Two best friends catching a flight from New York City to Los Angeles moved about the airport store searching for something interesting to read to pass away the long cross country trip.
"Ooohhh, look, John Cena is on the cover of Vanity Fair. Doesn't he look hot?" one said to the other.
The cover was a black and white classic closeup pose of the disgraced athlete. It was a side view of his handsome and flawless face as he wore a button up shirt that was open all the way down to the chest. He wore a fedora, paying hommage to the late great Humphrey Bogart.
"He is hot but I heard he raped a girl. That's kind of messed up."
"No he didn't. It was all a lie. She had the hots for him and he turned her down so she was stalking him and she ended up accusing him of rape. The bitch totally lied and there wasn't even enough evidence to take him to trial."
"Yeah, that is messed up. And the girl, didn't she end up offing herself?"
"That's what they said on the news."
"Are you gonna buy it?"
"I think so. I'm interested to see what he has to say plus I hear there are going to be a lot of personal pictures in here, including some of his wife and baby."
The girls paid for the magazine and settled into their seats to wait at the gate. They flipped open to see the pictures. One was of Cena in his classic purple tee shirt and hat and jean shorts flashing the trademark "u can't see me" sign. Another was a black and white profile of him grinning holding his son close to his face, his wedding band in plain view. Another was a body shot of him in a suit, another was of little Tristan lying cooing and smiling on the couple's bed with John lovingly leaning over him looking into the baby's eyes while an angelic looking Ava, propped up on one elbow stared affectionately at John. The article had been written by Ann Scott and the photographs had been taken by Anthony Navarette. The opening page's headlines read John Cena Is The Luckiest Man Alive (and here's why)… After college he left the comforts of his Boston suburb and moved out to L.A. to pursue his dream of bodybuilding…After minimal success and living in his car, he was offered a contract to train with the WWE…By the time he was 29, he was the company's highest paid and most popular Superstar…He has starred in feature films and is recognized all over the world…He was rich and handsome and on top of his game…He met, fell in love with, and married a gorgeous woman who gave birth to their son just five months ago…Oh and last year he nearly lost it all when a co-worker falsely accused him or rape…This is the positively true story of a golden boy's fall from grace and his remarkable attempt at the comeback of the century
His face is as handsome as his body is strong. He is surprisingly soft spoken and mannerable with easy going blue eyes and a soft chuckle that breaks out from the infamous dimpled grin. He is known as an all around good guy, an iconic super hero who is larger than life, preaching the importance of hustle, loyalty and respect. He sends his beloved grandmother flowers on her birthday and holidays and he holds the record as the single largest wish granter for the children's charity, Make A Wish Foundation. A little over a year ago, John Cena had it all and was on top of the world. Now on the search for redemption, his eyes tell another story.
He wears jeans and a simple dark tee shirt that clings to every tanned muscle. He is unusually quiet and thoughtful. It is hard to believe that the larger than life character that bounces around the wrestling ring and commands the attention of millions of sports entertainment fans is the same man sitting before me now so humbled and nervous. It is hard to believe that the man who adoringly rubs his wife's arms and opens every door for her, the man who excused himself from the first part of our interview to change his infant son's diaper, is the same man who was accused of a brutal rape.
He is quiet and intense but when you get him to talk about wrestling, another side of John Cena emerges. His eyes light up, his voice becomes animated and he soon transforms himself into that enigma that has captured hearts all around the world. He is big and strong. I ask him to show me one of his signature finishing moves. He scoops me up into the Attitude Adjustment, a fireman's carry that is supposed to transition into a Powerslam but the softspoken gentleman spares me the crushing finale. He is a wrestler by trade but it is so much more than that. Tragedy has seemed to befall other legends in the business. Eddie Guerrero, Mr. Perfect Curt Henning, Chris Benoit, Jake The Snake Roberts…the list goes on and on and one can't help but wonder if his story will mimick those of the fallen Superstars before him. This remains to be seen but everyone and their mother seems to have an opinion. Scandal and controversey of such magnitude and the implications of legal proceedings have been known to permanently sideline careers. And Cena, though financially comfortable, is stil unemployed. Many say this is the end of the road, that a full comeback is impossible. Maybe it's a good thing that John Cena isn't listening.
