The Magnificent Seven: The Top Seven John Cena Losses

Love him or hate him, John Cena has firmly established himself as one of the most important figures in WWE history. Like so many of the greatest, he’s had tremendous victories. But like most legends, he’s also had his famous losses.

After a wrestler is firmly established as the man, every time he puts over someone else becomes significant. These are the losses that elevate other talents while only furthering a great champion’s legacy for putting on a tremendous performance and advancing someone else’s career. Cena has had his share of losses like that—most recently putting over Roman Reigns at No Mercy (in a match that just missed this list).

Not every loss is created equally, though. While putting over The Miz at WrestleMania 27, or dropping the Unitd States Championship to Alberto Del Rio at Hell in a Cell 2014 probably should have represented huge moments for the victor, neither match was that great and neither outcome felt as though it meaningfully advanced the career of the winner. The matches listed accomplishe at least one, and ideally both of those objectives.

So this week’s column look at the top seven Joh Cena losses. The list is focused on the match and moment of the loss themselves, though long term impact and history intertwined with the moment were unavoidably a part of that picture—both how we remember the loss and why it worked in its time. As always, my personal opinion weighs heavily for the countdown.

#7. Edge, New Year’s Revolution 2006

By early 2006, John Cena had fully shifted from budding young star to the establishment. The fans had started to turn on him and he’d held the WWE Championship for nine months. He was established not just a top player, but the top player in WWE. And WWE fans wanted a change.

After years of knocking on the door of the main event, Edge had graduated to ready with new femme fatale sidekick Lita and the first ever Money in the Bank briefcase in hand. After Cena beat the odds for the umpteenth time to retain his title in an Elimination Chamber match at New Year’s Revolution, the sight of Edge cashing in was positively electric.

This match only lands in seventh place on account of it being a Money in the Bank cash in, and thus only pushing Edge to an extent, and only going so far in terms of Cena really putting him over. Just the same, it kick started Edge being a true main event talent and ten-time world champ, and the success of this cash-in paved the way for Money in the Bank to become a WWE institution.

#6. Dolph Ziggler, TLC 2012

Dolph Ziggler has all but perpetually been on the cusp of main event status. He’s a consistent upper mid-card guy who has been slotted into main event spots as WWE needed him, often as a place holder while more suitable world title contenders were getting groomed. From 2012 into 2013, however, Ziggler got his most meaningful main event push in his own right.

Ziggler won the Money in the Bank briefcase, and was slotted into a position from which he really could have been world champoin at any time, just as soon as WWE was ready to pull the trigger. While he wasn’t exactly dominant in the months to follow, he did progress, assembling an entourage that included Big E and AJ Lee, and getting treated like a credible rival to John Cena.

While Ziggler would peak when he cashed in his briefcase and won the World Heavweight Championsihp at the Raw after WrestleMania, his match with Cena, main eventing the TLC PPV in a Ladder Match, was arguably the most important stepping stone along the way—and yes, that includes winning the briefcase in the first place.

The briefcase was on the line, Cena was favored to win with lots of speculation already about what he’d do with the briefcase. Then Ziggler picked up the duke. After an extremely competitive and well-worked match, AJ Lee turned on Cena to align herself with Ziggler. While her interference did limit the victory a little, just the same Ziggler had held his own and with this victory there was real reason to believe he’d get a meaningful world title run.

#5. Rob Van Dam, One Night Stand 2006

By late spring 2016, Cena hate had reached nuclear levels and WWE seemed to find an optimal compromise. Cena would stay a top star—no two ways about that—but the company would also introduce the new ECW as a combination of alternative programming for hardcore fans and an unofficial developmental territory.

There was no more obvious choice to be face of this brand than RVD, who was super over but didn’t quite fit WWE’s corporate mode for a top guy. Give him a Money in the Bank briefcase and have that coincide with the ECW re-launch and there was the recipe for Van Dam take the top prize in the business and relaunch the ECW Championship in the same breath, not altogether different (if both more convoluted and less decisive) than how Shane Douglas launched the original ECW Championship by casting down the NWA title.

While, in the long run, RVD as champ would fail after he got busted for marijuana possession, in the moment WWE captured lightning in a bottle with the ECW crowd wildly in RVD’s corner, without even the token voices of women and children backing Cena. While Van Dam got an assist from Edge, it was nonetheless the biggest win of his WWE career as he unseated Cena and got the new ECW rolling.

#4. AJ Styles, SummerSlam 2016

Long after it seemed that the ship had sailed on AJ Styles ever finidng his way to WWE, the Phenomenal One debuted at the 2016 Royal Rumble. He quickly lost momentum, getting stuck in the upper mid card quagmire, mostly feuding with Chris Jericho. A world title program with Roman Reigns suggested WWE might have bigger plans for Styles. Then he entered a feud with John Cena.

