WWE's John Cena: Ranking His TV and Movie Roles

Several great wrestling icons have transferred their acting prowess beyond the stage of Monday Night Raw and Friday Night Smackdown.

Amazing pieces of film have graced the silver screen throughout the years from a multitude of wrestling superstars: some were actually entertaining, others...not so much.

Being a movie buff as well as a pro-wrestling junkie I have taken the time to see most of these movies whether I should have is debatable.

I could have probably gone without ever watching Hulk Hogan and The Undertaker in Suburban Commando, regardless if it also had Christopher Lloyd.

Some of my favorites however; Rowdy Roddy Piper in 'They Live,' Dwayne The Rock Johnson in The Rundown, Triple H in Blade: Trinity, Chris Jericho in MacGruber, I even like The Big Show in Knucklehead.

But as far as the next big breakout star who will emerge from the wrestling universe to Tinseltown, my bet is on John Cena.

Every week, the Featured Columnists here are given suggestion ideas for stories to write up on for Bleacher and when I saw an option was to go through the TV and movie roles of John Cena, I couldn't pass it up.

So here are 10 of the great roles of Mr. Cena and my thoughts on them.

10. Generation Rex - as Hunter Cain

Generator Rex is an animated TV show on Cartoon Network, Cena did the voice of Hunter Cain in the episode entitled The Hunter.

The show in itself is a decent animated show, a good concept where they have taken the appeal of Transformers and put it in the mode of Ben 10.

Cena's voice was a stereotypical tough-guy voice and didn't play to Cena's real strengths, and no, not "lifting 500-pound guys up on his shoulder" type of strength.

9. Hannah Montanna - as supposedly himself

This one was just bad, Cena beats up Hannah's brother Jackson in a dream sequence.

While he does do a "You can't see me"  and a five knuckle shuffle, it again is a comedic cliche of a professional wrestler and more of a mockery of himself than anything.

8. Saturday Night Live - as an NBC security guard

The guest host is Tracy Morgan and he's trying to get to the studio, in his mind he must fight his way there, since no one recognizes him.

On his path there, he punches two security guards, then a man and a woman in an elevator, followed by an NBC page and then finally comes to a screaming John Cena acting as a guard at the main door to the SNL stage.

He again puts on the angry John Cena face and screams at Tracey to come after him and he does in a very funny way, supposedly flying through the air in full flying kick mode.

When he reaches Cena, however, Cena switches from angry security to friendly greeting guard and says "Hi, Tracy, hows it going?" just before Morgan throws a right cross and drops Cena. Funny stuff.

7. Smackdown vs. Raw 2010 commercials - himself

The 2010 edition of Smackdown vs. Raw main driving point was the create a character features of the game. The commercials shows a young boy coming down for breakfast where his mother complains that there are too many characters around the house.

He tells her he needs them for a match he has later with John Cena vs. Kofi Kingston and Kelly Kelly. She insists they need to go and the boy says there is no match today.

A man who had been holding up a newspaper reading, presumed to be the dad of the house, puts down the paper to reveal that its actually John Cena.

After expressing his disgust of no match, he looks at the mom and gives her a "hey" and a flirting nod.

Later we see the dad trying to get in the house while the mom sits on Cena's lap and tells him to ignore that. Very funny, his flirty delivery is hysterical.

6. 12 Rounds as Danny Fischer

In this one, Cena plays a cop who has to defeat a villain who sets up challenges for him along the way, 12 to be specific.

It has a very Die Hard 2 feel to it, sadly however it doesn't have enough humor or Samuel L. Jackson to save it.

This is probably my least favorite Cena film; it has good action and a typical plot but its just missing him being a bit more human and allowing to have a little humor.

He needed a side kick or something to make it more enjoyable.

5. Gillette commercials - himself

Cena has done several commercials for Gillette, including motivational speeches for their online site.

We all know the great one where he hits Mr. McMahon with the chair, but I'd have to say I'm enjoying the latest Pro-Glide Challenge.

4. Legendary - Mike Chetley

I realize that I have been saying that humor seems to be Cena's best venue, and the story of Legendary is not a comedic tale, but I'm putting this movie at No. 4 because it really is a decent movie.

Cena gets to sprinkle a little humor here and there in the movie, but for the most part it is a very dramatic role for him, and he pulls off the troubled tough guy pretty well.

3. The Marine - John Triton

Okay, I'll fess up, I own the deluxe extended edition of The Marine with extra footage. I'm the guy who bought it, and yes, I like it, I like The Marine.

It's great popcorn action movie schlock. It wasn't made to win an Oscar or a Golden Globe, it was made to entertain guys who like action movies with guns, explosions, fights and beautiful women.

Therefore, The Marine achieves its goal.

2. Psych - Ewan O'Hara

This is a double win for me, Psych is my favorite show on television, if you're not familiar watch it, it is by far one of the funniest shows on television.

Juliet, a main character on the show, has her brother come visit, special forces military man Ewan O'Hara.

Cena as a special forces agent is actually obviously believable, and again because this is a comedy he gets to portray both his action side and his comedy side and he does it perfectly.

Best line of the show, the star, Shawn Spencer makes a comment about Cena not ducking behind a plane to take cover: "I've never met a man so large he couldn't hide behind a plane."

Being that Psych is my favorite show on television, outside of WWE shows of course, you would think that it would have been my No. 1 pick; and if I had written this story a couple of months ago, it would have been.

But this past summer, my kids had me watch a movie with them, judge me all you like, when you're a dad, you watch some bad things.

But the thing about this particular bad kids movie was that it was so bad it was good. It was funny and kept me entertained and Cena was also in it.

1. Fred The Movie - Fred's Dad

That's right Fred the Movie. Bad movie, so bad its funny, Fred is annoying, incredibly worse thing you've ever seen annoying...however.

Cena plays the role of Fred's dad in the movie. It is of course Fred's imagination, that Cena is his father, but each scene he's in, and they are brief, it's hysterical.

A lot of these armchair quarterbacks want to criticize Cena and go on about his wrestling skills, or complain that he's 'booked wrong' or unskilled, and while he may not be the master tactician, he is the guy who has picked up Mabel, and Big Show each on his shoulders and been entertaining while doing so.

He has another movie coming out this year, with Ethan Embry, called Blood Brothers. Not sure what this one is about, but Embry is a funny guy, so let's hope Cena gets to show he can joke around and isn't just about the muscles.