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10 Greatest Rivals Of John Cena's Career | partsFUNknown You can't see him but you can love him. John Cena has become one of the greatest WWE stars ever but not without the help of his greatest rivals. Tempest is here to run down Cena's 10 greatest rivals but make sure you let us know your favourite in the comments below!  00:00 - Start 01:17 - Honourary Mention 02:10 - 10 03:33 - 9 04:49 - 8 05:51 - 7 06:30 - 6 07:36 - 5 08:58 - 4 10:12 - 3 11:17 - 2 12:27 - 1  10 Wrestling Title Belts That Never Made It To TV - https://youtu.be/EidPFkFKT7s  SUBSCRIBE TO partsFUNknown: https://bit.ly/2J2Hl6q TWITTER: https://twitter.com/partsfunknown FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/partsfunknown/ Buy wrestling merchandise here: https://www.wrestleshop.com/ Read more Feature content here on WrestleTalk.com: https://wrestletalk.com/features/

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00:00 Did you know that Bryce Remsburg refereed John Cena's last match on the indies in 2019?

00:05 Did you know he wrestled himself? It's true! Look at him slam himself through a table.

00:09 What a performance and what a special moment for Bryce Remsburg.

00:13 Anyway, before wrestling himself in GCW, John Cena was wrestling in a more visible manner in WWE,

00:18 becoming one of the most prolific and divisive wrestlers in history.

00:22 Despite his flaws as a performer, Cena carried the WWE torch for the better part of two decades,

00:27 putting on great matches with some of the biggest names wrestling has ever seen.

00:31 To have a career as long and prosperous as Cena's, you will need some great dance partners,

00:35 and here we are going to run down the 10 best to ever square dance with John the Invisible Man.

00:40 Keep in mind, this won't be a ranking based on the body of work of Cena's opponents. You won't

00:44 find Daniel Bryan on this list, even though their one major match at Summerslam 2013 was fantastic,

00:50 and Bryan is one of the best to ever lace up a pair of boots, but rather this is a look at the

00:54 wrestlers in relation to John Cena and John Cena's career. I'm Tempest Hailing from PartsFunKnown,

01:00 and these are the 10 Greatest Rivals of John Cena's Career.

01:03 But before we get on with this list, make sure that you subscribe and enable notifications so

01:07 you never miss a fun wrestling list just like this one. If you want another one to watch,

01:11 Adam's made a list about championship belts. I know you guys love them. The views don't lie.

01:16 Honorable Mention Randy Orton. Listen, I know that if I don't mention him,

01:20 all the comments will ask, "Where's Randy Orton?" But hot damn, WWE may try to present Randy Orton

01:26 as John Cena's greatest rival, but I lived through all that shit, and of the 19 singles matches that

01:31 Cena and Orton had on WWE television, I feel comfortable saying three of them were good.

01:37 Summerslam '07, Breaking Point '09, Hell in a Cell 2014. That's it. That's a poor batting average,

01:43 and even with WWE's best efforts to push this as a generational rivalry,

01:48 WWE fans themselves weren't having it, as illustrated by the complete lack of reaction

01:52 when they went for the Hogan Warrior stare-down moment in the 2011 Royal Rumble, and was further

01:58 illustrated when they tried it two more times in the same match to still no reaction. They have

02:04 done good work together, but not good enough to crack the top 10. Love that I quit match, though.

02:09 Number 10, Batista. John Cena benefited from his rivalry with Batista taking place when Batista

02:15 had completely stopped caring about his WWE run prior to his departure in 2010. For those unaware,

02:20 "Don't give a f*** Batista" is the best version of Batista. Cena and Batista's careers paralleled

02:26 each other to a scary degree up until their first meeting in 2008, from both coming up in OVW and

02:31 debuting in 2002 with Cena coming up on SmackDown while Batista hit his stride on Raw, to being the

02:36 final two in the 2005 Royal Rumble and both winning their first world championships at WrestleMania 21,

02:41 to then switching brands with their titles in hand at the 2005 draft, it seemed as if they were

02:46 being kept apart on purpose to further build up their eventual first clash. To WWE's credit,

