14 Times John Cena Lost Clean

8. Sheamus (TLC 2009)

Trawl all the way back to 2009 on the WWE Network and you may be surprised to see a fresh-faced Sheamus as a regular on pay-per-views. TLC in December of that year marked his first WWE Title win, and it came clean as a whistle against John Cena. This was all about building new stars.

That was an ongoing issue in WWE then, and it's one that's still prevalent now. Back in '09, WWE believed the best way to cement Sheamus as a new headliner was to have Cena go to Superplex him onto a table only to fall backwards through the wood. The win seemed cheap, but announcers concentrated on the idea that Sheamus had pushed Cena.

He had, technically, but Cena's over-the-top leap made it look like he had jumped voluntarily. Still, at least WWE didn't book another heel to run in and cost Cena the title. Cheap looking or not, Sheamus had beaten Cena cleanly in a featured match on 2009's final pay-per-view.