Before he became a record-setting 17-time World Champion and Hollywood star, John Cena took a massive financial gamble to chase his dream in professional wrestling.
During an appearance on Hoda Kotb’s Making Space podcast, Cena opened up about how he got his foot in the door during the peak of the late-1990s wrestling ratings war between WWE (then WWF) and WCW. At the time, both companies were aggressively signing anyone with potential just to keep talent away from the competition
&#8220;Because of the height of those ratings wars, there was a lot of like scooping up talent. If anyone had any sort of buzz, sign them to a contract. I was one of those people because of the way I looked, not the way I wrestled, not my ability. I was very early in the business.&#8221;
When WWE offered him his first developmental deal, the pay was barely enough to survive, especially while living in Southern California. However, having an official contract meant everything to him.
&#8220;I got signed to a contract with WWE for $12,500 a year, which was awesome because now I&#8217;m a professional wrestler. Yes, I can prove I&#8217;m under contract. The downside of that is the expenses far outpace the income. So I&#8217;m going to have to do some moving around. Again, it&#8217;s just the opportunities are what you make it.&#8221;
At the time, Cena was working multiple odd jobs at Gold&#8217;s Gym in Venice Beach (including bouncing, checking IDs, selling protein bars, and cleaning toilets) just to keep his weekends free to wrestle on small independent shows.
The moment he signed that $12,500 deal, Cena went all in. He immediately quit his day jobs and poured every waking hour into improving in the ring.
&#8220;I knew that, like, okay, this is probably going to go away and not last for long. So I&#8217;m going to tighten my belt and struggle a little bit, but I am going to make the most out of this. Quit my job immediately, lived off of leverage and went to practice. Tons of practice. And I got good, like, fast, because I was putting in six hours a day, you know, every day, and I had great coaching, great mentorships, a great peer group that pushed me.&#8221;
That gamble paid off. Cena eventually relocated to Kentucky to train at WWE&#8217;s developmental territory, Ohio Valley Wrestling (OVW), where he sharpened his skills before making his main roster debut on SmackDown in 2002 and kicking off a legendary career that spanned more than two decades.

John Cena Reveals His Starting WWE Developmental Salary

Chelsea Green has shared a wild and uncomfortable story about her heart surgery, claiming that medical staff crossed the line while she was strapped to the operating table.
During her appearance on Cody Rhodes&#8217;s &#8220;What Do You Wanna Talk About?&#8221; podcast, Green opened up about undergoing a heart ablation procedure back in May 2026 to treat supraventricular tachycardia (SVT).
While her heart is completely healthy now and she was back at work in just 10 days, Green admitted the operation itself was much scarier than people make it sound, especially because she was exposed and unable to move when two workers decided to introduce themselves as WWE fans.
&#8220;People act like it&#8217;s an everyday surgery, and then you get in and you realize that it&#8217;s very scary. Oh yeah, they cut open your arteries&#8230; And I was laying there with all these tubes in me, and then two of the guys in the operating room were like, &#8216;We&#8217;re big fans.&#8217;
Oh no. That&#8217;s got to be A, a HIPAA violation, but B, I&#8217;m laying here with wires up my arteries. I can&#8217;t move. That&#8217;s actually the last thing I need to know is that you can see my nipples and you&#8217;re a fan.&#8221;
Green, who had previously noted that she had to be awake for the final hour of the three-hour procedure, laughed about the bizarre encounter with Rhodes, though it was clearly the last thing she wanted to deal with while undergoing a major operation.

Chelsea Green Claims Doctors Violated HIPAA While She Was Sedated For Heart Surgery

