FanPost

Ranking SummerSlam: Where does 2014's main event rank?

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Or…the one where the face of the company got squashed

Well…that was something last night, wasn’t it?

When people discussed this match many expected Brock Lesnar to win, but I think it is safe to say that no one expected Brock Lesnar to utterly demolish John Cena. So I guess the question is this: how do I rank something that wasn’t so much a match as it was a sixteen minute-long assassination?

We’ll get there. Let’s talk a little bit about this match itself. Here's some quick thoughts about what happened last night

It was the logical conclusion to the ascent of Brock Lesnar. WWE screwed up with how they handled Lesnar’s return to the company in 2012 by having him job to Cena and then putting him in a feud with Triple H that did nothing to benefit either guy. Even after a sensational match with CM Punk at 2013’s SummerSlam Brock was still wandering the wastelands looking for some traction.

For reference, here’s a quick list of Lesnar’s matches from his return in 2012 to before last night at SummerSlam.

- Extreme Rules 2012 – Loses to John Cena

- SummerSlam 2012 – Beats Triple H

- WrestleMania 29 – Loses to Triple H

- Extreme Rules 2013 – Beats Triple H

- SummerSlam 2013 – Beats CM Punk

- Royal Rumble 2014 – Beats Big Show

- WrestleMania XXX – Beats the Undertaker

Well, he got his traction and then some when he beat the Undertaker at WrestleMania. It instantly put him at the top of the mountain. It was the ultimate mulligan – giving Brock the biggest possible victory helped erase the bad taste left in many people’s mouths due to the haphazard nature of feuds with Cena, Hunter and Big Show. Due to his limited appearance contract, he next targeted John Cena at SummerSlam. Cena won the belts at Money In The Bank.

Main Event Time!

We knew going in Brock Lesnar was going to beat the holy you-know-what out of John Cena. That’s what Brock does. He’s barely controlled fury. He dances all over the line between kayfabe and reality. What we had no way of knowing was that John Cena would barely get any offense in during a main event match at the #2 Pay-Per-View.

This was unlike any main event match we’d ever seen. Other than some ineffectual brawling, Cena got exactly two moves in – an Attitude Adjustment that he hit out of nowhere which prompted Brock to do this piece of awesomeness:

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Brock literally laughing in the face of Cena's best shot

Oh, and there were lots of German suplexes. It was as if Brock said to himself, "screw this, I don’t need to be fancy or change my moveset, Cena has no chance of stopping this Germans, so why do anything different?" It’s like when you are playing a fighting game against someone who only knows how to win with one move. Until and unless you learn how to counter it, he’s going to spam the same move over and over again.

Brock won with an F5, as if that mattered. Immediately after the match my father, whose been watching wrestling religiously for some forty years, called me up and said "I’ve never seen a heel look so strong against a top good guy." When my father says stuff like that, I believe him. He’s a walking repository of wrestling history.

This wasn’t a good match, but it certainly was both enjoyable and it definitely was memorable. Think of it like this: I’m a Chicago Bears fan. When the Bears win in a blowout, it isn’t a good, back-and-forth game, but I really do enjoy myself, and I’ll have something to remember for years. This match was the same exact way.

Curtain Jerker’s Star Rating – The match itself is almost impossible to rank considering it was one guy dominating another guy. Let’s say 3 stars.

Where does it fall in the countdown? Considering the memorable nature of the match, and how completely Brock dominated the number one face in the company, I’ll put this match in between 2000’s Triple Threat and 2009’s TLC match. So its our new number seven main event in SummerSlam history

Also in this series:

#1 - Hart vs Bulldog

#2 - Cena vs. Bryan

#3 - Rock vs. Lesnar

#4 - Bret Hart vs. Undertaker

#5 - The Undertaker vs. Edge

#6 - Jeff Hardy vs. CM Punk

#7 - Angle vs. Triple H vs. The Rock

#8 - Orton vs. Benoit

#9 - Steve Austin vs. The Undertaker

#10 - Cena vs. Orton

#11 - Triple H. vs. Mankind vs. Steve Austin

#12 - Punk vs. Cena

#13 - The Rock vs. Booker T

#14 - Michaels vs. Vader

#15 - Elimination Chamber

#16 - Cena vs. Edge

#17 - Michaels vs. Hogan

#18 - Triple H vs. Brock Lesnar

#19 - Hogan/Savage vs. Andre/DiBiase

#20 - Team WWE vs. Team Nexus

#21 - Rude vs. Warrior

#22 - Hogan/Beefcake vs. Savage/Zeus

#23 - Luger vs. Yokozuna

#24 - Hogan/Warrior vs. Slaughter/Mustafa/Adnan

#25 - Diesel vs. Mabel

#26 - Undertaker vs. Undertaker

The FanPosts are solely the subjective opinions of Cageside Seats readers and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cageside Seats editors or staff.