In case you needed any more evidence that John Cena has been the most protected performer in WWE for the past decade or so, all you had to do was check out this story from last year, in which we listed every clean pinfall loss in a singles match the one-time doctor of thuganomics has taken since 2007.
At the time of publishing, the total was a scant 14, averaging two clean pinfall losses a year. Since then, Cena has lost cleanly in singles matches two more times — once to Roman Reigns at No Mercy, and again to Seth Rollins in the middle of an absolute barn-burner of a gauntlet match on Raw last night.
Here’s where your mind might get blown a little bit: Cena’s loss to Rollins was his first clean pinfall loss on Monday Night Raw since October 19, 2009 — nearly nine years ago. Since then, all of Cena’s clean singles-match losses have been saved for pay-per-views such as SummerSlam and WrestleMania, or, strangely, Smackdown (he lost clean to Dean Ambrose in 2016 and to Shinsuke Nakamura in 2017 on the blue show).
Who beat him way back in 2009, you ask? Why, none other than Triple H. (Of course, right?) Even then, it took three Pedigrees to keep him down:
Here is the updated list of John Cena’s clean singles match pinfall losses since 2007:
– Shawn Michaels (Raw, 2007)
– The Great Khali (Saturday Night’s Main Event, 2007)
– Triple H (Night Of Champions, 2008)
– Batista (SummerSlam, 2008)
– Big Show (Raw, 2009)
– Triple H (Raw, 2009)
– The Rock (WrestleMania, 2012)
– Daniel Bryan (SummerSlam, 2013)
– Brock Lesnar (SummerSlam, 2014)
– Kevin Owens (Elimination Chamber, 2015)
– Alberto Del Rio (Hell in a Cell, 2015)
– AJ Styles (SummerSlam, 2016)
– Dean Ambrose (Smackdown, 2016)
– Shinsuke Nakamura (Smackdown, 2017)
– Roman Reigns (No Mercy, 2017)
– Seth Rollins (Raw, 2018)
Now, you might be asking yourself when was the last time John Cena has had a clean loss via submission? You might assume that answer is never, as in Never Give Up. But in actuality, Cena has tapped a whopping three times in his career. Here’s the (very short) list:
– Kurt Angle (No Mercy, 2003)
– Chris Benoit (Smackdown, 2003)
– Kurt Angle (No Way Out, 2004)
That settles it: John Cena vs. Kurt Angle in a submission match at WrestleMania 34. Let’s do this.
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