When people talk about their own personal Mount Rushmore's of professional wrestling, John Cena's name will crop up in conversations more often than not. As Cena is a 17-time WWE World Champion, something no one had ever reached and might never reach again, he is quite simply one of the most famous, recognizable, and accomplished wrestlers in the history of the sport.
At the time of writing, Cena is just over halfway through his 2025 retirement tour, with the current Undisputed WWE Champion set to hang up his jorts for good at the end of the year to focus on his acting career. He has given WWE fans countless memories across the 23 years he has been in the company, from his "Ruthless Aggression" debut against Kurt Angle in 2002, to the "Doctor of Thuganomics" gimmick that earned him the support of the fans, all the way through to his first WWE Championship win in 2005 and beyond. It's because he's been in the spotlight for so long that many people forget that Cena did, in fact, have very humble beginnings.
That's what we are here to talk about to today, the time before the 17 World Championships, the dozens of movie roles, and being known by virtually everyone in the world as someone they can't see. So sit back, relax, and enjoy a journey to West Newbury, Massachusetts, a small town in Essex County with a population of less than 5,000, and the birthplace of the man who has granted more Make-A-Wish wishes than other person on earth, to see what the life of John Cena was like before he became the "Leader of the Cenation" and one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all time.
John Felix Anthony Cena was born on April 23, 1977 to parents Carol and John (who many fans now simply call John Cena Sr.) in the small town West Newbury, Massachusetts. However, things almost went terribly wrong for Cena before he was even born, as he had his umbilical cord wrapped three times around his neckbut never suffered any long-term health problems despite a difficult start to life.
Cena grew up with four brothers, one older (Dan) and three younger than him (Matt, Steve, and Sean), and if there's one thing that all of the Cena boys had in common, it's that they loved professional wrestling. The five brothers created their own in-house wrestling promotion, creating makeshift rings out of mattresses in their basement and belts out of cardboard. Despite being a household name these days, John wasn't afraid to do a job every once in a while, with Matt even saying "Let's just say John didn't always come out on top."
Wrestling was such a big deal in the Cena household that John even said in a 2007 interview with The Newbury Port News that while some father and son duos played catch together, Cena, his brothers, and their dad all watched wrestling together as their form of "catch." John's father even installed Cablevision in their house specifically so that the boys could watch wrestling, as opposed to many other Cablevision customers who bought the services to watch movies from the comfort of their own home. However, Cena Sr. didn't always let the boys get away with their roughhousing as John admits to him and brothers getting a few shoot belt shots from their dad for fighting, but they would get away with it if they just said they were practicing wrestling moves on each other.
John Cena is far and away the most famous person to ever come out of West Newbury, but there are a number of people within his family who have made their own names in various professions.
We've already mentioned his dad multiple times, but the reason why the Cena household was so obsessed about wrestling was because the man of the house was such a big wrestling fan that he ended up being involved in the business himself. Cena's dad famously appeared on WWE TV in 2007 during his feud over the WWE Championship with Randy Orton, with Orton and Mr. Cena as he was billed at the time actually having a match on the September 17, 2007 episode of "WWE Raw," which saw Orton, of course, winning in convincing fashion. However, Cena Sr. still appears on the independent scene from time-to-time, both as a ring announcer for Massachusetts based promotion Chaotic Wrestling, and as "Johnny Fabulous," a manager who primarily stays on the outside of the ring, but has ended up inside the ring wrestling the likes of former WWE Superstar Nick "Eugene"Dinsmore and "Smart" Mark Sterling of AEW and ROH fame.
As for John's extended family, his maternal grandfather was none other than baseball star Tony Lupien, who played for the Boston Red Sox, Philadelphia Phillies, and the Chicago White Sox throughout the 1940s before having a successful career as a coach. His maternal great-grandfather was Tony Lupien's father Ulysses, a politician who served as the Massachusetts director of civil service, and city manager of Lowell. Not only that, but his cousin is computer scientist Natalie Enright Jerger, whose research in computer architecture and interconnection networks has led to her becoming the director of the Division of Engineering Science at the University of Toronto.
If there's one thing that wrestlers always tell people who aspire to get into the business, getting an education is arguably the one that's the most important as you at least have something to fall back on if the whole professional wrestling thing doesn't work out. John Cena had a very good education growing up, but it's safe to say that what he eventually left school with didn't really take him as far as he'd originally hoped.
