7 Times John Cena Put WWE Stars Over Huge

5. Batista Wins The Battle Of The Biggest Stars At SummerSlam 2008

It was a match without a title involved. It was simply a showdown because WWE's most pushed babyface stars from 2005 to 2008 as John Cena took on Batista in what WWE was calling an "ultimate showdown" among other things. They were still too new to call it a dream match, but it did have a special feel to it just because it wasn't a match we had seen before. The best way to describe is to say that it was a hard hitting slugfest between two guys that we were used to seeing kick out of everything. When it happened live it was hard to know who was going to go over because the case could be made for either guy. We rarely saw either guy lose in a clean match in four years, so what could they really do? What's cool about this match is that the crowd was really into it, which isn't always the case when it's face vs. face like this. They saw it as a big deal because of the status of these two men. When Cena countered out of a powerslam and turned it into the Attitude Adjustment it was very impressive. We figured that was it, but his delay in a cover allowed Batista to kick out. Batista capitalized on a Cena mistake after Cena went to the top rope. Cena was driving into the mat in a Powerbomb spot that ended up hurting him legitimately due to the force that his angle hit the mat. Batista followed it up with a kick to the face and a Batista Bomb for the win. It's an awesome match that showed these guys deserved the spots they were in and having Batista win didn't really hurt Cena that much at all.