Cena says pro wrestling is in his blood. The second oldest of five boys, he was born and raised in West Newbury, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston. His parents are John and Carol Cena and some of the Champ's earliest memories include watching Hulk Hogan with his father and brothers. They weren't rich by any means but they got by. By all accounts, John lived a normal and happy life. He finished high school at the private Cushing Academy. He went on to college and graduated from Springfield College with a degree in exercise physiology. He excelled at sports and anything physical. After finding some success with bodybuilding out West, he renewed his interest in sports entertainment. Working out with Ultimate Pro Wrestling, the WWE scouts took notice and in the blink of an eye, he was living in Louisville, Kentucky preparing to make his debut on the grand stage. In 2002 he did against Kurt Angle and as they say, the rest is history. It was in the city of Louisville that John Cena's life forever change in 2001. Nine years later that same city would once again change everything.
I ask John Cena if wrestling is the true love of his life. He says it used to be. "My wife and my little boy…they are the real loves of my life." Meet Ava Cena. She is five foot four, weighs in at just over 100 pounds soaking wet, has silky bronzed skin, wavy chestnut hair and large expressive brown eyes that remind you of a wild doe. She is polite and friendly, instantly the kind of woman you want to pull up a chair and have a cup of coffee with. She is beautiful in a soft and wholesome kind of way, pretty but not exactly the kind of girl you picture a professional athlete to end up with. "How did you meet?" I asked. Cena smiles fondly. He bought a new house, the sprawling mansion we are sitting in now, to be exact. Eager to move on from a painful breakup, he hired an upscale design firm out of Tampa to decorate his new bachelor pad. He missed the meeting with the top designer and when he went in a few weeks later, he met her stand in, a new employee, unproven and inexperienced. She was the woman who would decorate his home and instantly make him fall in love again.
It is the kind of love story you read about. John and Ava Cena are perfect for each other. It's the way their eyes light up when the other one comes in the room. It's the way their voices sound when they speak of each other. It's the way their hands subtly graze across each others and their fingers interlock. It's the way they stare at their son, like he is the most precious and important entity in the world, at least their world. It is a love written in the stars with a happily ever after ending. It's a love that barely survived the controversy of the last year.
"How did you feel when you found out your husband was accused of raping Jacey Breedlove?" Ava Cena grows even quieter and shifts her small weight uncomfortably around in her seat. She had met Breedlove only once prior to the allegation. It was a quick and pleasant meeting as Ava was oblivious to the fact that the woman had been throwing herself at her husband for months. John had protected his wife from the truth that Jacey Breedlove had taken to following him, making sexually inappropriate comments, and had even gone as far as to try to seduce him in his hotel room. John Cena says he was trying to diffuse a potentially explosive situation and protect his emotional and pregnant wife from unneccasary harm. Ava Cena admits to feeling betrayed and shocked that the husband she thought had no secrets from her, was in fact harboring a very big secret. "I was stunned. I…I literally could not breathe. It was surreal, pure insanity. It was the beginning of a nightmare, our worst nightmare." I point blank ask her if she ever thought for one moment that her husband could be guilty of the unthinkable. Her reaction is quick and assured. "Never. John is not a rapist. I know him and anyone that really knows him knows that he is incapable of hurting someone like that. I knew from the beginning that woman was lying. I never doubted my husband's story."
If Ava never doubted that her husband was innocent of rape, she did begin to have her doubts about other things. Tensions flared and John Cena was forced to make an admission. Speculation ran rampant that Cena had been having an affair with Breedlove. Indeed the Champ had been unfaithful once to his wife but the indiscretion did not involve Jacey Breedlove and had occurred while the couple was still engaged."It's not something I'm proud of," he shakes his head sadly. "There was a woman before Ava, an ex girlfriend I was with for a very long time. It didn't end well and there wasn't a lot of closure. After Ava and I got together, after I proposed, I saw this woman and I was unfaithful with her. I was ashamed and filled with regret and I wanted to protect Ava from my mistakes." It was a revelation that nearly destroyed their storybook marriage. It was a disclosure that cast doubt upon the character of a man whose personal character once seemed so flawless.
Rewind to September of last year. While the weather is turning cold and the leaves are changing colors in other parts of the nation, the weather is still warm and at times balmy in the Tampa suburb of Land O' Lakes. And John Cena's world is slowly spiraling out of control. For months he has been fighting off the advances and persistance of a modern day stalker. Now she has publicly accused him of rape. He goes from "person of interest" to the investigation's number one suspect. People are starting to talk. His rabid legion of fans seem to no longer have loyalty or respect for him. The world is questioning if their hero is really capable of such brutality. The WWE quietly suspends Cena and begins to disassociate themselves with the man who for the last five years, has been their franchise. Rumors spread, friends began to stop calling. John is now immersed in the battle of his life and it has nothing to do with a wrestling ring. This fight will be fought in a court of law. And on top of it all he is now painfully estranged from the love of his life.
