Ranking John Cena's WWE SummerSlam Matches From Worst To Best

Cena finds himself on the midcard in his first SummerSlam but he’s unmistakably a star on the rise. Before his match, he interrupts a Randy Orton interview before the Viper wins the world belt, and feels no less important than the future champion. His pop eclipses that of most wrestlers when he makes his entrance. No one in Toronto thought Cena sucked just yet.

The match itself, meanwhile, is just fine. It’s a brief sprint to start a best of five series between Cena and Booker T, who were tussling for the US belt, which Cena would outgrow before the end of the feud. The two work nicely together and certainly make the most of their time, but this shades just over six minutes so it’s hard to rank it particularly highly.

For a man with so little ring time under his belt, though, Cena moves like a natural. Pretty much everything you’d see for the rest of his career is on display here, albeit with fewer dayglo pendants and a little more bad rapping. A promising start for a guy who’s clearly money.