Some cool news for fans of the WWE, TMNT, and even more acronyms! Nickelodeon announced today that not only is WWE Superstar John Cena returning to host Nickelodeon’s Kids’ Choice Awards for the second time, but he'll also be breaking new ground at the network with two firsts: Cena will get into character by lending his voice to an original villain named Baron Draxum in the brand-new 2D animated series Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, premiering late 2018; and he's executive producing the brand-new competition series, Keep It Spotless, where teams of kids go head-to-head in a battle to stay clean.
Cena recently voiced the title character in Ferdinand, a Blue Sky Studios and 20th Century Fox Animation film based on Munro Leaf's book about the friendly bull. This new voice-acting role is decidedly less friendly since his character Baron Draxum aims to convert all humankind into mutantkind ... unless the title Turtles put a stop to him. Perhaps even more interesting than that is that Cena will be bringing a live-action kids competition series back to Nickelodeon, something I don't think we've seen since the likes of Guts, Wild & Crazy Kids, or Double Dare. The stroke of genius here is that the kids will attempt to stay clean to win it all while my generation was all about getting slimed. How cool is that? Here's Cena himself to let you know how he feels about all this news:
Get the breakdown of all of Cena's involvement in Nickelodeon's upcoming programming below:
- Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ newest villain, Baron Draxum, will be voiced by Cena. Baron Draxum is an alchemist warrior mutant who seeks to turn all of humanity into mutants. Cena’s reoccurring character will appear in the premiere episode and throughout the series, which follows the band of brothers as they encounter new mutants and villains and discover a mystical world they never knew existed beneath the streets of New York City. Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles will bow later this year.