10 extraordinary examples of wrestlers toughing it out

#3 John Cena (four times)

"The Champ" refused to acknowledge his bruises for the sake of his matche

Whether you love him or you hate him, you have to accept John Cena truly never gives up. And there are four specific instances to prove that.

On the October 1st, 2007 episode of Monday Night RAW, Cena squared off against Mr Kennedy. During the match, Cena executed a standard hip toss but somehow managed to tear his pectoral muscle completely off the bone. Not only did Cena go on to finish the match, but he took a post-match beat-down from Randy Orton, who delivered (among other things) an RKO onto a steel chair to the Cenation leader. The injury was supposed to put Cena on the shelf for seven months to a year, but he miraculously returned in 2008's Royal Rumble match, just under four months after he went down.

That same year, at SummerSlam, Cena suffered a herniated disc in his neck after Batista reversed a top rope leg drop into a Batista Bomb. Sure, Cena didn't wrestle for very long after that, but he still kicked out of that high-impact move and took another Batista Bomb before capitulating to the Animal. He could've just stayed down from the first one and that would've made for a perfectly suitable end to the match, but instead, he kicked out at two and took another forceful bump, which likely exacerbated his neck injury. Somehow, Cena was back just three months later for that year's Survivor Series.

Fast forward to 2013's edition of SummerSlam, when John Cena wrestled Daniel Bryan for the WWE Championship. Two weeks before the match, Cena was sporting a visibly distended elbow, but he continued to soldier on through the pain to put over Bryan. The two wrestled for nearly a half hour, and the next night, Cena revealed that he, in fact, had torn his triceps The injury was set to sideline Cena for four to six months, but he came back in just two months to win the World Heavyweight Championship from Alberto Del Rio at that year's Hell in a Cell PPV. How he managed to wrestle a near-thirty-minute match with that kind of injury is beyond me.

Remarkably, there is still one more example to share - on the July 27th, 2015 episode of Monday Night RAW during a US Championship match with Seth Rollins, Cena broke his nose following a knee to the face. With his nose clearly out of place, it was very difficult for him to breathe. Still, he kept fighting and ended up retaining his title.

As much as fans rag on "Super Cena," the guy is pretty much a real-life superhero.