John Cena, real name John Fleix Anthony Cena, is currently the hottest wrestler in America. Currently employed by World Wrestling Entertainment, he is also consider by some to be a hip hop musician and actor. His impressive resume currently consists of 5 time World Champion (at the present time of the writing this article), 2 times World Tag Team Champion, 3 times United States Champion and the 2008 Royal Rumble.
Born on April 23, 1977 in West Newbury, Massachusetts, Cena attended Springfield College where he was a Division III All-American center on the football team. Upon graduating in 1998 with a exercise physiology degree, he became a bodybuilder while also working as a chauffeur for a limousine company.
"The Doctor of Thuganomics" started his wrestling career under the character of The Prototype, a semi-robotic character, at Ultimate University created by Ultimate Pro Wrestling. After a year in 2001 ,WWE interested by his strength and charisma, placed him to their developmental division known as Ohio Valley Wrestling.
Cena's WWE career started in Smackdown with a boom as he quickly challenged Kurt Angle in his first show and nearly beat the Olympic Champion by kicking out of the Angle Slam and enduring the ankle lock submission. Soon after he started a program as a fan favorite with another well established superstar, Chris Jericho. After a few months of moderate success, he dropped the face personality and adopted a rapper personality who cut promos and interviews in rhyme. The rapper gimmick caught up with the fans and established him as a certificated heel where he soon awarded a championship title chance against then WWE champion, Brock Lesnar.
"The Chain Gang Soldier" was finally able to achieve his first World Title in 2005 at Wrestlemania 21 by defeating John "Bradshaw" Layfield. He continued his ongoing feud with JBL until around June of 2005 where he was drafted to WWE's flagship show Monday Night Raw. Cena quickly made impact on Raw by retiring Chris Jericho for about a year. He soon started his feud once again with Kurt Angle, which saw him adding the STF, formerly known as STFU to his finishing repertoire. It was around this time that some fans started getting sick of seeing Cena as the main draw every week. Others were not impressive with his limited wrestling repertoire and unhappy with him making movies such as The Marines. As a result, many boos were heard in arenas every time he appeared.
In 2006, he started a feud with Edge that was considered to be the best rivalry in the last few years in professional wrestling. Around the same time, Cena was also put in programs to feud with Triple H and Rob Van Damn. These feuds would only intensified the negative reactions by some fans towards him. Chants of "you can't wrestle" and "you still sucks" were often heard around this time.
However, WWE heads have much faith in Cena's drawing power and wrestling ability. He headlined Wrestlemania in 2007 by going toe to toe with "Mr. Wrestlemania" Shawn Michaels in a gruesome and physical match. One week later on Raw, he once again proved his wrestling skills and repertoire by going one hour Iron Man with Shawn Michaels in an instant classic and quite possibly the best match in Raw history in the last few years.
Throughout the last few years, "The Champ" has also starred in two action flicks, "12 Rounds" and "The Marine', while recording his own entrance song in the album "You Can't See Me". No matter if you are booing or cheering for him the next time he does the military salute to the audience or shouting "The Champ is Here", there is little doubt that John Cena is the biggest draw and most emotional driven wrester in the industry today.
