#5.) John Cena makes his debut
The year was 2002 and WWE was still moving on from the Attitude Era. In a more transitionary phase, the company saw a crop of incredible talent graduate from Ohio Valley Wrestling and they chose to go with a new tagline: “Ruthless Aggression”. This would define an entire generation of talent and the young upstart Cena would be the face of it.
Kurt Angle, fresh off a victory against the legendary Hulk Hogan was one of SmackDown’s top heels and called out anyone in the locker room to challenge him. This was the platform for Cena to debut and make an impact right off the bat, Showcasing the aggression that would define his era, it was one of the most memorable debuts, where he came close to knocking off the Olympic Gold medalist. It would be the start of a storied WWE career.
#4.) Winning the WWE Championship at WrestleMania XXI
WrestleMania 21 was a true changing of the guard for WWE. It would see both John Cena and Batista‘s parallel rise to the top, where they would win their respective world championships. Cena was the hottest babyface on the SmackDown brand and the fastest rising star in the company alongside Batista.
His rise to the top was organic despite many comparisons to Roman Reigns‘ forced push and his rise would culminate when WrestleMania went to Hollywood as he dethroned JBL to become WWE Champion. This would mark the start of many years of dominance by Cena and the first of 16 World Championships.