The Cena feud included a tainted win over Cena at the Money in the Bank PPV, followed by a rock solid, clean victory in a MOTYC at SummerSlam. Over the years, a number of guys have eked out a single, not particularly clean win over The Champ, but to do so back to back, and with the second win being decisive and at one of the biggest PPVs of the year was a great demonstration of WWE’s faith in Styles that set him up for an excellent WWE Championship run in the fall. While Cena did get his win back at the following Royal Rumble, it was another instant classic, and Styles looked fantastic in that effort, firmly cemented as a top guy.

#3. CM Punk, Money in the Bank 2011

In the summer of 2011, CM Punk caught fire. At the cusp of his contract expiring, WWE loosened the reins on Punk and allowed him to cut worked shoot promos and work half hour matches with John Cena.

The results? Magic.

While Punk remained an awkward fit for WWE’s vision and corporate structure, the program got him over as a main event guy. In particular, beating Cena in front of Punk’s hometown crowd in Chicago made for one of the most charged atmospheres in WWE history and took a solid three-to-four star main event match, and made it feel like a five-star all-time classic.

Despite the slightly tainted nature of Punk’s win–Cena released an STF to cut off Vince McMahon and John Laurinaitis from shenanigans at ringside, only to walk right into a Go 2 Sleep—the chaotic finish actually felt like it fed into the wild nature of the night. Despite his awesome build, it was difficult to imagine Punk was actually going pin Cena. Punk escaping through the crowd with the title afterward was the icing on the cake for one of the most original, off beat WWE main event stories ever.

While Punk’s victory lost a little luster for a not-as-good follow-up bout at SummerSlam and Punk losing some steam in a storyline with Kevin Nash and Triple H to follow, this was nonetheless the match that made Punk a WWE main event guy rather than more of a Dolph Ziggler-type career upper-mid-carder.

#2. Brock Lesnar, SummerSlam 2014

For anyone who questions John Cena’s willingness to put people over, you need look no further than his track record at SummerSlam from 2011 on. Time and again, Cena has put over other talents, mostly in good-to-great matches, and often as not decisively.

When you talk about decisive losses of John Cena’s career, there’s no match to compare with his 2014 SummerSlam encounter opposite Brock Lesnar.

While it was widely predicted that after Lesnar had ended The Undertaker’s undefeated streak at WrestleMania, he would go on to win the WWE Championship, I don’t know that anyone called Cena getting so thoroughly dominated by the Beast Incarnate. The match may not technically qualify as a squash, given it lasted over fifteen minutes and Cena did get in a few hope spots. The effect was much the same, though, with Lesnar suplexing Cena all over the place before finally F-5ing him into oblivion.

Given how over and how respected Brock Lesnar generally is, it’s funny to say that Cena putting him over advanced his career. However, with the possible exception of ending the streak, I’d argue no match did more for establishing Lesnar a unique, unbeatable beast than decimating Cena here. This is the match that separated Lesnar from just being the top heel of the day, making him the definitive monster heel of his generation.

#1. Daniel Bryan, SummerSlam 2013

While there are matches on this list in which John Cena lost more decisively (getting smashed by Lesnar, having no injury to fall back on against Styles), and there are matches for which the crowd was arguably more electric (Punk, RVD, maybe Edge), in my mind there was no Cena loss more completely satisfying than when Daniel Bryan pinned him at SummerSlam 2013.

This match paid off a lengthy journey for Bryan, through the indies and then through the ranks of WWE. The match itself was great–quite arguably the best on this list. Finally, in beating Cena, Bryan grabbed the brass ring and looked to officially move into the spot of top guy in WWE, a destiny he would actualize in winning the WrestleMania 30 main event (even if his body wouldn’t allow him to hold the top spot for long).

Not so different from Punk and RVD challenging Cena earlier, this was a clash between the corporate chosen face of the company, and the indie darling too talented to be denied. Unlike those two cases, the pin fall victory was completely clean (and before you tell Punk’s win was clean in the comments—because you always do—go back and read my rationale in entry #3). Granted, my opinion may be colored by having been at the Staples Center live to attend this match, but I don’t know that I’ve ever personally experienced a live crowd reacting with more emotion than when Bryan got this huge win over Cena.

Which matches would you add to the list? Losing to Kevin Owens at Money in the Bank, and to Roman Reigns at No Mercy were my top honorable mentions. Let us know what you think in the comments.

Read more from Mike Chin at his website and follow him on Twitter @miketchin.