02:51 that could very well have been the case, and it made their match at Summerslam 2008 feel like a

02:56 really big deal. It was a great match, although I may be the biggest fan of this match in the world

03:02 because of the 2008 edition nostalgia goggles I have perma-glued to my face. But their 2010 rivalry

03:07 was also tremendous fun. Batista's character work and motivations of being angry to have seen the

03:12 WWE torch passed to John Cena instead of him made all the sense in the world, and it helps that this

03:17 was when Batista started cutting the best promos of his career. Their WrestleMania 26 match was one

03:22 of Cena's best on the grandest stage, and it led to an equally fun last man standing match at Extreme

03:27 Rules unless your name is Luke Owen, because Luke Owen hates duct tape, and also fun.

03:32 9. Bray Wyatt Talk about a rivalry that absolutely would

03:36 not have made the cut on this list until a couple of years ago. John Cena's 2014 rivalry with Bray

03:41 Wyatt and the Wyatt Family started off great, with Cena being a perfect narrative counterpart

03:45 to Wyatt's original silver-tongued cult leader character. Then they actually had their match at

03:50 WrestleMania 30, and while the match isn't bad, it certainly didn't service the story or Wyatt's

03:55 character, standing as one of the most damning examples of the "Cena wins lol" era of booking.

04:00 It didn't help when the rivalry further devolved into spooky children bollocks at Extreme Rules

04:04 the following month before a very good last man standing match at Payback. If the rivalry was left

04:09 there, it would not come close to qualifying for this list, but then we got the Firefly Funhouse

04:14 match, which stood to recontextualize their entire rivalry with a level of artistic vision not seen

04:19 before or since in WWE. It makes their 2014 rivalry and the mistakes made in it feel a lot

04:25 more bearable when you see an in-depth dissection of the whole thing from the mouths of those

04:30 involved. When we weren't capable of seeing a real WrestleMania because of unprecedented times,

04:35 we got this instead, which is almost undoubtedly better than what we would have gotten otherwise.

04:41 If you're looking at rivalries that impacted Cena's whole career, this is as unique as it gets.

04:46 He also killed him!

04:47 Number 8. Kurt Angle

04:50 If this was a list of the best wrestlers Cena has faced, Kurt Angle would have to place near

04:54 the top. But nay, while the work involved in Cena's rivalry with Kirk Angel was very good,

04:59 this was when parts of the audience began to turn on the former doctor of Thuganomics.

05:03 See, WWE was in a precarious situation with Cena in 2005. He wasn't a technically sound performer,

05:09 but could have good matches with a strong dance partner. But the problem then became that the

05:13 fans wanted to see the good dance partner beat him, which never happened throughout 2005.

05:18 Cena had spent the summer beating Christian and Chris Jericho, and then had his feud with

05:22 Kurt Angle during the fall. Their matches at Unforgiven and Survivor Series were among the

05:26 best of Cena's initial title run, but did sour people on WWE's new poster boy.

05:31 It is for that reason that this place is closer to the bottom of the list,

05:35 even though the lasting memory of their time together was enough to get people to call for

05:38 Cena to be Angle's final opponent at WrestleMania 35, instead of, well, Baron Corbin.

05:44 Cena inducted Angle into the WWE Hall of Fame, and that connection doesn't come out of nowhere.

05:49 Number 7. The Rock

05:51 Were the matches between John Cena and The Rock great? No, not really. The first one was fun,

05:57 and also way too f***ing long. A half hour is not the optimal length for two big, beefy boys

06:03 to battle, especially when one of them hasn't had a singles match in nine years. But it really is

06:08 undeniable how big that match felt when it became a possibility for the first time. There were

06:13 missteps for sure. No one wanted to see them twice in a lifetime, and even fewer wanted to see them

06:18 hug after their match at WrestleMania 29. But there have rarely been moments where Cena has

06:23 been forced to step up to the plate like he did going toe to toe with The Rock in the ring and

06:27 on the mic. Number 6. Kevin Owens

06:31 WWE did know how to make a star in one night from time to time. Coming right at the start of the

