natural loveliness
Here's a little text messaging conversation: ME: You have any load left? RAP: Few. Why? ME: How are you? I thought you'll be going to SM alone to watch movies today. RAP: No, I just slept late until 4, and because I'm not with you. ME: Just wanna ask you...why are you so desperate for me to go with you at SM? You can go alone... RAP: Nah, I really don't feel it when I watch movies alone. I want you to be there with me. ME: Why? RAP: You're fun to be with. There're are 3 girls who can only do that to me and you're one of them. ME: Oh...who's the other one? RAP: You know the other one? ME: Uh, I really don't want to say who. It's a wild guess and I might be making a mistake. RAP: Tell me. After you speak I'll tell you why. ME: Err...you're girlfriend? I warn you, it's just a wild guess. RAP: Correct. Whenever I'm with her I feel like I can do anything. You...I'm happy to be with you. You remind me so much of my girlfriend, except she's sweeter than you. Then there's SPOT... ME: What the hell is a SPOT? A person or a thing? RAP: You're wrong. SPOT is a dog. *snickers* Talk about MU. And I'm not talking about MUKHANG UNGGOY.(monkey look-a-like) And the part about me being less sweeter than his girlfriend...he's dead wrong. I'm still the SWEETEST girl in the world. Note my sarcasm, people. The guy on the picture, on the other hand, is more of my type. :) Here's a little article about my honey's personality: ----------- And Now You Know By: Mike Fazioli Credit: WWE RAW April Magazine 2003 When John Cena says he's keeping it real, he's not kidding. When you ask John Cena to talk about himself, his face turns into a smirk and he gets a little gleam in his eyes. Before he utters a word, one gets the feeling that he's saying, "If you only knew..." "I'm real quiet until you get to know me," he offers with a laugh. And as he peels back the many layers of his personality, it all eventually makes sense how a seemingly quiet, clean-cut guy from the small town of West Newbury, Massachusetts, on the New Hampshire border, could become one of the most entertaining WWE personae in recent memory. Getting to know the real John Cena is one discovery after another. The Cliffs-Notes version goes something like this: His hip-hop persona on SmackDown! is legit, as are his all-original rhymes. He's a prep school grad and living proof that you don't need to be a thug or gangster to love hip-hop. He has a sense of humor than can best be described as completely and utterly gross. He doesn't drink or do drugs, and he hasn't missed a day in the gym since he was 13. He was an All-American football player in college, and if you invite him to a party, don't be shocked if he shows up stark naked. But other than that, he'll tell you with that smirk and gleam in his eyes that he's real quiet. Cena's pre-match raps are as real as his affinity for all things hip-hop. And just as his rapping persona is what launched his career in WWE, his early fascination with hip-hop drove him into the weight room and sparked a standout athletic career. "West Newbury isn't really a 'down' town. It's a small town where everybody knows everybody's business," Cena says. "I tried to do what I could to stand out like a sore thumb. The easiest way to do that was thus: Everybody's into heavy metal? Screw that, I'm into rap." Not being the kind of guy who does things halfway, Cena went whole-hog the late-'80s rap scene and began sporting a Vanilla Ice-like fade-- "at least a-foot-and-a-half-high, dyed on top and shaved on the sides," he recalls--and MC Hammer-style baggy pants. He also started freestyle rapping, and fully admits that at the time he was "just awful...really horrible." "At first, everybody laughed," Cena says. "I'd do it at home and my dad and my brothers [Cena has four] would laugh at me and give me crap. I pretty much wanted to be the image of Vanilla Ice. This was when Ice was hot and you couldn't touch Hammer." Cena got his wish, and then some. He indeed stuck out in the small town, but soon found that being the only Vanilla Ice in a middle school full of head-bangers was potentially hazardous to his health. So, the 13-year-old Cena walked into the weight room, and hasn't missed a single day in the dozen years since. Cena's athletic career and freestyling both grew by leaps and bounds when he was sent to Cushing Academy, a prep school in Ashburnham, Massachusetts. While talk of a New England prep school may raise tweedy mental images of Dead Poets Society, Cushing exposed Cena to a great deal more diversity than he would have ever found in West Newbury. His dorm housed several inner-city youths who earned scholarships, and Cena's roommate was from the infamous South Central section of Los Angeles. Cena thrived at Cushing, and won the "Ideal Cushing Boy Award," given to the student who best exemplifies the school. "Cushing was great, because I could finally be who I wanted to be," Cena says. "We had a dress code for class, but nobody would laugh if I wore baggies. If I wanted to rock that style, half the kids there were rocking that style, so it didn't matter. The only times I got laughed at were when I went home for vacation." Finally, he wasn't the only kid walking around in hip-hop gear and working the mic. One of the students on Cena's floor had two turntables and a microphone, and Cena became part of a group that gathered in that room during every study hall to work on their rhymes. "We always had vinyl with instrumentals, and we'd take the mic and record our own stuff," Cena says. "And it was awful, but we kept doing it over and over. And, like any skill, if you do it over and over, your brain gets used to it. Now, 10 years later, it's second nature to me." With the new comfort level, a few more layers of Cena's personality revealed themselves. It wasn't long before the quiet kid was giving way to the real John Cena--the one who almost never says no to a dare. As a freshman, Cena walked into the dorm room of the senior football captain--clad only in a jock-strap, a construction helmet and a smile. Problem was, the captain was entertaining his girlfriend at the time. Undaunted, Cena introduced himself to the girlfriend, carried on a brief conversation with the captain and made a cheeky exit. "The best way to get me to do something like that is to tell me, 'You won't do it,'" Cena says. "I used to wear these ridiculous costumes to parties. One of my favorites was a crushed velvet pimp outfit. I'd do that, or I'd just go to the party and get naked. I'd take off all my clothes and just walk around like nothing was wrong. And I'd do it all totally sober--I don't drink or do drugs." Fortunately for