Heroes that aren’t fictional characters are a rarity to me, but one man whose principles have been an inspiration to me for over a decade and a half is the greatest sports entertainer of all-time, John Cena. So when I discovered a couple years back that one of the men I respect the most made a statue of another of the men I respect the most, I knew I had to have eventually have it. The First 4 Figures WWE statues aren’t exactly easy to come by, but after eluding me for ages, the F4F John Cena Statue finally came home as a surprise Christmas present…
The Champ. Is. HERE! I’m not the type to rank any Christmas gift over another—they all come with love and thought and I love the stuffing out of any gift—but the John Cena F4F Statue a friend sent me as a Christmas present last month was definitely among the most shocking gifts I’ve ever received.
Having been on the hunt for this John Cena figure for over two years, my eyes lit up when I saw this box inside of another box that had been sitting under my tree. But could this old school First4Figures John Cena live up to my expectations? Well…
Alright, full disclosure: when it comes to First 4 Figures, I’m a bit of an awestruck fanboy. I’m accustomed to seeing F4F’s work and being blown away by the quality, likenesses and detailed statues. This… is not necessarily one of those statues. But that doesn’t mean there’s not something of value here. Read on…
Packaging-wise, this piece is from a simpler time when most statues not made by Bowen Designs were coming in rather boring boxes. The slipcover over the plain white box for this John Cena is actually quite nice for its era, with a full-color photo of Cena himself on the front, images of the statue on the sides and a bio for the wrester on the back. This is a far cry from the fancy graphic-heavy art boxes of today, but it does its job and looks classy enough.
Inside, we find some generic styrofoam trays holding the John Cena figure and his base. My Cena’s hand snapped off in transit—I think because of the way that the base was packed on top of the figure by the prior owner—but with some Loctite glue Big Match John was whole once again for the rest of my review photos.
Out of the box, John is… well… he’s not immediately hugely impressive. From a straight-on view, it kind of looks like his face is melting off and he has Rock Lee eyebrows. Back in 2005, companies just were not capturing real-life humans in resin statue form yet in the manner that companies like Iron Studios do today.
In addition, the quality on the paint deco of this piece is so far below today’s sky-high standards that I think many collectors’ faces might actually melt scoping out this figure. And no matter how I position John on the base, he definitely seems to be leaning forward (though this piece has survived 14 years and I don’t expect it to crumple over anytime soon).
Even so, once I got a few feet away from this piece and stopped taking close-up hi-resolution photos, I felt a whole lot better about it. The trademark pose of the young Leader of the Cenation has been captured absolutely perfectly, and I can instantaneously identify who this individual is from across the room solely off the pose.
From certain angles, the portrait on this figure really isn’t that awful at all. It’s not up to the standard of Hot Toys or anything—nor would I ever have expected it to be—but I don’t think it’s half-bad from the right perspective. I rather like it, to be honest.
The vintage “Word Life” logos, the metal chain, the paint wash on the jean shorts and definition on the abs… there are quite a few details on this piece that absolutely hit the authenticity mark with me, even if this figure falls below the limbo bar of “hyper-realistic”.
One final treat about owning this figure is the logos on the base. I had no idea what a “First 4 Figures” even was when this was released (much less how much the company would mean to me years later) and I never wanted any of the other WWE or Magic the Gathering statues, so this is my first piece ever with the old-school, classic F4F logo on it. There’s even a “Puzzle Productions” logo on the base!
I am definitely nerding out over these throwback details as an admitted F4Fanboy.
Overall: This John Cena statue is from a different era with different standards, so I’m not going to give it a typical review grade—it just wouldn’t be fair. What I will say is this: this First4Figures John Cena figure is an important part of F4F history that puts a huge smile on my face. The pose is bursting with attitude, and melting face or not, there’s no doubt that this man is the Doctor of Thuganomics.
If you’re looking for an amazing photo-realistic 3-D representation of the Chain Gang Soldier, this is not the piece for you. But if you love statues of a bygone age and the term “Word Life” tugs at your nostalgic heartstrings, this just may be a figure that’ll put a big old grin on your face almost as big as the one on mine.