10 Wrestling Matches That Carried The Highest Stakes

10. Raw Is Lesnar

Brock Lesnar vs. John Cena at Extreme Rules 2012 is one of the best matches in WWE history. And while Lesnar's initial return to the company on Raw to lay out his old foe was brilliant as well, the final chapter before the fight was quite stupid, and gave away the ending to the upcoming match.

In a contract signing on Raw, Lesnar had General Manager John Laurinaitis at his mercy. In order for him to compete, he needed him to agree to a series of his demands. He needed all decisions to run through him first, he wanted use of Vince McMahon's person jet, he wanted a $500,000 fine waived and if he won his match against Cena, he wanted Raw to be renamed to Monday Night Raw: Starring Brock Lesnar. Johnny agreed, and at that moment we knew who was going to win.

So we were supposed to believe that WWE was willing to change the name of their flagship show since 1993, and then have to also change an untold amount of merchandising deals all over a match featuring Lesnar and Cena?

I mean, lucky for them that Cena won, though things would have perhaps been more interesting if The Beast had been able to pull it off, and we could talk about the never-ending Raw: Starring Brock Lesnar vs. SmackDown feud. And hey, perhaps the ratings wouldn't be so bad these days with a new name? We'll never know!

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As Rust Cohle from True Detective said "Life's barely long enough to get good at one thing. So be careful what you're good at." Sadly, I can't solve a murder like Rust...or change a tire, or even tie a tie. But I do know all the lyrics to Hulk Hogan's "Real American" theme song and can easily name every Natural Born Thriller from the dying days of WCW. I was once ranked 21st in the United States in Tetris...on the Playstation 3 version...for about a week. Follow along @AndrewSoucek and check out my podcast at wrestlingwithfriends.com