NEW YORK (AP) – Cena and Batista are front and center. Stone Cold and Rowdy Roddy are coming back.

After some lean years full of court cases, hungry rivals and a lost name, Stamford, Conn.-based World Wrestling Entertainment is trying to recapture its glory of 20 years ago with a new movie division and the 21st edition of Wrestlemania on Sunday.

WWE shows are consistently among the top-rated programs on cable, drawing up to 3.5 million households each week. And former champ Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is carving out a movie career that Hulk Hogan or Randy Savage would kill for.

Now WWE chieftain Vince McMahon is pushing two young stars: Dave Batista, a 6-foot-5 giant who used to hang with the likes of Triple H and the legendary Ric Flair; and John Cena, a thug type into hip-hop and throwback jerseys.

“This company is a marketing monster. That’s what they do,” says Cena, 27, who has a rap album hitting stores in May and a lead role in the feature film “The Marine,” coming this fall under the new WWE Films label. “They’ve taken a small-town kid from West Newbury (Mass.) who has a love for professional wrestling and a love for hip-hop and let the world know about it.”

On Sunday, Cena will be matched against John Bradshaw Layfield for the WWE heavyweight championship.

“I’m more nervous that somebody would let on because there are a lot of people behind me, but there’s also an equal amount of people against me,” Cena said after an appearance at a Long Island mall that drew thousands of fans. “They’re saying, He’s just a young kid, he can’t hold the ball, he can’t main event Wrestlemania. That wears on you. You know that presence is there. But it’s a good nervousness because you want to prove (them) wrong.”

Another much-anticipated feature Sunday is the return of two characters that played vital roles in WWE’s past success, “Stone Cold” Steve Austin and “Rowdy” Roddy Piper.

Ironically, both men had recent fall-outs with McMahon. Austin failed to attend several “Raw” shows in 2002 and later had contractual problems with WWE. Piper, a classic villain during the 80s, briefly returned in 2003 but was soon released from his contract after disclosing drug use and a disdain for his character during an interview with HBO’s “Real Sports.”

McMahon says he knew he had to swallow his pride and bring them back.

“Our audience doesn’t know our wrestlers personally as much as I do and I would be doing our audience a disservice if I didn’t,” McMahon said. “I have to do what’s good for the product.”

Piper’s return furthers McMahon’s plan to link older fans, from the company’s World Wrestling Federation era, with the younger crowd. Old WWF stars like “Superstar” Billy Graham, Jake “The Snake” Roberts and the Fabulous Moolah occasionally make surprise visits to the “Raw” and “Smackdown” shows, drawing huge ovations.

“We wanted to enhance the image of all the performers that led to the success of this business, including individuals who were never in the WWE,” said McMahon. “We have a responsibility to keep their legacy going.”

These “legends” are also accessible in several video games and an all-wrestling channel called “WWE 24/7,” which launched in 2004.

Then there’s WWE Films. Besides Cena, “Kane” – another giant figure who comes out to a fire- and-brimstone setting – will appear in a horror flick, and Austin has signed up for three movies.

“The Hollywood action movies that are out there right now are pretty sparse and what we realized is all the action heroes are on our roster right now,” said WWE vice president of marketing Kurt Schneider. “So we thought, Why don’t we take our guys and put them in our action movies.”‘

Movies might have seemed out of the question a decade ago. In 1994, McMahon was charged with encouraging some of his top stars to take performance-enhancing drugs. McMahon was acquitted, despite Hogan testifying that he shared drugs with his bodybuilder boss.

“Those were tough times,” said McMahon. “Life something isn’t fair. It was a witch hunt with of all the charges they had. I didn’t even put on a defense. That’s how weak the case was. But tough times don’t last, tough people do.”

A year later, WWE lost much of its stable, including Hogan, to rival World Championship Wrestling. WCW debuted with live shows on the former Nashville Network and, at one time, beat WWE in the ratings for 83 straight weeks. The battle was so ugly that the WCW would sometimes announce the results of then-taped WWE shows before they hit the air.

But with the emergence of The Rock and Austin, the WWE recovered. McMahon eventually bought WCW and let it die a slow death.

McMahon then failed with its XFL pro football league in 2001. A year later, the World Wildlife Fund claimed exclusive rights to the letters WWF and forced McMahon to change his company’s name to WWE.

Earlier this month, the Spike cable channel announced it would not renew its contract with WWE, apparently balking at a fee increase.

Despite the WWE’s recent resurgence in popularity, investors are not yet convinced about its future. McMahon took WWE public in late 1999 with stock worth about $25 per share. After falling to the $7 range in late 2002, the stock rebounded but has held steady the past year at about $12.

WWE now employs about 140 wrestlers with a range of nationalities. In early February, the “Raw” and “Smackdown” shows were taped in Japan, and WWE is heading to Australia days after Wrestlemania.

“The beauty of our business is it’s the same globally,” said Schneider. “Unlike baseball and football, there are no rules. It’s really simple: good versus evil.”