It's hard to believe but WWE came very close to letting go of the biggest star of the past decade. John Cena debuted on the June 27th 2002 Smackdown by answering Kurt Angle's open challenge. Although he lost the match, the still-green Cena looked impressive in the defeat and it was considered a very good debut. For the next few months, however, Cena's performances came under criticism and he got lost in the shuffle amongst talented super-workers like Los Guerreros, Chris Benoit, Kurt Angle, Edge and stars such as Hulk Hogan, Brock Lesnar and The Undertaker. Cena went from being hyped as 'the future of Smackdown' to forming a jobber tag team with Billy Kidman within a frighteningly short period of time. It's not hard to see why WWE were losing interest in Cena. He wore generic tights and boots, wrestled with a clunky ring style (did he even have a finisher?) and didn't show one fiftieth of the charisma that he would in future. Cena claimed in a 2012 interview that Vince McMahon and Triple H both wanted him fired while he was boring audiences on Smackdown:
'When I was just wearing boots and tights and I was supposed to be the ruthless aggression young good guy, nobody in the company liked me. I know Vince McMahon won't admit this, but he wanted me fired, Triple H wanted me fired, everybody hated me'.
Cena turned it around in late 2002 with the 'Doctor of Thuganomics' gimmick, but the course of wrestling history was almost significantly altered before he even had a chance to do it.
