5. John Cena vs. Shawn Michaels (WrestleMania XXIII)
Man, this list probably could have been "The John Cena Memorial List of 12 Times Fans Wanted a Wrestler to Drop the Title." Fan vitriol regarding Cena has waned in recent years, but even casual fans couldn't stomach the guy during the early days of his main event run. WWE tried to improve perceptions of their golden boy by putting him over their most established stars, but the same fans they were trying to win over continually chose to back these veterans; the belief was that Cena didn't deserve to defeat these credible stars, so this strategy tended to engender resentment rather than admiration for Cena. By WrestleMania XXIII, Cena had already defeated the decade's most dominant champion in HHH, a legitimate gold medalist in Kurt Angle and the hottest heel act on Earth in Edge, all with very little improvement in crowd reaction. With all of these feathers already in his souvenir cap, Cena was matched against arguably the best all-around wrestler that ever lived, Shawn Michaels. Despite doing his heelish best - and HBK's heelish best is THE heelish best - Michaels couldn't get the WrestleMania crowd behind Cena.
