10 Wrestlers John Cena Couldn't Get Over

by Andrew Pollard

1. John Laurinaitis

Cena John Laurinaitis Over the Limit 2012
WWE.com

Many of you may get cold sweats at the mere thought of this one, but there was that ill-fated Over the Limit PPV back in 2012 where John Laurinaitis returned to in-ring action to battle John Cena. To say that the crowd went mild would be an understatement.

In the past decade of WWE, it’s genuinely hard to imagine a performer who was as channel-change-inducing as Big Johnny. Hell, even Triple H’s arduous, tiresome Reign of Terror was even at least slightly more engaging than those days when Raw was dominated by the presence of John Laurinaitis.

As an on-screen character, the reaction to Laurinaitis varied between disinterested and off-putting. So, how do you go about getting Johnny over as the top heel in the company? Why, you put him up against the poster boy of WWE, John Cena.

The use of Laurinaitis as an authority figure felt like it lasted a decade – in reality, the former Dynamic Dude was a regular on-screen presence from 2011 to 2013 – so painful were his bumbling, monotonous promos and his constant involvement in the company’s biggest angles.

Laurinaitis absolutely sucked and served no purpose other than to act as a legitimate annoyance to wrestling fans. That was backed up at the aforementioned Over the Limit event as working against John Cena didn’t even manage to get fans to genuinely react to Laurinaitis in the way that WWE wanted. Even more surprising, Laurinaitis actually got the win over Cena thanks to interference from Big Show.

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Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer and Presenter, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main day job, his role as lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund and Eli Roth to Kevin Smith and the Russo Brothers, to Kevin Conroy and Frank Miller, to Bret Hart and Sting, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, and Brian Flynn, to many, many more. Where his beloved Wrexham AFC is concerned, Andrew is a long-standing season ticket holder and an FSA Award-winner for his time co-hosting the Fearless in Devotion podcast.