10 Most Absurd Forgotten Matches In WWE History

10. John Cena Vs Shinsuke Nakamura - Winner Fights Jinder Mahal

By 2017, John Cena had done everything there was to do in WWE, but Shinsuke Nakamura was still an exciting enough prospect that ‘The Champ’ taking on ‘The Artist’ was dream match-adjacent.

When WWE revealed that they’d be dropping it on a summer edition of SmackDown to determine a number one contender, it immediately resonated as the platonic ideal of a major deal on its own steam and significant status-enhancer for ‘The King Of Strong Style’.

If he could get past arguably the greatest and most important WWE performer of a generation, he’d not just have a scalp he could lean on for years, or a deserved grasp at the glory of the WWE Championship. He’d get all of that…and Jinder Mahal.

Not to mean to be needlessly cruel to the ‘’Modern Day Maharaja’, but the paper champion shtick was even more insulting when he was defending the belt rather than fighting for it. Mahal had been bewilderingly dropped into the deepest ocean and told to swim for his life without ever taking a lesson. It’s little wonder challengers drowned when they got anywhere near his flailing arms too. Or, for that matter, why ‘Big Match John’ (and later Brock Lesnar) wanted the sum total of f*ck all to do with him.