Cena is visibly affected as he recounts the stories. He seems to relive it. But this is his chance to tell his no holds barred side of the story so I ask the trillion dollar question. "What happened that night in the hotel in Louisville?" Everyone wants to know. John Cena takes a deep breath and for the first time during our interaction, oddly he seems at ease. He tells the tale of heading back to his hotel after having dinner with friends. Jacey Breedlove is there and she is drunk. They have been arguing and having problems for the past few months. She has been sexually harassing him but he made little mention of it to anyone. In a moment of kindness or weakness or stupidity or all three, he decides to help her. She needs to sleep it off but she can't remember where her room is so in a split second decision, he lets her into his room. He puts her into bed fully clothed, says good night to his wife over the phone and crashes on the nearby couch. The next morning, Breedlove is gone but the Louisville police department is plentiful. And so the nightmare begins.
Publicly, Ava stands behind her man but the Cena union is already broken. There are complications within the pregnancy. The media attention is relentless and John Cena, fresh off house arrest and facing the rest of his life behind bars, is now forced to put his fate in the hands of a high powered attorney ironically hired by Vince McMahon and Titan sports, who continue to quietly support him behind the scenes. Cena's life has been changed by the false allegations but months later, his life will change yet again when his first child, a son named Tristan Patrick Anthony is born. "When I looked into my son's eyes for the first time…it was like being reborn myself. I knew I had somebody to be good for, somebody to fight for." And fight he did. With a one woman dream team known as Christina Carter, Cena traveled back to Kentucky, challenging the State to prove its case. They did not. Carter annihalated the testimony of Jacey Breedlove on the witness stand. A judge found insufficient evidence to bring John Cena to trial and the case was dismissed, never to be tried again. Cena began to get his life back.
Legal vindication wasn't enough, at least not for John Cena. He wanted more. He needed more. He needed everyone to know he was innocent. The law had failed to protect him so he decided to do a little detective work on his own. He found the missing link, the one person who knew the whole story behind that fateful night in Louisville, behind the disturbed madness that was Jacey Breedlove. Her name was Dalton Banks and she had all the answers. Just like a primtime drama, when the young woman came forward with a confession of a lifetime, she left a national audience riveted. Love, lies, betrayal, and sex were a recipe for the disaster that had nearly ruined a man's life. It all came out. John Cena had been telling the truth all along. He is not a rapist. His accuser was a deeply disturbed young woman and as her lies are coming to light, shed in graphic detail by her estranged lesbian lover, Breedlove takes her own life.
"Do you forgive Jacey Breedlove?" Ava Cena speaks first. "I can't. I know I have to someday for my own sanity but right now it's too hard." John Cena shrugs. "I forgive her. I don't know how or why, I just know that I do." Her suicide has affected him deeply. He thinks about it often and still has nightmares. He regrets that she didn't take responsibility for her actions but he has little time for regret. John Cena is looking forward to the future.
His marriage is whole again. "It takes a long time to rebuild trust," Ava Cena rubs the back of her husband's neck. "But we're working on it. It was hard letting him back in my bed and in my heart but in the end we really do love each other." Love is what has seen them through, their love for each other and their love for their son. "Bringing Tristan into the world changed both John and me for the better. Our love for him is like nothing else we have ever experienced. One day he is going to look back and read about all this, hear about this." What do his parents want him to know? "That his father was a real person with real flaws who made real mistakes but he accepted responsibility for his actions and took the consequences like a man. If Tristan can learn to be responsible for his actions and live a good life, then there is nothing he can't withstand."
What is next for this family? They continue to reside in Land O' Lakes where both parents spend their days doting on their baby and putting their marriage back together. Will John Cena ever grace a WWE ring again? The Superstar seems optimistic about his future. "Never say never. Stranger things have happened, right?" Stranger things have happened. John Cena has fought to come to terms with his past. He'd be happy if the name Jacey Breedlove was never mentioned again. He wants to move on with his life. He wants to forget what has happened. He wants to be a better husband and father, a better man. And what about those who turned their back on him along the way? The fans? The media? The WWE? Cena says he understands and just like with she who shall no longer be named, he forgives them too.
The interview is now over. The photographers are packing up. Everybody involved can now breathe a collective sigh of relief. Now the world will get a closer look into John Cena's head. I brought the hard questions and he and his lovely wife answered with sincerity and amazing candor. I shake hands with the couple and leave, though this interview will remain on my mind long after my flight leaves the airport in Tampa. John Cena has lived and learned. He was crucified but he survived and came out smelling like a rose. He is alive and he is better for it and he is happy about that. His journey has just begun again and that's why after everything that has happened, he still considers himelf the luckiest man on the planet.