During a Q&amp;A session at his 2026 University of Minnesota M Club Hall of Fame induction ceremony, Brock Lesnar opened up about his retirement and shared updates on his three children.
Lesnar took a moment during the ceremony to thank his wife, Sable, and his daughter, Mya. Mya is a track and field star who won NCAA shot put championships in 2024 and 2025. Lesnar joked that Mya constantly reminds him that she is a two-time NCAA champion, while he only won one NCAA wrestling title during his time at Minnesota.
After retiring following his final WWE match at SummerSlam 2026 in Minneapolis in August, Lesnar is spending his free time traveling across Canada to support his two teenage sons, Turk and Duke.
Lesnar noted that his 16-year-old son, Duke, was drafted into the Western Hockey League (WHL) and plays in Medicine Hat. His 17-year-old son, Turk, plays in the Junior Prospects Hockey League (JPHL) out of Edmonton.
Because both boys had showcase tournaments starting the exact weekend of the Hall of Fame ceremony, Lesnar apologized for having to miss the Minnesota Gophers football game the next day. He explained that he missed many of his kids&#8217; events while he was busy making a living in the ring, and he is now committed to being there for them.
Even though Lesnar competed at the highest levels of amateur wrestling, WWE, and the UFC, he admitted that watching his children compete is much harder on his nerves than fighting himself.
Calling himself a &#8220;control freak,&#8221; Lesnar explained that sitting on the sidelines without any control over the outcome is nerve-wracking. He admitted he was physically shaking with nerves while watching Mya win her two NCAA titles.

Brock Lesnar Gives An Update On His 3 Kids

In this flashback article (to remember Eddie Guerrero on his 21st death anniversary), we take a look at an old conversation between Chavo Guerrero &amp; Chris Jericho, where Chavo &amp; Jericho discuss changes in Chris Benoit after the death of Eddie Guerrero.
You can read their conversation below:
Jericho: Did you see a decline in Chris (Benoit) personality-wise after Eddie&#8217;s death? Because at this time you were riding with Chris pretty much exclusively.
Chavo: Yes, me and Chris, we had a big program together, a feud, if you want to call it and we ended up sticking together. Really, it was just he and I. We stuck up for each other. And I remember Chris saying, &#8220;Hey man, I don&#8217;t know what to do now. Eddie was like my go-to guy.&#8221;
And I&#8217;m like, &#8220;Bro, I&#8217;m gonna be your go-to guy.&#8221; That took a little time to build up, that trust. But we did and we were like brothers. We would, before we go to wrestle, we would give each other kiss on the cheek and say, &#8220;Bring it&#8230; Okay bring it!!&#8221; And we go out there completely blank.
We go, &#8220;You blank. I&#8217;m blank. Okay, let&#8217;s go out there and we&#8217;d got twenty-five minutes.&#8221; Just call the whole thing in the ring. So we had no idea. We knew each other that well.
The only time, four days a week, that we wouldn&#8217;t be together was when he&#8217;d go to his room and I go to my room which were next to each other. We&#8217;d get up, eat breakfast together, train together. We would do everything together.
Jericho: It&#8217;s interesting because around that time Black Cat who was good friend of Chris passed away, Johnny Grunge who was another very close confidant of Chris passed away, Ray Traylor (Big Boss Man) passed away.
I remember when Ray died, he said, &#8220;I can&#8217;t take this anymore. I can&#8217;t handle all my friends dying.&#8221;
And then just a few months after that Eddie passed away.
Chavo: I never saw a change in him and I was with him more time. People always say it&#8217;s concussions and this and we did scans on his brain and he had the brain of an 80 year old man and stuff. And I totally understand people looking and trying to find out why.
I was with him for the eight months before more than anybody. I didn&#8217;t see it man I didn&#8217;t. I would have seen something different because we&#8217;re with each other so much. I never saw a change in him. I never saw.
People say when Eddie died, he got so religious and this and that. I didn&#8217;t see. I mean we&#8217;re religious in our way and pray together before the matches and stuff like that.
But unless he was just really, really, really, really good at hiding it from me, you know, obviously there&#8217;s something else going on.

Chavo Guerrero On Whether Chris Benoit Changed After Eddie Guerrero’s Death, Benoit Not Being Able To Handle Deaths Of His Friends

