Ranking EVERY WWE WrestleMania Main Event From Worst To Best

20. John Cena Vs The Rock (WrestleMania 28)

WrestleMania Main Events
WWE.com

Long, laboured and ultimately one giant lie, the 'Once In A Lifetime' meeting between John Cena and The Rock was less failure and more flub as a year's worth of build culminated in annoyingly ordinary affair.

The Miami locals were ultimately kind to their returning hero, but an injury to 'The Great One' was just one of the underlying factors that hamstrung WWE's biggest box office main event ever. Drawing buys from 1,217,000 homes, WrestleMania 28 was an astronomical success, but the disappointing response to such enormous anticipation saw the following year's rematch lose nearly 200,000 purchases from that number.

An advert for the wrestler 'Big Match John' hadn't yet become, the contest didn't inspire a reaction in the audience between bookending roars for the opening and closing moments. Finisher trades late on inspired a better sequel, but little else within the match gave anybody a reason to ever revisit it.

Contributor
Contributor

Michael is a writer, editor, podcaster and presenter for WhatCulture Wrestling, and has been with the organisation nearly 8 years. He primarily produces written, audio and video content on WWE and AEW, but also provides knowledge and insights on all aspects of the wrestling industry thanks to a passion for it dating back over 35 years. As one third of "The Dadley Boyz" Michael has contributed to the huge rise in popularity of the WhatCulture Wrestling Podcast and its accompanying YouTube channel, earning it top spot in the UK's wrestling podcast charts with well over 62,000,000 total downloads. He has been featured as a wrestling analyst for the Tampa Bay Times, GRAPPL, GCP, Poisonrana and Sports Guys Talking Wrestling, and has covered milestone events in New York, Dallas, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, London and Cardiff. Michael's background in media stretches beyond wrestling coverage, with a degree in Journalism from the University Of Sunderland (2:1) and a series of published articles in sports, music and culture magazines The Crack, A Love Supreme and Pilot. When not offering his voice up for daily wrestling podcasts, he can be found losing it singing far too loud watching his favourite bands play live. Follow him on X/Twitter - @MichaelHamflett