WWE.com has learned that WWE Champion John Cena sustained an injury during WWE's European tour. The WWE Champion injured his right Achilles tendon while battling Ryback.
The injury raises questions about the scheduled match between Cena and Ryback at Extreme Rules on May 19. What lies ahead for the Cenation leader? Does this put Ryback one step closer to capturing the WWE Title?
There are no details yet about Cena's expected recovery time.
It was a good week for John Cena, as the WWE Champion left Ryback “shell-shocked” Monday night in London. A perfectly timed Attitude Adjustment left the always amped-up Ryback lying prone on the mat, staring up at the lights
Seventy-five years ago today, Superman the original superhero made his first appearance in “Action Comics #1.” Since then he has always stood for truth and justice. More than that, the Last Son of Krypton has become a symbol of hope and inspiration both in comic books and the real world. Although alien in origin, Superman represents the good in all of us, a red and blue example of what we should all aspire to be.
John Cena may not be able to fly, nor does he have X-ray vision or heat vision, but he stands up for what he believes in and always fights for the greater good. There is no amount of Kryptonite that could keep the Cenation leader from standing up to a challenge inside the ring or fulfilling wishes for young fans all over the world.
The WWE Universe often refers to the 11-time WWE Champion as “SuperCena” a direct reference to the Man of Steel for his seemingly superhuman strength and his ability to emerge victorious even when all of the chips are stacked against him. But the truth about “SuperCena” doesn’t necessarily lie in what he does in the ring; it is more about what he represents. Cena’s creeds of “hustle, loyalty and respect” and “rise above hate” are synonymous with truth and justice.
Although a polarizing figure among the WWE Universe, the closet parallels Cena draws to Superman are his unwavering resolve and his ability to inspire millions.
source: wwe.com
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John Cena persevered through a nearly 18-month title drought before reclaiming the WWE Championship at WrestleMania, but if Ryback has his way, Cena’s 11th WWE Title reign will come to a quick and unceremonious end at Extreme Rules.
WWE.com has confirmed that the bald-headed shredder — arguably WWE’s most dominate competitor of the last year — will receive first crack at the new WWE Champion at the May 19 pay-per-view. As exciting as this first-time singles contest would be under ordinary conditions, the title bout is made all the more intriguing by its personal overtones and Ryback’s claim that he is looking to break out of The Champ’s sizable shadow.
It was only last October that Cena labeled his Extreme Rules opponent as the “change” that the WWE Universe craved. At the time, the Shell-Shocking Superstar was on the verge of unseating then–WWE Champion CM Punk, but bizarre circumstances — ranging from a crooked ref to outside interference from the likes of The Shield — repeatedly prevented him from doing so. Since his last title opportunity in January, Ryback has slowly drifted out of WWE Championship contention, while Cena’s career has taken the opposite path.
Following his shocking ambush of Cena on the April 8 Raw, the new No. 1 contender has stopped just short of outright blaming The Champ for his own stalled momentum, although he has questioned the Cenation leader’s loyalty. Noting that he came to Cena’s rescue during several sneak attacks by The Shield, Ryback says Cena failed to return to the favor when it mattered most — first during during Ryback's title match against Punk and then again during the final moments of a losing effort against the black-garbed trio at Elimination Chamber.
Ryback has since portrayed Cena as a self-preservationist who has little regard for those around him. Even though members of the Cenation would likely take exception to that portrayal, given it was Cena who advocated for Ryback’s first title match at WWE Hell in a Cell, one must wonder whether The Champ will suffer the consequences of his perceived missteps when the bell rings on May 19.
With their friendship perhaps irreparably frayed, Cena and Ryback are headed for a collision course at Extreme Rules, and questions about the big fight abound. Will the omnipresent Shield get involved, or was their April 15 assault on Cena part of an agenda that’s wholly unrelated to the WWE Title scene? Will Ryback maintain focus on winning the match and the championship gold, or will he enter St. Louis’ Scottrade Center with a primary objective of punishing Cena? Most importantly, is The Champ’s 11th WWE Title reign destined to end prematurely, or will the Cenation leader stop Ryback in his tracks?
The WWE Universe can witness Cena and Ryback’s WWE Championship clash when Extreme Rules airs on pay-per-view Sunday, May 19, at 8 ET/5 PT.