Former WWE Champion Eddie Guerrero passed away 21 years ago today.
In this flashback article, we take a look at an old conversation between Chavo Guerrero &amp; Chris Jericho, where Chavo gave details about Eddie&#8217;s death.
You can read their conversation below:
Jericho: It&#8217;s like you said &#8211; he had so many issues over the years with alcohol and with pills and stuff and you know I was in the dressing room when they carted him out and took him straight to rehab in Minneapolis when I fell asleep but finally he had gotten over that at least as far as I knew. I mean he seemed like he was pretty legit clean and sober.
Chavo: Four years sober.
Jericho: And then he passed away from enlarged heart.
Chavo: Heart failure at 38 years old.
Jericho: Do you think that&#8217;s because of all the drugs that caught up to him?
Chavo: Absolutely. They say you know because of the&#8230;you&#8217;ve seen it time and time again in this business. The worst drugs and I don&#8217;t care what they are, it&#8217;s not steroids, it&#8217;s not alcohol, it&#8217;s not cocaine, it&#8217;s not marijuana &#8211; the worst things are the pills.
Everybody that we know they&#8217;ve died has been from those pills. It&#8217;s a quick release, we&#8217;re hurt and it&#8217;s easy for us to justify using that because if anybody needs them, we need them.
We need Vicodin, we need this but then it&#8217;s so easy to start abusing that stuff and that&#8217;s where you know that was Eddie&#8217;s vice.
So you know, he fought every day to stay off those, he really did. But they say with vicodins and somas and all that stuff was that it gives a lot of scar tissue on your heart because you abuse them so much and we&#8217;ve seen it with Umaga and so many different people who died from heart failure and heart troubles because of pills.
So that&#8217;s kind of what happened to him and story really he and I were flying to Minneapolis. We&#8217;re all home and this is the first day of the tour and we&#8217;re going to Europe.
Jericho: Was it a PPV?
Chavo: No, it was a dual show like SmackDown and RAW, doing both shows in Minneapolis and then we&#8217;re gonna go straight to Europe. So everybody was there.
So I get in the plane and Eddie had already moved to Phoenix. So I get on the plane and I&#8217;m in coach and he&#8217;s in first class. The doors getting ready to close and I see Eddie, he was always the last one, he&#8217;s on Mexican time always and I say that with all due respect.
So he runs on the plane and I&#8217;m right before the doors closed and he gets on and I go &#8220;hey!&#8221; and he goes &#8220;hey what&#8217;s up, man?&#8221;
I didn&#8217;t know he&#8217;s gonna be on this plane so he gives up his first-class seat and comes back with me. So we hung out and stayed together. It was like just a treat to sit next to each other and we&#8217;re on different shows at the time so we didn&#8217;t see each other all that much.
So we sat next to each other and we&#8217;re watching a movie and he looks at me and he&#8217;s talking and stuff and he kind of nods off as he&#8217;s talking and i say ah man he&#8217;s really tired and then he kind of wakes up like &#8220;oh hey&#8221; and we watched the movie together. I didn&#8217;t think anything of it.
We get to Minneapolis and we&#8217;re gonna check in at like the Marriott by the airport or the Target Center, everybody was staying there.
So we go there and you know it was like we used to room together all the time and we said hey you know we&#8217;ll just get our own rooms. Okay, no problem. So we&#8217;re checking in and as we&#8217;re there we see Michael Hayes.
Michael Hayes comes up to us and he&#8217;s not Michael Hayes anymore, he&#8217;s a Freebird, he&#8217;s been drinking, hanging out and he kind of mad dogs Eddie and I didn&#8217;t really notice it &#8211; stared him down &#8211; and after Michael leaves and goes back to the bar, Eddie stops and looks at me and goes &#8220;Did you see what that mofo did? He&#8217;d he staring at me&#8221;.
Eddie&#8217;s pi$$ed. I said alright what do you wanna do? Beat him up? Coz we were just you know if he&#8217;s gonna fight I&#8217;m gonna fight and vice-versa. So he&#8217;s like &#8220;No, I&#8217;ll give him a pass&#8221;. So we literally gave a pass. So the night before Eddie died really I mean, Michael Hayes didn&#8217;t know how close he was to getting beat up. Literally we were gonna go in there and drag him up and beat him up.
So we said &#8220;Hey man, why don&#8217;t we go work out in the morning&#8221; and just as we got there we see Chris Benoit and Benoit goes &#8220;Hey man, what&#8217;s up guys&#8221;. &#8220;Hey, we&#8217;re going to bed but we&#8217;re going to train at 8 am&#8221;.
So I go to my room, Eddie goes to his room. I get a call from Eddie on my cellphone. He goes &#8220;Hey man, can I talk to you?&#8221; I say &#8220;Yeah, what&#8217;s going on, man?&#8221; He goes &#8220;I just really, I gotta talk to you&#8221;. I said &#8220;Okay, hold on. Let me run downstairs real quick, let me take care of stuff downstairs.&#8221; I don&#8217;t know if I was getting an extra key to whatever I was doing.
