John Cena is often considered one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all time. In fact, he is also the most successful superstar in the company’s history, measured by number of titles. Cena won WWE World Championship 16 times in his career. This is an all-time WWE record jointly held by Cena and “The Nature Boy” Ric Flair.
While Cena now pursues a career in Hollywood, there was a time when he was billed as the face of the company for almost a decade. In his WWE debut, he adopted a gimmick from trash rapper Doctor of Thuganomics. This gimmick came up several times during Cena’s stint.
But in 2006, John Cena introduced a new gimmick. The trash talker went to the other end of the spectrum in this post. He began to play the game of a young soldier. The whole gimmick involved the Cenation leader wearing dog tags and even cargo shorts. But that’s not all, he even got into the ring and greeted the crowd.
There were numerous military references in John Cena’s gimmick, leading the WWE Universe to speculate that Cena may have been part of the United States military at some point in his career. But that wasn’t the case. This gadget was introduced right after the release of his first film. The navy. The film was produced by WWE Studios.
While most of the character’s military-inspired features were scaled back after promotion for the film ended, Cena continued his salute gesture. In fact, the 16-time WWE World Champion had mentioned in an interview with WWE.com: “Every evening, when I make this salute, it is also a sign of respect for the men and women who wear the uniform of the armed forces.
John Cena had a blockbuster in 2021
Since focusing on Hollywood, John Cena has made sporadic appearances in WWE. However, in 2021, he got a month off from his busy schedule and decided to return to WWE and compete against Universal Champion Roman Reigns.
But his acting career also saw a huge boom in the same year. He played the role of Jakob Toretto in F9 and Peacemaker in The Suicide Squad. Cena even got the chance to headline his own television series called The Peacemaker. The same was recently renewed for the second season.