John Cena has “70 lost tracks” from his 2005 album You Can’t See Me.
The WWE legend turned Hollywood star – who is retiring from professional wrestling this weekend after his final ever match – released his first and only LP 20 years ago, and he has revealed there was plenty of material left on the cutting room floor.
Speaking to Tom Rinaldi for WWE’s YouTube channel, he said: “There’s like 70 lost tracks of the album that never made it out.
“I was able to shave off the ones that shouldn’t make and give you the ones that should, and I’m lucky to get that.”
The 48-year-old star’s album featured 16 songs, including his iconic theme song The Time Is Now.
The record sold over 43,000 copies in its first week and hit number 15 on the Billboard 200 chart.
Cena joked that he’s the “only platinum artist to never have a follow up”, and he’s keen to keep it that way.
He added: “It is a young man’s game and I’m not in it anymore.”
The multi-hyphenate explained that he stumbled on rapping as “an accident” early in his WWE career.
He said: “The rapping thing was an accident. I listened to the music they played for me and I’m like, ‘I can do better than this — wait I could do better than this.’ ”
That led to him recording his original Basic Thuganomics theme song, which cost $10,000 to lay down.
Hip-hop saved his WWE career, which was floundering in the mid-2000s as he expected to be let go.
During a European tour, he joined in with other wrestlers freestyling, and it sparked a new character that changed his life.
Cena’s longtime friend and rapper Esoteric – whose real name is recently described him as a “purist”.
He told ESPN: “His intentions were pure, and when he had the chance to merge the two [rap and wrestling], he jumped at it.
“John’s a purist when it comes to hip-hop; he’s fluent in Gang Starr, Hieroglyphics, Black Moon, EPMD, Wu [Tang Clan], all the good stuff.”
