10 Wrestlers John Cena Couldn't Get Over

8. Big Show

Tensai John Cena
WWE.com

John Cena and Big Show famously battled at WrestleMania XX in a match that saw Cena win the US Championship from the World’s Largest Athlete. The match itself was so-so, but the crowd was raucous for the bout due to Cena’s burgeoning popularity, Show’s unstoppable monster heel persona, and the fact that this was all taking place at the Showcase of the Immortals. Fast forward five years to 2009, however, and Big Show’s schtick had long become tired due to a ludicrous amount of flitting between babyface and heel.

Still, it was Cena who was tasked with getting fans to believe that Big Show was still a main player and a genuine threat to the WWE Championship in ’09. Having defeated Show and Edge at WrestleMania XXV, Cena would then go on to face Big Show at the next two PPVs in dull and dire matches that nobody reacted to in the slightest.

So many times we’ve seen WWE try to re-establish Big Show as a main event act, yet the company has damaged the Big Show character more than any other in the past decade (yes, even including Kane). Back in 2009, WWE was starting to find out the hard way that audiences had long given up on Big Show in that sort of top position – as emphasised by how even Super Cena couldn’t get audiences to invest in him. Unfortunately, this rivalry would be revisited several times over the next few years as Cena constantly looked for monsters to topple.

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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, 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 the 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, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg. Where his beloved Wrexham AFC is concerned, Andrew is co-host of the Fearless in Devotion podcast, which won the Club Podcast of the Year gong at the 2024 FSA Awards.