He first went to the Central Catholic High School in Lawrence, Massachusetts, but was then transferred to the Cushing Academy, a private prep boarding school in Ashburnham, Massachusetts,where the current tuition fee for one year in the boarding side of the school runs $77,800 (you need 10% of that upfront as an enrollment deposit), while the day student tuition fee is currently coming in at $52,600 for one school year. That fee would have been much lower for Cena back when he was a student, but it seemed to be worth it initially, as he would then go on to attend the Springfield College in Springfield, Massachusetts, where he would go on to be the captain of the school's football team, as well as an NCAA Division Three All-American center.
Cena graduated in 1999 with a degree in exercise physiology and kinesiology, two types of sports science that focus on exercise and human body movement. Given what Cena would end up becoming, you'd be forgiven in thinking he made a very smart career choice while attending college, but career choices were limited for him after he left college as he essentially had, as Cena calls it, "a degree in working out." However, Cena is proud of his education and was inducted into the Springfield College Athletic Hall of Fame in 2015.
When you watch John Cena wrestle, you see his larger than life persona, his incredible physique, and his high impact moves, but eagle-eyed fans who might look a little closer at Cena as person might be able to spot two white polka dots on his right shoulder and right pec. These are caused by two different instances where Cena was told he had skin cancer.
During a 2025 interview with People magazine, Cena explained that because he grew up next to a beach, he was always so used to playing out in the sun with his brothers and friends, going to carnivals and hanging out down by the port. When he eventually moved to Florida after college, a place with lots of beaches and much hotter weather, Cena never wore any sunscreen because, quite simply, he never thought the effects from the sun would actually get to him. He was wrong.
Upon visiting a dermatologist, Cena was told that he had developed a cancerous spot on his right pec, which ultimately got removed, but the fact that he was told at such a young age that he had cancer truly shocked him. Over a year later, he developed a second spot, this time on his shoulder, which was removed as well, and has since taken extra care of his skin, both in the sun and out of it, stating that taking care of his skin is a very easy thing to do and that everyone should treat it seriously.
Due to his prior experiences in the sun, Cena has partnered up with healthcare brand Neutrogena to promote their new Ultra Sheer Mineral Sunscreen, while also promoting the importance of skin safety, and that people should regularly visit their doctors about their skin just to be safe
We've all been there. You're fresh out of college or university, you have the whole world at your feet, a degree in something you've spent years studying, and now it's time to get yourself a job to do with the degree you've spent so much money on and make a name for yourself in whatever profession you've chosen to pursue. Suddenly, you have the realization everyone has; you need money, you need it now, which means you need any job in order to get by, and John Cena was no different.
In 2021, Cena revealed that one of his first jobs in Boston was as a limo driver, which didn't go very well considering that he was three hours late to his first job because he got lost, which would have been forgiven for most people had it not been for the fact that he was literally from Massachusetts.
By the end of 1999, Cena had $500 in his pocket and moved to the other side of the country to pursue his dreams in California, where he initially found work moving fitness equipment for a company, before landing a job at the iconic Gold's Gym in Venice Beach in the store section. In a 2022 interview with ESPN, Cena claimed that he was earning $6 an hour, and that "If you wanted to know about nutrition, protein or apparel, I was your guy."
John's older brother Dan would go on to become a police sergeant, a line of work that Cena himself almost went down as he applied to be apart of the California Highway Patrol, but he failed the entry exam. He also intended join the Officer Candidate School of the Marine Corps after failing to become a cop, but never followed up on it.
You might be asking the question "why was John Cena out in California in the first place?" Between not being a cop and not making a healthy wage at Gold's Gym, the main reason why Cena was out on the west coast was because he was trying to pursue a career in bodybuilding.
Having been picked on for being too skinny, a 12-year old Cena asked Santa Claus for a weightlifting bench for Christmas, and after lifting his first weights, he never stopped working out. His large physique and love of fitness was the main reason he studiedexercise physiology and kinesiology at college, and by the time he graduated, Cena was so large that he thought a career in bodybuilding would be the right way to go for him.
Idolizing the likes of Hulk Hogan in WWE, footage of Cena's bodybuilding competitions still exist online, with the future WWE Champion rocking an extremely small pair of speedos and a dark enough spray tan to make someone like Bron Breakker blush. Sadly, Cena never won any major competitions in his quest to be a bodybuilder, hence why he worked so many odd jobs and almost quit living in California and moved back to Massachusetts.
