8 Wrestlers John Cena Didn't Bury
1. Daniel Bryan
In 2013, Daniel Bryan was the hottest thing in wrestling. With his underdog spirit and incredible in-ring skills, coupled with that super catchy 'yes' chant, capturing the imagination of the WWE audience, the company had no choice but to push him to the top of the card.
On the back of Bryan's popularity and indelible connection to the audience, Cena handpicked Bryan to be his opponent at Summerslam for the WWE championship. A fantastic Raw promo segment between the two ("you are a parody of wrestling"), led to a tremendous match at Summerslam which Bryan surprisingly won, clean as a whistle, with his new knee strike finishing manoeuvre.
The glory was short lived, however, as special ref Triple H turned heel after the match, attacked Bryan, and Randy Orton cashed in his MITB briefcase to win the WWE title from Bryan moments later. And that, WWE hoped, would be that. Bryan feuded with Orton but ultimately came up short and WWE hoped that having given the popular Bryan that one big win over Cena, the audience would move on.
That didn't quite work out and WWE was forced to push Bryan all the way to the main event of Wrestlemania XXX. Without this initial big win over Cena though, the 'Yes Movement' wouldn't have been such a big thing and we never would have seen Bryan hold the WWE World Heavyweight Championship aloft in the Superdome.