against a champion like Angle gave Cena instant credibility, and he was able to become a mid-card babyface. Cena began to receive a push, but he himself was still very green both in the ring and on the microphone, Chris Jericho joked that he was “Wacky Roll-Up Guy” because he didn’t even have his own finishing move. That would all change when Cena attacked Billy Kidman after losing a tag team match, turning himself heel in the process. Shortly after on a Halloween episode of SmackDown Cena performed a dead-on impersonation of rapper Vanilla Ice. Impressed by Cena’s ability to rhyme and come across as a legit rap star, Cena began to build a new, heelish gimmick. He dubbed himself “The Doctor of Thuganomics” and would recite humorous raps that degraded his opponents. During the first half of 2003 Cena found himself in the main event, challenging WWE Champion Brock Lesnar. Cena would develop his own finishing move and mocked Lesnar by calling it the “FU” instead of the “F-5” which was Lesnar’s finisher. Cena would come up short against Lesnar but his popularity continued to increase. A feud with The Undertaker followed and while Cena again lost to The Undertaker, his respectable showing continued to increase his star power. Cena’s popularity would eventually lead to a face turn and a United States Championship run after defeating The Big Show at WrestleMania XX. Over the years Cena’s character has somewhat devolved to the point that he has become a babyface cliché, but at the time of Cena’s original rise to superstardom, he was seen as someone that was extremely colorful and charismatic. His braggadocios attitude and his hip-hop attire lent him to being one of the few wrestling stars to come across as truly “cool” and he had mainstream appeal with the casual fanbase. Cena would eventually win the WWE Championship at WrestleMania 21 as a part of a long feud with JBL, the New York millionaire who played a wonderful contrast to Cena’s street-wise character. A bloody I Quit match that saw Cena retain the title over JBL would follow and then Cena was moved from SmackDown to RAW, taking the WWE Championship with him. Cena being drafted over to the flagship show of WWE was the turning point in his career; the time it became official that WWE was going to build their entire company around him, and a philosophy that still exists more than a decade later.

With Cena now on RAW, WWE decided to build him up by having him work programs with some top veteran names. While on paper that seems like a very wise strategy, it had an unintended side-effect for Cena. While Cena certainly had the popularity to be the top babyface in the company; his personality and character were not for everyone and while his in-ring skills were passable, for some hardcore fans that really valued the technical ability of their wrestlers, Cena left a lot to be desired. His first rivalry on RAW was with Chris Jericho and his second feud was with Angle, two veteran stars who were among the most talented in-ring performers in the world at the time. A trend began to develop during these feuds where mostly the women and children in the crowd (the so-called casual fans) would cheer for Cena while the men in the audience (the so-called hardcore fans) would cheer for his opponent. The dynamic where Cena split the crowd into two corners is by far the most unique thing about his performance as a professional wrestler. Cena would hold onto the WWE Championship until January where he lost to Edge, who cashed in his Money in the Bank championship after Cena retained in a bloody Elimination Chamber match. In what would become a major theme of Cena’s career, he would quickly regain the championship from Edge three weeks later. The quick change of championships allowed Cena to hold WWE Championships more times than any other wrestler in history, and it became a big criticism later in his career as it was viewed that Cena didn’t really “earn” all those championships. Cena would defeat Triple H in the main event of WrestleMania 22, once again splitting the crowd as Triple H got a significant amount of cheers despite trying his best to be a heel. Cena would lose the championship at ECW’s One Night Stand event in June to Rob Van Dam in controversial fashion and would come up short in a Triple Threat match on RAW, which saw Edge walk out with the championship. Cena would then engage in a chase for the championship as Edge deftly avoided dropping the championship by getting himself disqualified and losing by count-out. Cena would regain the title at Unforgiven, defeating Edge in a Tables, Ladders and Chairs match. After a forgettable feud with The Big Show and a bizarre feud with musician Kevin Federline, Cena began to feud with the undefeated Umaga. Umaga, a 350lb Samoan brawler had been built-up as an unstoppable savage that decimated everyone that got in his way. Cena of course, would hand him his first loss, defeating Umaga at the 2007 Royal Rumble in what would become a repeatable storyline of Cena’s career. Many times a wrestler would debut and get built-up as an unstoppable force, only to be fed to Cena who usually defeated them multiple times before moving on. WWE would then struggle to book those monsters after they had been slayed by Cena, which gave Cena the perhaps unfair distinction of being someone who stunted careers. There is probably blame for both parties, but it is true that Cena’s invincibility as a top name restricted the development of talents beneath him. For the third year in a row, Cena was in the main event of WrestleMania, defeating Shawn Michaels and retaining the championship at WrestleMania 23. Cena would then slay another monster, this time in the form of The Great Khali, before beginning a feud with Randy Orton. Cena would defeat Orton with the championship on the line but in October he was injured in a match against Mr. Kennedy, suffering a torn pectoral muscle. As a result of the injury he was forced to surrender the championship, ending the longest world title reign the WWE had seen since Hulk Hogan’s …

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