Unseen throwback photos show John Cena wrestling in a gym before WWE stardom

John Cena’s former manager recently shared throwback photos of the 16-time WWE World Champion competing in a match in 1999.

Bolin, Cena’s manager before he joined WWE’s main roster, took to Twitter to share images of the veteran superstar in the early days of his career.

Bolin performed as a heel manager in WWE's former OVW (Ohio Valley Wrestling) developmental system. He managed several WWE stars of the future in the late 1990s and 2000s, including John Cena and Bobby Lashley.

As the photos above show, Bolin and Cena participated in a tag team match at St. Therese’s Gym in Louisville, Kentucky. Cena had blond hair at the time and was known as The Prototype.

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Vince McMahon disliked John Cena’s look as The Prototype

John Cena honed his wrestling skills at the California-based UPW (Ultimate Pro Wrestling) before officially joining OVW in 2001. After a year in OVW, he famously debuted on WWE’s main roster in June 2002 against Kurt Angle on SmackDown.

Cena recalled in a WWE.com interview in 2014 that WWE Chairman Vince McMahon immediately made him change his blond-haired look.

“They literally dragged me by the arm to Vince’s office, threw me in and asked him, ‘What do you think?’” Cena said. “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.”

John Cena recently lost his first televised WWE match in over a year against Roman Reigns at SummerSlam. After last week’s episode of SmackDown, he teamed up with Dominik and Rey Mysterio to defeat Reigns and The Usos in an untelevised match.