Six Words From Jim Ross That Made WWE Sign John Cena
Years before he ran the place, John Cena was OVW’s The Prototype — and in 2001, Jim Ross pegged him as WWE’s next big thing. The Ross Report from that year reads like a prophecy of Cena’s era-defining run.
John Cena did not exactly burst out of WWE developmental with a giant neon sign that said future GOAT. But here we are, two decades later, looking back at a tiny note from Jim Ross in 2001 that kind of called it, a boatload of stats to back it up, and a couple of very Cena stories that explain why the guy stuck around long enough to become, well, John Cena.
Ross saw 'The Prototype' and thought... Sting?
In a 2001 edition of the Ross Report, Jim Ross jotted down quick blurbs on the OVW class that would soon take over WWE. For John Cena, then working as 'The Prototype,' the note was short and almost hilariously vague compared to what future megastars like Brock Lesnar, Randy Orton, Shelton Benjamin, and Dave Bautista got.
'UPW trained. Reminds me of Sting.'
That little line resurfaced on X, courtesy of @IANDrewDiceClay, with a snapshot of the report attached (posted September 29, 2025): pic.twitter.com/b1DYelCNPj. Inside baseball alert: it is funny how everyone else got proper scouting-report treatment and Cena got the equivalent of a shrug and a Sting comp. Not wrong, just... thin.
From an iffy blurb to the face of the company
Cena turned that OVW footnote into a big-league career pretty fast. He walked onto SmackDown against Kurt Angle and immediately made noise. Over the next 23 years, he became the company workhorse, the locker room guy, the PG-era lightning rod, and basically the default top star for a generation. If you buy the 'Undisputed GOAT' label, here is the case, via Cagematch and WWE tallies:
- WWE Championship (including the 'Undisputed' naming stretch): 14
- World Heavyweight Championship: 3
- World Tag Team Championship: 2
- WWE Tag Team Championship: 2 (yes, the tag belts got renamed over the years, but the upshot is four main-roster tag title reigns)
- WWE United States Championship: 5
- Royal Rumble wins: 2
- Elimination Chamber wins: 4 (as tallied here)
- WrestleMania appearances: 17 (he wrestled on 16 of them)
- Developmental and early accolades: OVW Heavyweight Champion (1), OVW Tag Team Champion (1), UPW Heavyweight Champion (1)
He is also now working a limited schedule and framing his exit as WWE's 'Last Real Champion' era. Whether you love or roll your eyes at that phrasing, the resume is the resume.
'Never Give Up' was not a marketing line. It was self-preservation.
In an interview with Chris Van Vliet, Cena spelled out how the motto happened: he failed a lot, learned fast, and kept swinging. He is blunt about it.
'Yeah, so I will make a ton of mistakes, I just will not make them twice because I try to learn from the mistakes.'
He also says he was not the natural phenom like Brock Lesnar or Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson. His words, not mine:
'I was the last f**king pick.'
He was close to getting cut, got one last shot, and created the 'Doctor of Thuganomics' character. That came from a real place: he loved hip-hop, could freestyle, and just leaned into it. From there, it was a very Cena run: a lot of passion, a lot of effort, and a very open mind, even when the audience pushed back. He describes it this way:
'I had to create and take ownership of that was only a small sliver of my life. I loved hip-hop music, and I could freestyle pretty good, but I just dove right in, and it worked, and along the way I had setbacks and failures and mistakes and good performances and bad performances, but there was never lack of effort, there was never lack of passion, and there was always ability to keep an open mind.'
That pivot is what turned the guy with one diehard fan in the crowd into the dude who sold out arenas full of kids wearing neon Never Give Up merch.
The night he nearly walked into a riot (on purpose)
If you lived through the mid-2000s, you remember the great Cena discourse: hero to kids, public enemy No. 1 to the hardest of hardcores. Exhibit A: ECW One Night Stand 2006 at the Hammerstein Ballroom, where he defended the WWE title against Rob Van Dam. The crowd hurled his T-shirt back at him. The infamous 'If Cena Wins, We Riot' banner was out. It was a madhouse.
At the Philadelphia Fan Expo (via X), Cena looked back on that night and admitted he almost escalated things just to see what would happen:
'I look at the sign, and I heard the crowd, and I would never do this again. It was the most stupid decision of my life, but I told Rob, hey, let us go out into the audience. I just wanted to see what would happen.'
He says the ECW fans were 'professional' about it in the end. He fully expected to get his a** kicked, but they kept it to noise and theater. Which, honestly, makes that show even better in hindsight.
So... greatest ever?
The numbers are ridiculous, the longevity is even crazier, and the stories explain why he outlasted almost everyone. Whether you stamp him the GOAT or not, the case is there. Is Cena the best to ever do it in WWE? Tell me where you land.