WWE Summerslam 2013: 10 Best Moments From The Biggest Party Of The Summer

2. Cena Loses Cleanly To Cement Bryan's Rise

The main event of the WWE Championship was the most solidly booked out of all the matches on the cards, and it certainly would live up to its billing. The 11-time and current WWE Champion John Cena; the face of the company, the main man for the last decade, a great if stiff wrestler with a personality designed for the PG-Era. He may have his critics for his stale character, but he always turns up for the WWE and gives 100% every time he competes, no matter how beat up and broken he may be. On the opposite side, the challenger Daniel Bryan. The most over and in-form superstar in the company at this time, the former independent star that stands for all that is great in technical and submission wrestling. A man with the best catchphrase in the company today, and whose matches have lit up the fans for the last year. This was going to be special. This match had everything going for it, and it didn't disappoint. After an opening exchange of holds where the crowd would chant "You Can't Wrestle" at the champion, the action progressively got more and more intense. Bryan would catapult himself around the ring and employ kick after kick into the upper body and head of Cena, where his beat em' up style was complimented with some hard-hitting suplexes. Bryan was superior technically, but despite where the action was taking place, inside or outside the ring, Cena more than held his own and carried his share of the burden for making this an awesome main event. Bryan would employ a range of submission holds that got the crowd on their feet when it looked like Cena might do the unthinkable and tap out, and Cena hit his signature manoeuvres including the AA that brought numerous near falls. There were high-risk moments, like when Cena almost dropped Bryan on his head from the middle turnbuckle, or when Bryan connected with a hurricanrana off the top rope. But in my eyes the little things were most impressive, like when they had to lean on each other to climb groggily to their feet, or the slapping session they employed to fire each other up to craft the most incredible match that they could. In the end, Bryan managed to counter out of Cena's attempts to hit another finishing move, and with a flurry of offence had the champion worn out in the centre of the ring. Working the crowd into a frenzy, he ran at Cena and rammed his knee so hard into his face I feared it would go through. A pinfall attempt later, we crowned a new WWE Champion. No interference, no screw-ups, no dirty tricks. I didn't mention the fact that Triple H refereed the match because it didn't really matter. He did his job and counted when he needed to, but the night belonged to Bryan. Cena was cleanly pinned, and it was a rare and spectacular sight. The years of building Cena as the top guy and nearly impossible to defeat one-on-one may have been pivotal in the launching of a new man at the top of the company. With Cena expected to be out of commission for a considerable while, his shaking the hand of Bryan was a symbolic passing of the torch, at least for the time being. Bryan had climbed the mountain and held the title aloft as the confetti rained down the Staples Center.