John Cena's WWE career in pictures: 16-time world champ's journey from chopping block to GOAT conversation
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John Cena's career in pictures
He's been at the top of pro wrestling for the past two decades, but the career of John Cena is coming to an end.
The record-setting 16-time world champion will hang up the boots at the end of this year, with WrestleMania 41 marking the final time he will compete at the sport's most famous event.
Cena has done it all and faced them all in his wrestling career, mixing it up with the likes of CM Punk, Randy Orton, Kurt Angle and of course, The Rock.
Wide World of Sports takes a trip down memory land to look at the career of one of wrestling's biggest stars.
Early years
Cena started his pro wrestling journey way back in 1998 on the independent scene in California before making his way to WWE's developmental territory in 2001.
During his time at Ohio Valley Wrestling, Cena was part of the same training class as Brock Lesnar, Randy Orton, Batisa and Shelton Benjamin, with all five men going on to find varying degrees of success for the two decades that followed.
Main roster debut
After getting the tick of approval to make the jump from developmental to the main roster, Cena would make his debut in June 2002 against Olympic gold medallist Kurt Angle in a highly memorable moment.
Cena, built like a brick you-know-what, strutted down to the ring full of confidence and took it to Angle on the microphone, uttering the famous "ruthless aggression" phrase that would become synonymous with WWE for years to come.
He would take Angle to his limits once the ball rang and earned praise from the likes of The Undertaker and Rikishi afterwards.
The debut would put Cena on a fast-track to stardom, but it wasn't all smooth sailing.
Avoiding the axe
In the early stages of his main roster run, Cena started to be shuffled down the card and was on the cusp of getting fired.
But during an overseas tour of Europe, company executive Stephanie McMahon - the daughter of Vince - would overhear Cena rapping at the back of the bus.
From there on out, Cena would adopt a new "Doctor of Thuganomics" moniker, freestyling against his opponents and finding his feet on the star-studded roster.
Cena would end up with a platinum-selling rap album, headlined by tracks he used as his WWE theme music.
Feat of strength
In his first outing on the grandest stage of them all, Cena would show his ridiculous strength in a match against The Big Show at WrestleMania 20.
First title win
Cena's win at the showcase event would see him take home the United States Title - the first of many in his lengthy career.
World title triumph
Cena's star only continued to rise throughout the latter stages of 2004 and into the early parts of 2005.
He was quickly moved towards the top of the card, almost winning the Royal Rumble before ending up with a shot against John Bradshaw Layfield for the WWE Championship at WrestleMania 21.
Cena would defeat JBL to claim his first world title, beginning what would become one of the great main event runs in the history of the wrestling industry.
The spinner belt
After capturing the most prized possession in WWE, Cena would add his own flavour by introducing a new spinner belt.
Not everybody was on board with the move, which took away from the traditional look of the title - but it made the company plenty of money with younger fans.
At this time, Cena would slowly start to move away from his rapping character and became the face of the company.
Legendary feuds
As he started to become entrenched in the upper-echelon of WWE, Cena would start a rivalry with Hall of Fame legend Edge that spanned many years.
Edge was the ultimate villain, while Cena was the beloved babyface.
The pair had incredible chemistry between the ropes and had some hellacious matches over the world title.
Last man standing
Perhaps the most underrated match of Cena's career came at the 2007 Royal Rumble pay-per-view against Umaga.
In the culmination of months of animosity, a bloodied Cena overcame the Samoan juggernaut in a wildly physical contest.
Umaga would sadly pass away in 2009.