06:35 influx of talented indie stars to make their way to the main roster from NXT, Kevin Owens was

06:40 immediately given the opportunity to stand opposite John Cena and be presented as an equal. He called

06:45 out Cena for wanting to impart veteran advice upon him, despite wrestling longer than Cena,

06:50 and planted him with a pop-up powerbomb, setting up one of the best in-ring debut matches in WWE

06:56 history at Elimination Chamber 2015. John Cena's matches have a bit of a formula to them, but this

07:01 match felt completely unique for the time, and that's probably a big reason why people continue

07:06 to point to it in videos over seven years later. It also helps that KO won, at the height of the

07:12 Cena wins lol era no less. Cena did get his win back and then summit Money in the Bank in

07:17 Battleground, which may have slowed Owens' progress up the card, but thankfully he got there in the

07:22 end, and what we were left with is one of the greatest trilogies of matches of John Cena's

07:26 career. Throughout all three of these matches, Cena and Owens never once left the ring. I got

07:32 nothing more to say about that fact. I just think it's neat. Number 5. Shawn Michaels

07:37 John Cena's run as WWE Champion in 2007 was the first truly great run he'd had as top guy of WWE,

07:44 and the best part of that best run was his rivalry with Shawn Michaels. In terms of in-ring

07:49 performances, Cena and Michaels' WrestleMania 23 match is head and shoulders above the rest of

07:54 Cena's WrestleMania resume. A half-hour classic in front of Cena's largest audience to date,

07:59 this was a statement match to fully cement his place at the top of WWE's totem pole.

08:04 And yet, there is absolutely an argument to be made that that isn't their most iconic match

08:08 together. To top a WrestleMania main event with a match less than a month later on Raw,

08:13 it must mean that match was pretty darn special. And special indeed it was. The hour broadway the

08:19 two had in London is an achievement of a Raw match, especially for 2007. To hold an audience's

08:24 attention for an hour and manage to peak at the perfect moment is an incredible feat, and it is

08:29 unfathomable that one week later, Cena was booked to turn his attention to the Great Khali. Hour

08:36 long classics, no more. Shawn Michaels could legitimately have had great chemistry with a

08:40 mob, so it doesn't come as a surprise that these matches were as great as they were,

08:44 but it was only further illustrated by every time they got in the ring before Shawn's retirement.

08:48 I highly recommend their match from the January 12, 2009 episode of Raw. It is one of the best

08:54 Raw matches of that whole year, and it doesn't get nearly enough love. Number four, Brock Lesnar.

09:00 Another OVW boy with whom John Cena Jr. has had multiple iconic moments with, Brock Lesnar is

09:05 honestly someone I'm surprised Cena hasn't crossed paths with more since their ultra memorable series

09:09 in the mid 2010s. For as terrible as Brock's title match with Cena was at the wretched Backlash 2003,

09:15 once Brock returned to WWE in 2012, they more than made up for lost time together. Brock's

09:20 return match at Extreme Rules 2012 would probably be my favorite WWE match of all time if they

09:26 didn't have one of the most ludicrously bad booking choices as its finish, but regardless,

09:31 it stands as an excellent reintroduction of Brock Lesnar as a ruthless monster,

09:35 and it allowed Cena the rare opportunity to actually be the underdog that WWE liked telling

09:40 fans he was. But while that match was undermined by its finish, the next time the two squared off

09:46 was the exact opposite. Summerslam 2014's main event is one of the most unique and

09:51 awe-inspiring matches in Summerslam history, where WWE's Golden Goose had its feathers

09:55 individually plucked before being slaughtered. Suplex City began that night with Brock's dominant

10:01 win, and they further added to their shared resume with a decent rematch at Night of Champions,

10:05 and one of the best triple threat matches in WWE history, also involving Seth Rollins at the Royal

10:10 Rumble. Number three, AJ Styles. Considering the track record WWE had with new

10:16 stars being introduced on the main roster in the mid-2010s, there was no guarantee that AJ Styles

10:20 would be a success in the big dub. He was having great performances throughout 2016 against Chris

10:25 Jericho and Roman Reigns, but if he didn't establish himself further, it would have been

10:29 easy for him to slip down the card into the IC title scene and never see the main events again.