So I went downstairs and then I call Eddie codes room you know 5-8 minutes later and I go &#8220;hey man, you want to talk?&#8221; He goes &#8220;No, I&#8217;m okay. I&#8217;m cool&#8221; and I said &#8220;Are you sure? Let&#8217;s talk!&#8221; He goes &#8220;Nah, I&#8217;m cool man, I&#8217;m okay&#8221;. I said &#8220;Alright man, I&#8217;ll see you in the morning we&#8217;ll work out&#8221;. I think I had a beer then went to bed, I was gonna wake up and go work out at 7 am.
I got a call from one of security guards in the hotel. He says &#8220;Chavo, hey this is security in the hotel&#8221;. I&#8217;m like &#8220;Alright, why you calling me?&#8221; Guard says &#8220;Because your Uncle&#8217;s passed out in the bathroom.&#8221; I&#8217;m think the bathroom, we had just talked on the plane that Eddie was sober for 4 years.
So I was like &#8220;passed out, did he have a relapse?&#8221; I say I&#8217;ll go right down and security guard goes &#8220;No, I&#8217;ll come to your room&#8221;. So he comes up to my room and he comes gets me and I&#8217;m still half out of it. We got in late last night so I&#8217;m coming down and he takes me to Eddie&#8217;s room.
I guess he explained to me that Eddie had missed a couple of wake-up calls. So they went to knock on his door and the latch was on his door. So whenever that happens and there&#8217;s no answer, they cut the latch off.
So as I open up, the latch is already cut off and I walk in and I see Eddie facedown in the bathroom. He&#8217;s face-down and I looked at him kind of like still thinking wait a minute and I&#8217;d seen Eddie passed out from drinking or pills or whatever was you know 20 times in my life. But ofcourse this was years and years before.
So I looked at him like anybody else. If I would have seen just any random person like &#8220;you&#8217;re passed out, what the heck&#8221; you know, let me get him up.
So I see Eddie&#8217;s down I&#8217;m like okay, let me access this issue. So I put my hand by his nose and there&#8217;s no breath, but I hear a couple of gurgling noises and then like I&#8217;m still feeling him, he&#8217;s warm.
This isn&#8217;t right so I just pull him up. So I talked to the security guard and we pull him out and turn him around. So as soon as I see his face when we turned him around I start panicking&#8230;&#8221;this really isn&#8217;t right, call 9-1-1 now&#8221; and so they&#8217;re calling 9-1-1 and we&#8217;re giving the mouth-to-mouth, CPR and I&#8217;m freaking out.
I&#8217;m yelling at him going &#8220;Eddie, stay with me stay with me. Come on Eddie!&#8221;
Jericho: Basically he was still alive?
Chavo: He was still alive because he was warm. Then I saw him go from warm to cold. He died right there. Right there.
Jericho: Wow&#8230;
Chavo: Ambulance came, they&#8217;re giving CPR and everything and they&#8217;re just like he&#8217;s gone and I was like what if I would have got here an hour before and usually we room together, but we didn&#8217;t room together (this time).
They&#8217;re like no. They said he had seen something already he would have been gone no matter what. I&#8217;m like what?
So now I&#8217;m sitting here with my brother dying basically in my arms. I was in shock. I had to go back to my room and call people. I didn&#8217;t know who to call.
Jericho: Who did you call?
Chavo: I think I called home. I&#8217;m freaking out so I called Fit Finley. Fit was an agent. So I want him to get the word to what&#8217;s going on and tell Vince (McMahon) and everybody, I don&#8217;t have Vince&#8217;s cellphone.
So Pete goes around and makes some calls and all of a sudden I&#8217;m in my hotel room just sitting on the bed like what the heck just happened?
Then I get a call from Chris Benoit. He goes &#8220;Hey, where are you? I&#8217;m downstairs. We&#8217;re supposed to meet at 8 o&#8217;clock to go work out and eat breakfast.&#8221;
And I&#8217;m like &#8220;Chris sit down&#8221; and I told Chris and Chris was like I never heard somebody whale like this deep, deep mourn like I just punched him in the stomach and stole his soul. That&#8217;s what it felt like. He was yelling and screaming and just deep, deep, deep, deep &#8220;no, no, no!&#8221;.
From there I had to go back to the room and then Vince McMahon, Triple H &amp; Shawn Michaels came over. Vince is asking what to do? Do we go on with the show? I was like absolutely go on with the show, you don&#8217;t cancel the show.
I was like yeah you go on with the show, that&#8217;s what Eddie would have wanted to do. He wouldn&#8217;t want that everybody here and Eddie knew&#8230; we&#8217;re always taught that you always have to give the people their money&#8217;s worth no matter what. They&#8217;re there to see you.
In this economy they don&#8217;t have a lot of money and they&#8217;re choosing to spend it on you &#8211; it&#8217;s your obligation to give them their money&#8217;s worth. It really, really is.
So I looked at Vince and said &#8220;if you would cancel the show then he&#8217;d be pi$$ed, that&#8217;s not what he wanted&#8221;.
So they went ahead and made a tribute show, I mean completely rewritten.
Jericho: Did you have to go to Europe?
Chavo: So we did that show and they said &#8220;Chavo, you can go home&#8221; and I said &#8220;no, I wanna wrestle&#8221;. I was able to wrestle JBL.
Jericho: Another great friend of Eddie (JBL).
Chavo: Yeah, that was just a great moment, but that night who stayed behind from the tour was just me, Chris Benoit, Rey Mysterio and Dean Malenko. Let&#8217;s all stay behind and take care of some stuff.