With that said, Cena's original dream has been referenced on WWE TV over the years, with CM Punk in 2011 famously stating that Cena only became a professional wrestler because he couldn't hack being a bodybuilder. His size and strength still impresses both fans and wrestlers now, as former WWE Superstar the Big Show once called Cena one of the strongest men he's ever been in the ring with, while Cameron Grimes claimed that Cena is so big, he wears XXXL t-shirts to the ring.
Remember when we said that working at Gold's Gym wasn't exactly paying him the best wages, well it turns out that the money he was making wasn't even enough to cover any sort of rent as Cena was technically homeless for a period of time after moving to California.
Cena has always been open about the fact that he spent his time living in his car, a 1991 Lincoln Continental, and spent the majority of his time camped outside Gold's Gym to not only make it easier to get to work (because he was literally outside the door every day), but he would also get five-finger discount on the supplement store just around the corner. Because he was an employee with little-to-no money, Cena would also use the Gold's Gym facilities for either free or a discounted cost, which also meant he could take a shower each day as well.
As for food, the aforementioned supplements store near the gym was one place that helped Cena out, as was Zeppy's Pizza near Hermosa Beach, which used to have a deal on where if you could eat the whole deep dish pizza, you would get it for free. Cena being the size that he was, and as hungry as he was with no money and no apartment, went there for three days straight and ate the whole pizza each time, to the point where the owner told him that if he ever wanted a free slice, all he had to do was ask. For polishing off the three humungous deep dish pizzas, Cena did get to have his name on the wall as a reward, and if you're ever near Hermosa Beach and want to attempt the challenge, the restaurant is still open today.
Living out of his car as a would-be bodybuilder with no money and only a plaque with his name on in a local pizza shop, choosing to be homeless looked like it hadn't worked out for John Cena. However, instead of giving in and returning to his parents in the Northeast, Cena was introduced to the world of professional wrestling after hearing about a wrestling school some of his friends were going to. Instead of thinking that this could have been his way into being a WWE Superstar, Cena has actually stated that he thought wrestling training would be a cool hobby, but little did he know what was in store for him.
Cena would begin training at Ultimate Pro Wrestling's "Ultimate University"in Santa Ana, California in 1999, a school operated by Rick Bassman. Some of Cena's earliest days training at the school were captured on camera for a Discovery Channel documentary called "Inside Pro Wrestling School," where the future WWE Champion is largely the focal point, but cameos from a young Matt Cappotelli, and an even younger Samoa Joe are sprinkled throughout.
As for his gimmick, the "Doctor of Thuganomics" was a long way away, and Cena instead called himself "The Prototype." He was half-man, half-machine, who would talk in a very monotone, authoritative voice, and moved around as if he was a robot. Just when The Prototype was ready to kick someone's butt and wrestle, he would "rewind," reversing everything he just said and tell his opponent a second time that their butt was going to get kicked. It was a gimmick that didn't necessarily go anywhere, and Cena himself has called it "100% crap," but admits that there is always a trial and error period in discovering who you are in professional wrestling.
John Cena's first official match was on November 5, 1999, at UPW's "Entertainment Overload" event, where he defeated Funky Billy Kim and Troubled Youth in a handicap match. From there, he would win the UPW Heavyweight Championship, and in October 2000, he even had a dark match for the WWE. UPW and WWE had a good working relationship together, and after being impressed by what they saw, WWE signed John "The Prototype" Cena to a developmental contract in 2001.
Cena would uproot his life once more, as he would be assigned to their Ohio Valley Wrestling territory to perfect his skills, while still portraying the Prototype gimmick. He would get occasional dark matches here and there,but under the guidance of Jim Cornette, Cena and the rest of the OVW roster would be moulded into TV ready stars. TheOVW roster included the likes of Brock Lesnar, Batista, and Randy Orton, who along with Cena are now dubbed "The OVW 4" for how successful they have all become, but the likes of Shelton Benjamin, Rico, and Nick "Eugene" Dinsmore were all part of the famous OVW class of 2002 that is largely responsible for the success of WWE's "Ruthless Aggression" era.
By mid-2002, The Prototype shed his robotic roots and showed up on "WWE SmackDown" as John Cena to confront Kurt Angle, and while he didn't pick up the win that night, it was clear that WWE had high hopes for Cena. However, he was almost fired for not living up to expectations right away, but after being heard rapping about a can of tuna fish by Stephanie McMahon on a European tour, he would stop doing spot shows for OVW as the Prototype and fully transformed into the "Doctor of Thuganomics."The rest, as they say, is history.
