Brock Lesnar completely dominated fellow former WWE Champion John Cena during their match at SummerSlam in 2014.
Walking into SummerSlam 2014, WWE booked a match between arguably its two biggest active stars, Brock Lesnar and John Cena.
Cena was the WWE World Heavyweight Champion at the time, and Brock was coming off being the first person to beat The Undertaker at WrestleMania just four months prior.
So, when the match was announced, WWE fans were expecting a long back-and-forth match between the pair, but that isn’t what happened.
Cena and Brock shared the ring for 16 minutes, but the match was one of the most one-sided main events in WWE history.
8 years ago today we witnessed the most uncomfortable main event in Summerslam history. John Cena got folded like some origami. JESUS pic.twitter.com/JWA5gTntn7
— Public Enemies Podcast (@TheEnemiesPE3) August 17, 2022
The title match was essentially squash, with Cena barely getting any moves in. In essence, it was all about Brock Lesnar.
In fact, the match was so one-sided that it’s even been described by some as “uncomfortable”, as you can see above.
Fans still talk about the main event to this day, with many struggling to believe that WWE would book John Cena, its top star, in such a way at the time.
You can see some of the fan reaction to the clip re-emerging below, with many stressing just how big of a shock it was to see Cena dominated like that at the second biggest WWE show of the year.
This was perfectly booked as the Death of Superman. Folks who didn’t watch the product actively then don’t realize how big of a shock this whole thing was
— Jon Halpert (@MasterAgenda68) August 17, 2022
I remember watching this and knowing instantly the end was near for JOHN
— Wrestling’s Stan (@WrestlingsStan) August 17, 2022
Props to Cena. There isn’t another Top Guy who would agree to the booking of that Match
— Jonathan Mitchell (@Jon_Mitchell3) August 17, 2022
I never ever seen a big main event superstar get squashed so badly like this before.
— Eye-Jay (@ij_andretti) August 17, 2022
This was Cena officially being killed as the top guy.
— Daniel Bryanson (@DBGreatness) August 17, 2022
Most one sided championship match I’ve ever seen! 16 German suplexes! 😳
— Kendall Simmons ⭐️💧 (@KSmall221) August 17, 2022
The match was also the beginning of the ‘Suplex City’ era of Brock Lesnar, with this becoming a big part of his character from that point forwards.
This wasn’t even the last time that Cena and Brock shared the ring together, as along with Seth Rollins, they were part of arguably the best triple threat match in WWE history at the Royal Rumble in 2015 a few months later.
As noted, fans simply couldn’t believe that John Cena, who was one of WWE’s top stars and was protected massively by the company, was booked to lose in such a convincing fashion.
However, if anyone is more protected than Cena at the time it was probably Brock Lesnar, and to WWE’s credit, the match did a lot to cement ‘The Beast’ as one of wrestling’s most dangerous ever stars.
Speaking of John Cena, we recently covered the 16-time World Champion’s bonkers 15 rules that he set for Nikki Bella while the pair were dating, which you can read more about by clicking here.