10 Best Major John Cena Feuds
1. Vs. CM Punk
Escapism was the theme of what may be the greatest modern day WWE feud.
CM Punk used John Cena's overbearing presence to threaten his WWE escape in the best wrestling promo of the decade. In the storyline, he escaped with Cena's WWE Championship in a seminal, lava-hot match in which he escaped Cena's kayfabe dominant arsenal with a series of sublime counters and reversals. The programme, and the Money In The Bank 2011 classic, was an escape for the fans, too - an escape from fabricated fiction through a cathartic dose of reality, and an escape from the tedious matches Cena had wrestled with The Miz and R-Truth earlier in the year. WWE messed it up royally in short order.
Punk, after successfully steering his main event career back on course with his "Best In The World" gimmick, turned heel to escape the tyranny of Cena's supposed annus horribilis of 2012, in which he cleanly defeated Brock Lesnar and had a grand old time d*cking about at the expense of John Laurinaitis. Their revisited rivalry generated a host of choice matches, the best of which took place at Night of Champions. Injury scuppered its momentum, but their last match, a desperate sprint on the February 25, 2003 RAW, remains the cult favourite of the whole lot. Punk escaped from WWE's rigid standards and practises by drilling Cena with the outlawed piledriver.
Punk escaped, seemingly for good, in early 2014 - but not before stealing the hearts of the hardcores and influencing WWE's recruitment policy forever.
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