Always one to take the biggest risks, WWE Hall of Famer Mick Foley rolled the dice yet again on Monday when chair in hand as insurance he attempted to reason with a Superstar who has proved increasingly unreasonable of late: Ryback. Foley has had words of wisdom for the young Superstar before, but the big man responded with bile, jettisoning Foley’s weapon and daring the Hall of Famer to make a move. Foley seemed ready to oblige until John Cena came to the aid of The Hardcore Legend.
Even the WWE Champion couldn’t dissuade Ryback from a potential fight, but the arrival of The Shield temporarily turned the two foes into allies. With the help of Foley’s discarded chair, Cena and Ryback forced the “Hounds of Justice” into retreat. But The Champ wasn’t about to let Ryback walk without some measure of comeuppance, launching him skyward for an Attitude Adjustment that left Ryback fuming on the mat, with the clock between their epic collision ticking slowly to zero
John Cena remains at the #1 rank for the second time!
"On Raw, John Cena rightly questioned why Ryback attacked him on the day after WrestleMania, and held his ground for as long as he could against The Shield. The WWE Universe may not know how or when the WWE Champion will respond to the aggravated brute, but they do know this: The Cenation leader never backs down from a fight."
The Shield interrupted WWE Champion John Cena's confrontation with Ryback
Ryback certainly didn’t mince words when he explained his attack of John Cena, so how did The Champ respond when he came to the ring to address the beast’s accusations against the 11-time WWE Champion? He simply called Ryback out. And although Ryback obliged Cena with an audience, The Champ didn’t let him get a word in. Cena slammed Ryback’s “highlight reel of excuses” and challenged the “Human Wrecking Ball” to put his money where his mouth is and take Cena on man to man.
But alas, Cena wouldn’t get a chance to battle his old buddy one-on-one, because not only did Ryback wordlessly decline the offer, but The Shield also picked that exact moment to make their entrance. And though it wasn’t immediately apparent which man the “Hounds of Justice” had targeted, they soon made their intentions clear. With Ryback left untouched, the NXT veterans ruthlessly Triple Powerbombed Cena into the canvas and preened over the wreckage while Ryback turned his back on the scene, wordlessly leaving his former friend to the whims of his attackers.
The Cenation leader retakes the No. 1 spot on the rankings after a lengthy and frustrating absence. John Cena’s unforgettable WWE Championship victory over The Rock at WrestleMania 29 will go down as one of the all-time moments in squared circle history. More than 80,000 members of the WWE Universe rocked MetLife Stadium Sunday night as two future WWE Hall of Famers battled on The Grandest Stage of Them All. And with Cena’s win, The Champ has officially returned!
Mark Henry interrupted John Cena's championship speech
Having finally redeemed himself on The Grandest Stage of Them All, there was a new, elated purpose to John Cena in his first Raw as WWE Champion in nearly two years. Not only did he seem physically invigorated by the title gold around his waist (check out his championship dance, complete with a kick and a “heel turn”), but Cena also got down to business. He intended to celebrate his title win the only way he knew how: by defending it.
It didn’t take long for a challenger to present himself. Mark Henry, emboldened by his defeat of the monstrous Ryback at WrestleMania, stalked to the ring and demanded an opportunity to challenge for Cena’s hard-won championship. One ruling from new Hall of Famer and reigning SmackDown General Manager Booker T later, and terms were set: Given that the injured Rock was unable to make good on his rematch clause, Henry would indeed get a crack at The Champ … provided he beat Cena one-on-one on Raw.
WWE Champion John Cena def. Mark Henry via Count-out
John Cena may have triumphed over his own personal demons at WrestleMania 29, but for a long time on Monday night, it didn’t seem like The Champ would be so lucky when he faced a very external foe in Mark Henry. Despite Cena’s dubious history on post-WrestleMania Raws, the 11-time WWE Champion was all smiles in the beginning (he even did a little dance). But The World’s Strongest Man quickly turned his mood sour, nearly planting Cena through the announce table.
The Champ rallied and struck Henry down enough to earn a count-out win, but the former World Champion wasn’t done, planting Cena with a World’s Strongest Slam. Henry looked like he’d be happy to continue until Ryback came to the rescue and drove him back … moments before turning his attention to Cena himself. With no inclination to his motives, Ryback struck Cena down, chopping The Champ down with a Meathook Clothesline before leaving him — and the WWE Universe, for that matter — Shell Shocked as Raw faded to black, Cena’s championship reign suddenly mired in uncertainty just hours after it began.