10:34 Then his feud with John Cena eliminated that concern from everyone's minds.

10:38 Cena's late career resurgence as a super worker began with his US title run in 2015,

10:43 but truly peaked with this rivalry with AJ Styles the following year. Whether it be their

10:47 initial clash at Money in the Bank that served as an appetizer of what was to come, their follow-up

10:52 show-stealing match at SummerSlam that nothing on the card could come close to, their fun triple

10:56 threat match with Dean Ambrose at No Mercy, or their ultimate duel over the WWE Championship

11:01 at the Royal Rumble, each of these matches could serve as someone's favorite of their series.

11:06 From strictly an in-ring standpoint, it would be hard to argue that AJ Styles was not Cena's

11:11 best opponent, but two had stories that captured fans' imaginations just a bit more.

11:16 #2 CM Punk

11:18 John Cena and CM Punk's early work together was little of note. Their first matches in 2009 are

11:24 short and dull affairs, and their extremely short feud at the end of 2010 consisted entirely of

11:29 Cena calling him "CM Sucks." Because don't get it twisted, the height of the PG era was s***.

11:36 But once the build to Money in the Bank 2011 started, these two became intertwined together

11:40 in WWE history with some of the most iconic matches, promos, and long-term stories in WWE

11:45 history. Their Money in the Bank match speaks for itself at this point, with every YouTuber

11:50 drooling over it since the day it occurred, but the matches that have followed are also deserving

11:54 of praise. Their SummerSlam match aside, because of all the Triple H, Kevin Nash, Humberto Del Rio

11:59 nonsense I would rather remove from the timeline, Cena and Punk's rematch at Night of Champions 2012

12:04 is a great match in its own right, and a great example of WWE utilizing a draw/finish in a way

12:09 that actually services the story, showing Punk as someone who is now happy to retain the title by

12:14 any means necessary. Then the Piledriver match on Raw in 2013 capped off their rivalry with another

12:20 of the best matches in Raw history, but as a rival to John Cena, only one has surpassed Punk and

12:25 Cena's duality. Number 1, Edge. John Cena's old shoe. Edge and Cena surprisingly hit their strides

12:33 as main event talent at the same time. The night Cena won his first WWE Championship, Edge won

12:38 Money in the Bank, setting up the iconic first cash-in for New Year's Revolution that started

12:43 the best rivalry of John Cena's career. 2006 was the year of Cena and Edge, with some brief

12:49 interruptions for a little show called WrestleMania, their matches furthered their story and their

12:53 careers immensely. The Royal Rumble match set Edge's year in motion, having dropped the WWE

12:58 title back to Cena and letting the frustrations involved consume him. They had a fantastic Triple

13:03 Threat match with Triple H at Backlash, and then Edge cost Cena the title in his match with Rob Van

13:08 Dam at One Night Stand. They did a fantastic job spacing out the matches to make the rivalry not

13:14 get stale, yet be able to tell a much longer story than most rivalries were at the time.

13:19 They traded wins in the other's hometown, with Edge beating Cena in Boston at Summerslam,

13:24 and then following that up with a match at Unforgiven in Toronto, with that match being

13:28 one of the best singles TLC matches ever, with the best FU ever helping to cap off a great chapter

13:34 of their career-defining rivalry. Then add in even more great work together in 2009,

13:39 with a brilliant promo from Edge talking about his visceral hatred of Cena, and how powerful that word

13:45 "hatred" is, setting up their final battle at Backlash in an unusually great Last Man Standing

13:50 match, and you have the best body of work the two have had with another wrestler in their careers.

13:55 It is brilliant, I love it, I'm gonna go watch it all over again.

13:59 And that's our list, make sure of course that you like this video and subscribe so you never

14:02 miss another wrestling list just like it, I would like to do more of these greatest rivals lists,

14:07 so if you have any wrestlers in mind that you would like to see covered, make sure that you

14:10 leave a comment down below. And yeah, have a good week everybody, jam that jam and all that.

10 Greatest Rivals Of John Cena's Career | partsFUNknown

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