orld Wrestling Entertainment will tell you John Cena is fueled by ''ruthless aggression.''

And that certainly seems true when he's on television.

In June, when he debuted on ''Smackdown!,'' one of the WWE's highest-rated shows, Cena fought wrestling personality and former Olympian Kurt Angle, throwing him around the ring until Angle took control of the bout at the last minute.

Both seemed to be fueled by aggression, probably the ruthless kind. Cena scowled, huffing and puffing in anger as he was taken down after a close fight.

None of that ''ruthless aggression'' can be seen in North Andover, where West Newbury native Cena trains on his days off from touring with the WWE. (It was the WWF before the World Wildlife Fund got the rights to the name.)

At the Chaotic Wrestling Center on Belmont Street in North Andover, a place where young wrestlers take classes and train to become like the John Cenas of the world, Cena himself is relaxed - no smackdowns to be had or given.

''I love this,'' he said, of his break into the major leagues of the WWE. ''I'm just so happy to be doing it.''

Within the past few months, Cena has become a WWE ''superstar,'' one of the wrestlers like The Rock, The Undertaker and Hollywood Hulk Hogan - the oversized men who very dramatically and not so spontaneously give each other beat-downs on the shows such as ''Smackdown!'' and ''RAW.''

Cena, 25, grew up in West Newbury. His mother, Carol Cena, still lives in town. She runs an ice cream stand, JC's, and serves on the Board of Health. She says her son's passion for wrestling started early. He would fight his four brothers and pretend to be Hulk Hogan.

She never had much interest in the sport before her son made it big.

''Given the choice of watching wrestling or sorting socks, I was probably sorting socks,'' Carol Cena said. ''I had no idea he'd eventually be doing it for real.''

Around these parts, Cena was known for football. He attended local schools for most of his life and then transferred to Cushing Academy in Western Massachusetts, where he was a leader on the football team.

He went on to play for Springfield College, where he excelled on the football team and studied exercise physiology.

Coach Mike DeLong said he wasn't surprised when Cena made the jump from football to professional wrestling on television.

''He has that kind of personality,'' he said. ''I could see him doing it. He's the kind of person where if wrestling is what he wants to do, he's going to be wrestling, and he'll be a success with it.''

Cena said that when he graduated from Springfield, he wanted a change of scenery, so he moved out to Los Angeles. A co-worker with ties to the wrestling community convinced him to try to work his way into the WWE.

''Smackdown'' wasn't Cena's television debut. Shortly after moving to California, he was on the controversial reality show called ''Manhunt,'' which aired briefly on the UPN network in 2000 and was produced by the WWE, just after the ''Survivor'' reality show hype began.

The show focused on a group of people dropped on an island. Contestants had to make it from one side of the island to the other while being ''hunted'' by men with paint guns, all in the spirit of the classic short story, ''The Most Dangerous Game.''

Cena played ''Big Tim,'' one of the hunters.

The show was quickly canceled and lawsuits erupted after contestants claimed producers staged much of the ''reality.''

Cena said the experience was a good introduction to Hollywood, and that as silly as the show turned out to be, it steered him in the right direction.

''It was fun,'' he said. ''I got to meet a lot of people. It was doing that that made me realize I wanted to do this.''

Cena trained at Ohio Valley Wrestling, an Indiana school that specializes in producing professional wrestling stars. He went on to fight with the Ultimate Pro Wrestling league. His stagename was Prototype - as in, the prototype of what a wrestler should be. When Cena eased into the WWE and began fighting for larger audiences, he dropped the pseudonym and went back to John Cena. It's not a menacing name, he said, so it might take him a bit longer to make his identity familiar with audiences.

''I'm just John Cena,'' he said. ''There's no real hook. If I were something like `The Wolfman,' it would probably be easier. But I'm just `young upstart John Cena.' The personality will come, eventually.''

He already seems to have pulled in an audience without costumes and catchphrases. During his last televised match on ''Velocity,'' the WWE's Saturday night show, several women held up John Cena signs. One said, ''John Cena is a hottie!''

Cena admits he wasn't exactly fueled by ruthless aggression when he challenged Kurt Angle in June to a fight - what became his mainstream wrestling debut. Not so surprisingly, he says, the results of the matches are fixed. The WWE told him he'd be wrestling Angle for an on-screen bout just a few hours before the fight.

''They'll say you have eight minutes and Kurt Angle has to win,'' he said.

The outcome may be planned, but the fighting is real, Cena said. Wrestlers may look unharmed, but that's not always the case.

''They just don't put people who are hurt on TV,'' he said.

Cena now spends most weeks on the road, and gets home just a few days a month. He goes from city to city taping the episodes for ''Smackdown!'' or performing in dark matches, what the WWE calls the fights that are performed for audiences but not aired on television.

At home, his fan base cheers him on, hoping he is the giver and not the receiver of smackdowns.

''One thing I'm happy about is that to me, he still seems very down to earth,'' Carol Cena said, of her son. ''He still communicates well with people. I don't think any of this has gone to his head.''

John Cena will be featured tonight on ''Smackdown!'' at 8 p.m. on the UPN network.