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — Finally, the time for boasts, for promises, for Q-and-A’s and point-counterpoints has come and gone, scattered to the winds of New Jersey like the last scraps of confetti blasted into the East Rutherford sky. Finally, the doubters have been silenced, the haters quelled and a restless heart given peace. Finally, redemption has come, because when all was said and done, when all the pyro smoke had cleared and the final count slammed to the mat, John Cena hoisted the WWE Championship for the unprecedented 11th time, having fought tooth and nail to defeat The Rock in a titanic clash the WWE Universe had only thought they’d see once in their lifetime.
Victory did not come as simply as 1-2-3, though. The odds were stacked against the Cenation leader from the get-go, as the MetLife Stadium faithful rained boos down on him and lavished The People’s Champion — whose history in New York and New Jersey is long and storied — with praise typically reserved for visiting dignitaries. Adding to Cena's woes, fate initially seemed to share the partisan mood of the crowd, handing The Rock the advantage early on in the match. Although Cena struck first, it didn’t take long for The Great One to seize control of the contest, halting the Cenation leader’s momentum and sending him scrambling outside the ring to regroup within the bout’s opening moments.
That trend continued well into their WWE Title Match at the 29th Show of Shows, as Rock’s initial burst of dominance led into a blunt-fisted beatdown of Cena’s torso, followed by a vice-gripped headlock to the redemption-seeking challenger. The strategy cut off Cena’s head of steam before he could even build to full power, threatening to derail his bid for redemption and leaving him looking, at least for a while, like he wasn’t sure what to do next.
Cena’s hesitation, while unusual, perhaps shouldn’t have been all that surprising. The seeming finality of The Great One’s triumph over Cena in their WrestleMania XXVIII grudge match sent the 10-time WWE Champion into a tailspin from which he vowed — though not always convincingly — to recover from in 2013. But since staking his claim to The Brahma Bull’s WWE Championship, the Cenation leader’s dour body language and facial expressions had begun to take on an air of desperation in the weeks leading to The Show of Shows.
Ironically, however, Cena was the first of the two Superstars to come within victory’s grasp, rallying from The Great One’s onslaught to execute the Five Knuckle Shuffle on the prone People’s Champion, reversing the People’s Elbow into the STF only moments later when The Great One was poised to reclaim the advantage. The Brahma Bull’s power saved him from Cena’s clutches, but the challenger’s apparent underestimation of his opponent’s resolve nearly cost him the bout again. Rock sprang up from the mat and slammed the stunned Cena with a Rock Bottom, but the Cenation leader kicked out. Not to be outdone, The Great One kicked out of Cena’s Attitude Adjustment moments later
As their battle progressed, the two Superstars abandoned all pretenses and cued up the heavy artillery, tossing signature maneuvers at each other in the hopes of keeping the other down. For a moment, it seemed like Cena had the advantage again when Rock nearly fell victim to the same hubris as his opponent last year, attempting Cena’s Five Knuckle Shuffle and running straight into Cena’s waiting arms for an AA. The Cenation leader later used the same history to his advantage when he suckered Rock into another AA after faking him out with a façade of the same People’s Elbow endeavor that cost him the bout last year.
Victory would not come so easily at the cost of The People’s Champion, though, and the barrage raged on with epic aplomb. With dogged determination and steely resolve, the two combatants traded Rock Bottoms, Attitude Adjustments and more than a fair share of People’s Elbows to no avail. On and on they went, with no clear victor in sight … until, suddenly, one emerged.
To the audience at home and the record-breaking crowd at MetLife Stadium, it wasn’t immediately apparent what was the catalyst of Cena’s ultimate deliverance from the personal hell of WrestleMania XXVIII. Perhaps The Rock finally let his guard down. Perhaps Cena was just a bit stronger, a bit bigger, a bit faster and a bit more determined than the man who clawed his way from an eight-year hiatus in Hollywood to reclaim the WWE Championship. Perhaps, like so many quests for redemption, it came down to the tiniest bit of luck.
Whatever it was, The Great One attempted a fourth Rock Bottom and Cena, sensing opportunity, writhed free of the maneuver. As the WWE Universe held its collective breath, Cena jettisoned The People’s Champion into the cool New Jersey sky with an Attitude Adjustment. A three-count later and redemption was his.
