History of WWE
The two top stars of the Attitude Era, Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock, eventually left the company in 2003 and 2004 respectively, while newcomers such as Brock Lesnar, who would become the youngest WWE Champion and Randy Orton, who became the youngest World Heavyweight Champion, saw huge success. Triple H would also be featured prominently during this time, winning several of his fourteen world championships, as would The Undertaker whose WrestleMania win streak started gaining fame. Eddie Guerrero, Rey Mysterio, Kurt Angle, Chris Benoit, Edge, Brock Lesnar, Randy Orton, John Cena, Batista, John "Bradshaw" Layfield, and Rob Van Dam were also given main event opportunities and all ended up becoming multiple-time world champions. From mid 2002 to 2003, WWE brought several prominent WCW stars to the company, including Eric Bischoff, Scott Steiner, Goldberg, Kevin Nash and Ric Flair. The Great American Bash, originally a WCW pay-per-view event, made its debut in WWE.
John Cena
Cena defeated JBL at WrestleMania to win the WWE Championship, giving Cena his first world championship. Cena then had a spinner WWE Championship belt made, while JBL took the original title belt and claimed to still be WWE Champion, until Cena reclaimed the original championship belt in an "I Quit" match at Judgment Day.
Cena was drafted to the Raw brand on June 6, 2005, taking his title with him and became the first wrestler selected in the annual draft lottery. Cena immediately entered a feud with Eric Bischoff, after refusing to participate in the "war" against the Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) roster at One Night Stand. At Vengeance, Cena made his first successful title defense since coming to "Raw", defeating Christian and Chris Jericho in a triple threat match. With Bischoff vowing to make Cena's stint on Raw difficult, he hand picked Jericho to take Cena's championship from him. During their feud, even though Cena was portrayed as the "face" (hero) and Jericho as the "heel" (villain), a vocal section of live crowds, nonetheless, were cheering Jericho during their matches. Crowds started to heavily boo Cena during his next feud with Kurt Angle, who took over as Bischoff's hand-picked number-one contender after Cena defeated Jericho in a You're Fired match on the August 22 "Raw". Cena held on to the WWE Championship through his feud with Angle, losing to him by disqualification at Unforgiven, pinning Shawn Michaels in a triple threat match involving Angle at Taboo Tuesday, and pinning Angle at Survivor Series. The feud with Angle also saw Cena add a secondary, submission based, finishing maneuver – the "STFU" (a stepover toehold sleeper, though named for a stepover toehold facelock) – when he was put into a triple threat submissions only match on the November 28 episode of "Raw".
At New Year's Revolution, Cena participated in the main event Elimination Chamber match where he retained the WWE Championship when he last eliminated Carlito. Immediately after a bloodied Cena won, Edge made his way to the ring to cash in his Money in the Bank contract – a "guaranteed title match against the WWE Champion at a time and place of the owner's choosing". Two quick spears allowed Edge to pin Cena and win the championship. Three weeks later, Cena won the championship back at the Royal Rumble. After that, Cena began feuding with Triple H, in which the crowd again started booing Cena and cheering the intended villain, Triple H, after being mostly cheered the last few months. Cena beat Triple H at WrestleMania 22 to retain the WWE Championship. The negative reaction towards Cena intensified when facing Rob Van Dam at One Night Stand. Taking place in front of a boisterous crowd of mostly original ECW fans at the Hammerstein Ballroom, Cena was met with raucous jeering and chants of "Fuck you, Cena", "You can't wrestle", and "Same old shit". When he began performing different moves into the match, the fans began chanting "You still suck". Cena lost the WWE Championship to Van Dam at One Night Stand after interference from Edge.
In July, Edge won the championship from Van Dam in a triple threat match that also involved Cena, re-igniting the feud between him and Cena from earlier in the year. After Edge went about retaining the title by dubious means—getting himself disqualified (for which championships do not change hands) and using brass knuckles—he introduced his own version of Cena's "custom" title belt, this one with his logo placed on the spinner. Cena eventually won the championship back in a match and arena of Edge's choice: a Tables, Ladders and Chairs match at Unforgiven at the Air Canada Centre in Edge's hometown of Toronto, Ontario, Canada after performing the "FU" on Edge through two tables off a ladder. The match had a stipulation that, had Cena lost, he would have left the Raw brand for SmackDown. Cena returned his version of the spinner title belt on the next night's "Raw".