10 Bloodiest Wrestling Matches Ever Broadcast
10. WWE Judgement Day 2005: John Cena vs. John Bradshaw Layfield
Kind of a rite of passage, this one: John Cena was well on his way to being cemented as the new face of WWE when he won his first ever WWE Championship at Wrestlemania 21, defeating John Bradshaw Layfield in eleven minutes for the Smackdown exclusive title. Yes, there was a time that the WWE Championship was defended only on Smackdown and Smackdown-related television, bizarre as it may seem to us now. These were the days before Cenas weirdly polarised crowd reactions, when WWE hadnt yet been confronted with the notion that a large proportion of the fanbase would despise seeing the man perform at the top of the card. Cena wasnt getting boos during this rematch for the title, which saw a chair shot to the head and a reasonably subtle blade job open Cena up like a can of tuna. WWE was attempting to establish Cena as a true main eventer, a classic big match guy along the lines of Flair, Hogan, Austin, etc - and it was widely believed that you didnt get to that level without a memorable juice job. JBL was the perfect guy to run the match with: a natural bully, unlikeable and uncool, it was practically impossible to side with him even if you were a seriously obnoxious smark.