The WWE Universe nearly never saw John Cena in the ring at all.
While many associate Cena as one of the most successful WWE Superstars of all time, an accident in the early days of the 16 time World Champion’s in-ring career almost caused a serious injury.
John Cena Nearly Suffered A Serious Injury Early In His Career
Before establishing himself as the Doctor of Thuganomics, Cena would train amongst other future stars of the company. Former WWE Superstar Chris Masters trained with John Cena while at Ultimate Pro Wrestling [UPW].
Speaking with Chris Van Vliet, Masters recalled his first impressions of John Cena:
Oh, just, you know, impressive, just physically so impressive. You know, and, you know, big personality, just like, you know, everybody knows now and, you know. I think everybody just kind of felt like he was gonna have some degree of success. But I mean, I don’t think any of us really knew that he would necessarily be like the Hulk Hogan of his generation. So um, you know, but it was funny, man, because I can still remember how us in the ring training those first couple months and just, you can only imagine how clunky it was and just, I just always had this flashback.
The Masterpiece would go on to describe how a future horror movie actor would perform the scary manoeuvre:
You know, there was a guy named Andrew Bryniarski, he’s a good guy, he played Leatherface on the chainsaw movies. He was on the programme, a lot of people know he’s a big guy, but he’s training for wrestling. He went to leg drop Cena from the second rope and literally landed with his ass straight on Cena’s head. Yeah, like we almost ended the franchise before he ever became a franchise, you know, I mean, and so, you know, those were just I don’t know, those are my impressions. You know what I mean? Like, and then, you know, by the time I came back to UPW, like Cena was already on his way. So it was kind of like, you know, we were always a couple years kind of behind each other. And, you know, we were never really close though. But you know, it was always interesting. We’re just very different guys.
Cena would debut for WWE in 2002, going on to travel around the world while wrestling for the company. One former WWE star has recalled what it was like travelling in the same car as the former WWE Champion.
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