10 Best Wrestling Matches With The Worst Builds
3. Brock Lesnar Vs. John Cena - WWE Extreme Rules 2012
"Worst" is a bit of a stretch, admittedly - but the build to Brock Lesnar's WWE return match was as uneven as it gets.
In one of the best pull-apart brawls in WWE history - one so good that WWE repeated the trick in every Brock Lesnar programme over the subsequent 11 years - Lesnar split John Cena's lip. Cena tried to smile defiantly through it, but looked so obnoxious that the anti-Cena camp were desperate to see Brock finish the job for $50.
Then, Lesnar conducted a sit-down interview and was asked what was running through Cena's mind. In one of the best lines of that era - not that competition was exactly fierce - he said that it isn't about what's running through his mind, but down his leg: "piss".
Then, they screwed it.
They screwed it by doing, yes, a contract signing that aimed to play on Lesnar's capricious nature and mercenary behaviour. He had a lot of demands. He said that he had a lot of demands about 800 times to John Laurinaitis. His intimidation factor eroded throughout the segment, and by the 600th time, the decision was made to bring back Paul Heyman as his mouthpiece at some point.
The Extreme Rules main event was frightening, so relentlessly and atypically brutal that suspension of disbelief - if it was even required, the hole in Cena's head was bigger than Headhunters A & B combined - has never been easier.
This was the bear scene from The Revenant masquerading as a wrestling match, differing only in that Leonardo DiCaprio didn't kip up and no-sell his mauling afterwards.