Every John Cena WWE US Open Challenge - Ranked

They've all tried and failed to dethrone John Cena, but which of those who accepted his challenge provided the best match?

By Josh Wilding /

If someone had told you a year ago that John Cena would be slumming it as the WWE United States Champion, would you have believed them? In fairness to the divisive Superstar, he's brought back some much needed prestige to the title and his Open Challenges has become a highlight of Raw each week. For someone who gets such a bad rap from fans, Cena has actually proved to be incredibly giving since winning the title at WrestleMania. Days later, it's still hard to figure out why he didn't drop the belt to Kevin Owens at Battleground, but if that means more Open Challenges and a surprise loss on a future Raw, perhaps that's no bad thing in the long run. Looking back on each of Cena's Open Challenges, it's easy to pick the best from the worst...

10. Kane

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Kane may not be as good as he once was, but he's still more than capable of delivering a solid enough match. With the right opponent that is. Unfortunately, John Cena is not that, and seeing these two once again come to blows is about as stale as Cena squaring off with Randy Orton at some point in the hopefully not too near future. This match was sluggish, boring, and generally just uninteresting. It was obvious from before the bell even rang that Kane wasn't going to win and the match didn't even feature any memorable spots to elevate it to another level (there's surely no one in the world who for a second really believed that Cena would be taken down by a Chokeslam). This one mercifully came to an end when Cena managed to turn an attempted Tombstone Piledriver into an AA, and this match remains an unfortunate blip in his series of Open Challenges as being nothing new, fresh, or exciting. It was a stale idea which ultimately had no significant pay off and would be better off not repeated for...well, ever.