John Cena's forgotten first WWE opponent had the craziest life story after traumatic childhood incident
John Cena will call time on his decorated, unparalleled WWE career at the end of 2025 - completing his retirement tour in December in his hometown of Boston, Massachusetts.
Cena, who broke Ric Flair's record to become a 17-time world champion when he beat Cody Rhodes at WrestleMania, faces The American Nightmare in a rematch at SummerSlam at the MetLife Stadium this weekend.
He does not have that many dates left before he hangs up his jorts and continues his ascension in Hollywood - having already admitted he will walk away whenever he feels "a step slow" inside the squared circle.
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There have been rumours aplenty about who Cena's final WWE opponent will be, with world heavyweight champion Gunther heavily tipped for the honour after recently sending Goldberg packing.
But who was Cena's first very opponent in WWE many years back?
The 48-year-old's official WWE debut was against Hall of Famer Kurt Angle, answering his open challenge with a slap to the face as he spoke of having 'Ruthless Aggression'.
John Cena lost first WWE match to forgotten wrestler
Yet Cena's first WWE match was actually back in October 2000, when he took on Mikey Henderson in a non-televised bout at a Sunday Night Heat taping.
At the time, Cena was wrestling under the 'Prototype' name and gimmick, whereby he was a semi-robotic character who had a blonde mohawk hairstyle.
Cena actually suffered defeat in the match but signed a WWE developmental contract in 2001 and joined an iconic OVW 2002 wrestling class which included Dave Bautista, Randy Orton and Brock Lesnar.
Finding success with his 'Dr. The Doctor of Thuganomics' character, Cena went on to become one of the biggest stars in the wrestling business and made a seamless transition into movies.
But he had a very different career and life to Henderson, who beat him. The wrestler went by many other names such as 'American Ninja' and 'Suicide Kid' and primarily wrestled for OVW, UPW and APW.
He never earned a contract but did wrestle a number of dark matches for WWE - including a tag team match against Hardcore and Crash Holly.
However, his life before that was nothing short of traumatic.
According to SoCalUncensored.com, a 20-year-old Henderson was the subject of an independent film about his childhood - which included being raised by a single father and having sex with a woman at the age of eight.
Four years on from first training with wrestlers, he became a dad at fifteen - the same age of which he won his first professional title.
Henderson was also pursuing a career as an actor and it was claimed he was poised to star in two major feature films - though he did not appear to get his big break.
According to prowrestling.fandom.com, the 45-year-old retired from wrestling in 2011 and there is not much information of what he has been doing ever since.
Josh Lawless