The bout — and Rock’s reign — was over, but the evening was not yet, as Cena recovered from the initial shock of his victory to share a heartfelt, private exchange with The People’s Champion in the ring. In the ultimate gesture of sportsmanship, Cena yielded the spotlight one final time to his potentially greatest foe, saluting The Great One as he strode back to the locker room in defeat. Proving himself as gracious a loser as he is a champion, The Rock ceded the final moments of WrestleMania 29 to the triumphant new champion.
Quite simply, John Cena has finally beaten The Rock. But, of course, next comes the question that every man must face when he scales his personal mountaintop:
Now what?
source: wwe.com
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A lot has happened in John Cena’s career since the last time he graced the cover of M&F in 2004. He has gone on to become the undisputed face of the WWE and is an especially huge hit with kids. He has granted over 300 wishes for the Make-A-Wish Foundation, making him the biggest wish granter in the history of the foundation. As a 10-time WWE Champion, he is one of the most successful names in pro wrestling history. His feud with The Rock, however, has forced him to stand and face real criticism from his haters; The Rock has called out Cena for his bright colored shirts and sweatbands, for embodying something only kids could enjoy. The Rock vs. John Cena is as much about two great WWE superstars putting on a phenomenal match as it is about the fans who watch. There won’t be anyone watching on Sunday who doesn’t feel strongly about the outcome of the main event one way or another, and the match promises to be as epic and memorable as last year’s main event between the two stars. Don’t miss John Cena take on WWE Champion The Rock at WrestleMania 29 on Sunday, April 7, at 7 pm EST. Order WrestleMania 29: http://ppv.wwe.com/
The following story appeared in the November 2004 edition of Muscle & Fitness and appears here as part of the muscleandfitness.com celebration of WrestleMania week. Find out how to watch WrestleMania. The April 2013 edition of Muscle & Fitness features WWE Superstar Brock Lesnar on the cover. Pick it up on newsstands now.
The man with his finger on the switch has selected the Monte Carlo this morning, but like a businessman choosing his necktie for the day, he could have taken either a ’62 or ’63 Impala convertible, a ’64 Impala SS or a ’71 Chevy Blazer, low-riders all.
To paraphrase an old joke, Cena rolls like that because he can, now that he rates as a star attraction for World Wrestling Entertainment, the wildly successful sports entertainment circus ring-led by Vince McMahon. Making the grade requires a gimmick, usually one that involves taking some exaggerated physical or cultural attribute and exaggerating it further. Cena’s pimped-out rides form part of the unlikeliest shtick under the WWE big top: a rapping wrestler of Italian descent who earned his cred growing up on the “mean streets” of West Newbury, Massachusetts, a hamlet with manicured lawns and houses that look as if they were built from ginger- bread, not bricks and mortar. The hip-hop nation hasn’t a more remote outpost, but back in the day, that’s exactly where Cena decided to stake his claim to fame in the rhyming game.
“One of the reasons I got into weights was that every day I was threatened with getting my ass kicked because I listened to rap music,” says the SmackDown! star. “It’s a small, predominantly white town, and that was my style, and it wasn’t anyone else’s style, so I got sand kicked in my face, so to speak.”
Cena’s other passion was football, a sport he played throughout high school and college and well enough to earn All-American honors during his senior year at Springfield College. He realized early on that adding some body armor would make him a harder hitter on the gridiron. When Cena was 13, his dad presented him with a home workout setup, but in a year he had outgrown it, prompting him to set foot inside Hard Nock’s Gym in nearby Amesbury, Massachusetts.
SCHOOL OF HARD NOCK’S
It’s there that Cena has insisted on returning for today’s photo shoot. Appropriate choice: For decades, the gym’s proprietor, former bodybuilder David Nock, has papered many of the walls with yellowing articles from past issues of MUSCLE & FITNESS and FLEX magazines. The oldest running gym in New England, Nock’s rocks around the clock; in fact, this photo shoot marks its first closure, even for few hours, since the United States went to war...in Vietnam. It’s the kind of place that an impressionable young man with big dreams can enter and, through the alchemy of iron, sweat and hormones, transform himself into a major badass by the time senior year rolls around.
Take Cena—Nock knew the instant they met that his genetics and discipline, once mixed with Hard Nock’s “controlled insanity” approach to bodybuilding, would explode with the inevitability of a lit fuse. Sure enough, Cena devoured the master’s offerings with the insatiable appetite of a pit bull unleashed inside a Steak n Shake.
One particular incident is branded in Nock’s memory.