Cena, the captain took it all in good humor and didn't get him thrown off the football team. His weight training was truly coming to fruition, and before long, he was a standout center despite weighing in at just over 200 pounds. Upon graduating from Cushing, Cena briefly considered a military career, but opted to attend Springfield College in Massachusetts. He beefed up to 240 pounds and soon became a Division III All-American on Springfield's football team. Cena graduated college with a degree in exercise physiology, and took a job in Southern California to escape the bitter New England winters. He was working 75 hours a week moving exercise equipment, "and basically," according to him, "it completely sucked." But in a classic example of things happening for a reason, one of his Southern California friends was a wrestler for Ultimate Pro Wrestling (UPW), which was at the time affiliated with WWE. The door was open and Cena was about to barge in. Throughout his childhood and adolescence, from his Vanilla Ice days in middle school to Cushing and Springfield, sports-entertainment was a constant thing in Cena's life. In 1984, the seven-year-old Cena was rooting for Hulk Hogan against "Rowdy" Roddy Piper, and before long he and his friends were play-wrestling in the basement, with a computer-paper championship belt at stake. "Growing up in the Northeast, I watched a lot of WWE, but we also got SuperStation WTBS, and I watched a lot of NWA as well," Cena says. "I was always impressed by the big guys like Hogan. I watch old stuff now and like a lot of guys for different reasons. But back then I was into the huge guys--Hogan, Rick Rude, Butch Reed, Don Muraco, even guys like Billy Jack Haynes and Hercules Hernandez, all the guys who were just huge. I was a big fan of the Road Warriors and Magnum T.A., too. And Dusty Rhodes [whose jive patter probably played well with Cena's rap affinity]--who didn't like the Dream?" Cena competed in UPW from November 1999 until June 2001, when he was called up to Ohio Valley Wrestling (OVW), WWE's developmental territory in Lousville, Kentucky. There, Cena's athletic background and physique, along with his tireless work ethic both in the ring and in the gym, had people calling him the prototypical wrestler. Thus was born "The Prototype," Cena's OVW persona. So successful was The Prototype that when Cena first came to SmackDown! in 2002, fans familiar with his work in OVW were somewhat disappointed to see him competing under his own name. He wasn't among the complainers. "Everybody still asks me, 'When's The Prototype coming back?'" he says. "I like this more because it's me. Even when I was The Prototype, I would never refer to myself that way. I'd refer to myself as me. I'm glad I'm using my name, even though it isn't as catchy as The Prototype. I'm just glad people know this is me and this is what I do. While his fans might have been disappointed to see him leave his Prototype name behind, they couldn't have been anything but thrilled when his SmackDown! debut on June 27, 2002, in which he locked up with the peerless Kurt Angle in a fantastic match. Cena was already growing by leaps and bounds in the ring by that time, and was given TV exposure with the likes of Angle and Undertaker, but he still needed that extra something to make his TV appearances memorable. On the way home from an international tour, Cena was sitting in the back of the plane, getting back to his second nature--freestyle rapping. Cena's not the only lyricist in the locker room. D-Von Dudley, referee Jimmy Korderas and Chief Morley, among others, can hold their own with him in the freestyle department. But little did Cena or anyone else know that with a little time-killing rapping on a long flight home, all the pieces were about to come together for the rookie. "I was just freestyling on the plane and I just kept going and going--I was in a zone," Cena says. "Someone heard it and passed it on. Soon I was asked to do it again for the creative team, and then it all started on the Halloween party on SmackDown! [in which Cena was dressed as Vanilla Ice and first broke out his rhymes for TV]. It's just grown from there." Rhyming and rapping isn't new to WWE, as anyone who recalls Men on a Mission or Road Dogg's intros will tell you. Cena was given free rein to create his own rap promos denigrating the most popular Superstars on SmackDown! and, combined with the "old-school" pro sports gear he wears to the ring, he quickly found himself with one of the most overbearing--and entertaining--personae in WWE. The rhymes are all original. Once Cena finds out who he will be competing against, he retreats to the upper levels of whatever arena SmackDown! is in that night and creates. The cheap seats are what Cena calls "The Lab," and it's where his years of freestyling are put to good use. And, although his rhymes and obnoxious TV demeanor earn him a cascade of jeers from fans, Cena says he's delivering an important message through his persona. "It's entertaining, but it's not something corny like Men on a Mission," Cena says. "You can get with it if you really like hip-hop. I put forth a lot of effort into my lyrics and make them funny and entertaining at the same time, but they're also creative. The younger generation can get into it. Hip-hop is mainstream now, whether people like it nor not. As much as some want to make it thug, it's mainstream. There are a lot of non-street-raised kids out there now listening to hip-hop. Although people take the gimmick for a joke, it's just a good image to show those kids that you don't have to be a gangsta or a thug. You can come out, and if you've got skills, show your skills. You've just got to back up what you stand for and get behind it. "I grew up in a small town, I went to a $30,000 prep school, I have a college degree," Cena adds. " I don't drink or do drugs. I've never hustled for anybody or stolen anything from anybody. But I've got skills. I have a degree in exercise physiology from Springfield College. And I don't care who knows that." "If people want to say that I'm not down and I'm not a thug, no, I didn't have to rob and shoot people to get where I am. But I can rock the mic, so give me the opportunity to rock the mic. Respect the art form rather than [say], 'You have to have a thug background to be in the rap game.' That's just what I'm showing the kids, which is something different." "Different" is something Cena knows all about. If you only knew... -------- Cool, noh? I wonder what his ass looks like, because i've already seen Randy Orton's, and I wish his looks better. Oh wait, I already seen it. In my dreams. *drools uncontrollably*