Before They Were Stars: John Cena as The Prototype

John Cena is undoubtedly the biggest wrestling superstar in the world today, but when you have to pay your dues on the independent wrestling scene before making it big, it’s pretty hard to avoid being saddled with a silly gimmick at some point. This footage is from a Discovery Channel documentary about Ultimate Pro Wrestling, an independent promotion where Cena started out his career playing a character called “The Prototype”. Here, you can see him sporting a goofy-looking blonde buzzcut and delivering one of the all-time awesomely cheesy one-liners: “I look in your genetic lunchbox and find a peanut butter-and-jelly sandwich… with the crusts cut off!”.