Chavo Guerrero Recalls Eddie Guerrero Dying In His Arms 21 Years Ago Today

Fans of classic ECW and WWF&#8217;s Attitude Era have a big reason to celebrate, as Matt Hyson (known across the wrestling world as Spike Dudley) is officially back under the WWE banner.
Hyson took to social media to announce that he has signed a new WWE Legends deal, thanking his family, friends, and longtime supporters for helping make the moment happen. He also teased that new merchandise is on the way and promised to keep fans updated as items roll out.
The contract brings one of wrestling&#8217;s toughest underdogs back into the fold for merchandise, video games, and special appearances. Best known for taking wild bumps alongside Bubba Ray and D-Von Dudley in ECW before joining WWF in 2001, Spike Dudley captured the Cruiserweight, Hardcore, European, and World Tag Team Championships during a memorable run that lasted until 2005.

Spike Dudley Signs WWE Legends Contract

CM Punk is reportedly being lined up to take over the reins of WWE NXT as part of a major backstage shakeup coming next year.
According to PWInsider, the former WWE Champion has been attending most NXT TV tapings lately and working closely alongside Shawn Michaels to get ready for the job. While WWE has not locked in an exact start date so everyone can make sure the move works well, the plan raises big questions about whether Punk will retire from the ring soon or pull double duty as an active wrestler while running the developmental brand.
The opening in NXT comes because Shawn Michaels is set to move up to the main roster creative team after WrestleMania 43. Michaels will be stepping into the Executive Director role currently held by Bruce Prichard, who plans to retire from his full-time post, move back to Texas, and stay on as a consultant. To get ready for the shift, Michaels will soon begin splitting his work week between NXT and WWE headquarters.
These plans also clear up recent backstage rumors about other veterans taking over top leadership jobs. Even though AJ Styles has been helping produce NXT matches while Terry Taylor recovers from knee surgery, WWE actually wants Styles focused on talent scouting and the WWE ID program.
Meanwhile, Bobby Roode is not taking over for Bruce Prichard either—instead, WWE is preparing Roode to eventually step into Michael Hayes&#8217; spot as a top main roster producer and creative voice, with several people expected to share Prichard&#8217;s heavy workload.

John Cena Reveals His Starting WWE Developmental Salary

Chelsea Green Claims Doctors Violated HIPAA While She Was Sedated For Heart Surgery

Brock Lesnar Gives An Update On His 3 Kids

Chavo Guerrero On Whether Chris Benoit Changed After Eddie Guerrero’s Death, Benoit Not Being Able To Handle Deaths Of His Friends

Chavo Guerrero Recalls Eddie Guerrero Dying In His Arms 21 Years Ago Today

Spike Dudley Signs WWE Legends Contract

CM Punk Expected To Replace Shawn Michaels In NXT