The Last Days Of Heel John Cena

Vince McMahon wasn't short of a star, even after the WCW Invasion of 2001 had collapsed thanks to his haphazard mismanagement of it.

If anything, some hefty AOL TimeWarner contracts running out in line with a notable injury recovery empowered his roster with an energy it had missed during the first full year of his long-desired monopoly.

He'd been able keep The Rock around to cover for Steve Austin's departures, Hulk Hogan was in the red and yellow like old times (but putting guys over, in wholly unfamiliar scenes) and The Undertaker and Triple H hadn't yet extinguished their Top Guy aura with that wretched King Of The Ring main event.

John Cena, subsequently, wasn't exactly filling his eyes with dollar signs. As 'The Champ' himself put it;

Higher-ups said, ‘If we’re going to put the kid on TV, he’s gotta meet Vince! They literally dragged me by the arm to Vince’s office, threw me in and asked him, ‘What do you think?’ I had ridiculously ugly, long, super-dyed blond hair that was shaved bald on the sides. He turned around and with a disgusted look on his face, he said, ‘Cut his hair,’ and I was whisked away from Vince like an assembly line. That was the first time I met Vince McMahon and he was disgusted to look at me. They shipped me out and I immediately got a haircut, which was not dyed blond, but equally as horrible.”

Laughable as most of this is, it's also key to the first chapter of Cena's story. Every single WWE star of any renown has made known the importance of getting in with the boss, and in 2002, he wasn't managing it very well. Famously, he'd feared the chop by October until Stephanie McMahon catching wind of a bus rap changed his life and effectively changed the whole industry.

Working with Vince was key and this Cena knew. Getting to spar with him on television was the audience's tell that the young star was rapidly becoming a made man.

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