“I’m sittin’ at home one Saturday night, and the phone rings at 10 o’clock,” Nock recalls. “He goes, ‘Dave, this is John. I just put a hole in the wall down here.’ I said, ‘Well, how’s that, John?’ He said, ‘You know that squat workout you gave me? Well, I didn’t quite get it done. I got upset, and I drove my fist through the wall and knocked all the plaster out.’ I said, ‘Fine, John. Just come down tomorrow and get it fixed.’ He was just a wicked intense kid. We had some real battles down here.”
Jonesing for sunshine and ready for full immersion in the bodybuilding lifestyle, Cena moved out to Southern California virtually upon being handed his college diploma. From 2000 to early 2002, he worked behind the counter at Gold’s Gym in Venice, California, every bodybuilder’s intersection between stardom and oblivion. There, scenes he had observed freeze-framed at Hard Nock’s came alive before him every day. He also started studying at a Southern California wrestling school. Ironically, he would succeed where many of the bodybuilders he had idolized and then seen firsthand at Gold’s had failed miserably.
EMINEM OR VANILLA ICE?
At wrestling school, his rhyming skills didn’t distinguish Cena. After all, young Caucasian males have appropriated black culture for commercial gain since Elvis Presley strolled into Sun Studios back in 1954. The results have ranged from inspired (Eminem) to dumb (Kid Rock) to laughable (Vanilla Ice), and where Cena falls on that continuum soon will be apparent. Two years in the making, his first CD, tentatively titled Underground, is finished and due out at summer’s end as a joint Columbia/WWE release.
Yet while his skill on the mic didn’t propel Cena into the WWE, it would put him over the top. WWE talent endures a lot of downtime between matches, and one day, an executive overheard Cena freestyling back- stage between shows. The rest, as they say, is history. “It’s good, because it’s allowing me to be me,” Cena says of being recast from his former persona, The ProtoType. “Before [the WWE was] marketing me as this clean-cut kid from small-town America, and I am the kid from small-town America, but I’m the kid who would go to the mall in a tricked-out Nova.”
The accoutrements of hip-hop are on full display onstage and at this photo shoot: ’92 Reebok joints, sweatbands, throwback jerseys. (Today, it’s vintage Celtics — the unmistakable “00” worn by Hall of Fame center Robert Parish.) “I base a lot of what our company is capable of on what hip-hop has done,” he says when asked to explain his merging of street hustle and wrestling, given that blacks form a relatively small percentage of the WWE fan base. “Hip-hop came from nuthin’, and they said it was the next disco, and then it really blew up. Now, not only do you see recording artists making a helluva lot of money on their records, but they’re getting [main- stream] endorsement deals and TV shows. I believe that can happen with wrestling as well.”
HOMECOMING
Cena may be a baller now, but he hasn’t forgotten from whence he came. He insisted that this shoot be done at Hard Nock’s so that David Nock would receive his due props, and the atmosphere inside, filled with barking dogs and crying babies, suggests a family reunion.
In a roundabout way, Cena can thank Nock and bodybuilding for his ease in the ring. The latter tells a story from when Cena, then 18, was preparing for his first bodybuilding contest, a backwater show held in Newburyport, Mass. Two weeks out, stage fright suddenly gripped the teen. Nock ordered him down to a nearby traffic circle in his posing trunks on a Sunday morning, so he could go through his routine as parishioners made their way to church.
“The women loved it, and the guys wanted to give him the finger,” says Nock, laughing at the memory. “But he’s loved getting up onstage ever since.”
source: muscleandfitness.com
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Although he conceded The Rock’s credentials as one of the greatest WWE Champions in history, John Cena still felt sure enough on Raw to guarantee victory over The Brahma Bull at WrestleMania. That will likely be his last proclamation, as it’s now time for the Cenation leader to go one-on-one with The Great One.
The WWE Universe fully expected John Cena, left as a life-sized splatter across the mat last week following the receipt of a Rock Bottom, to face down WWE Champion (and reigning box-office hero) The Rock and exact retaliation when Raw rolled into the nation’s capital six days before their WWE Title bout at WrestleMania. But with his do-or-die bid for redemption just a few nights away and tension at an all-time high, Cena went against the grain and elected to take the high road with The People’s Champion. He eschewed physical comeuppance from last week and a repeat of last year’s crude war of words for a simple but impassioned address to the WWE Universe.
“The People’s Era will remain,” Cena said. “The WWE Universe will remain. But the mighty Rock will experience failure. … I will shock the world.”