John Cena’s Top 5 U.S. Open Challenge Matches

John Cena vs. Rusev – July 13, 2015

Look at the following script for a championship match on Raw without the names being mentioned – champion has multiple challengers wanting to face him, so he lets them battle in a grueling triple-threat match to decide the number-one contender for said championship. A winner has been decided, but his title shot has to be held immediately after winning the triple-threat.

Without knowing who was who and looking at it on paper, one would think that the champion was an evil heel wanting to get an easy title defense against a babyface challenger. The funny thing about the entire thing on the July 13, 2015, episode of Monday Night Raw was that the challenger was the evil Rusev and was wanting to regain the United States Championship from Cena. To get that shot, he had to defeat Kevin Owens and Cesaro in a match that could have easily been booked as a title match in its own right.

This match makes the list because it was interesting to see a confident Cena impose his will against a very tired Rusev. As he held Rusev on his shoulders moments before attempting his finishing move, you could see Cena stare towards the television cameras and shrug as if to say “Well, that wasn’t long at all.”

However, Rusev countered the Attitude Adjustment in mid-air and pretty much came crashing down onto Cena’s back to set up his submission – the Accolade. You could see the champion looked shocked and scared and for a moment, it looked like Rusev was going to get his title back before Owens ran in to cause the disqualification as part of continuing his storyline with Cena.

This was one of those matches in the challenge that put over a superstar while showing fans that the veteran champion is not 100 percent unbeatable.

Next: Match No. 4