5 Awesome Performances We Weren't Expecting (& 5 That Surprisingly Sucked)

Few wrestlers will ever be in the same conservation as John Cena when discussing the all-time great performers. Cena was the face of WWE for almost a decade before branching out into Hollywood for his acting career. There were many hits or misses in his long career, but some were more surprising than others.

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Cena received a lot of criticism when things that were supposed to be good turned out to disappoint. However, the praise was there when Cena did better than expected in some scenarios. Both sides showcase different stories, but they share the common trend of not judging a book by its over. The following performances weren’t expected for better or worse.

10 Surprisingly Awesome: Last Man Standing Match Vs Umaga

John Cena was still getting heavily criticized for being a flawed in-ring worker as the face of the company in 2007. Umaga had a similar criticism of fans being unsure if he could have great matches after getting over due to his character scoring decisive wins.

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Both wrestlers delivered one of the best performances of their respective careers when having a magical Last Man Standing match at Royal Rumble 2007. Cena started to gain more respect from fans due to surprising them with great matches that were expected to just be okay heading in.

9 Surprisingly Sucked: Storyline Joining Nexus

One of the biggest negatives in John Cena’s career featured his entire storyline with Nexus. Wade Barrett and the rest of the faction of newcomers got over strong by attacking Cena and other top main event stars from the start of their run together.

However, Cena getting his wins back started to stall their momentum. WWE placed Cena in Nexus as a forced rule after he lost a match to Barrett with that stipulation. Cena just made Nexus look like jokes by outsmarting them at every turn to ruin their act with the terrible feud.

8 Surprisingly Awesome: Outwitting The Rock In Promo Battle

WWE made a lot of money from the dream feud between The Rock and John Cena. The tension in the rivalry felt quite real with both legends delivering vicious insults. Rock started off with the advantage of delivering one-liner jokes mocking Cena for things that already had a lot of the audience against him.

Cena had a shocking moment calling out Rock for writing promo lines on his wrist and even got the fans to chant “Tooth Fairy” at Rock. No one expected Cena to outwit Rock in a live promo battle since Rocky was easily the best at that throughout his WWE career.

7 Surprisingly Sucked: Pointless WrestleMania 39 Return Vs Austin Theory

Fans were ecstatic about John Cena returning earlier this year for WrestleMania 39 season. WWE deserves some blame for wasting his return by picking Austin Theory as his rival. Cena agreed to lose to Theory in the opening match of night one, but it did nothing to help either man.

The match was so bad that Theory actually received weaker reactions and has fallen lower down the relevance scale since then. Cena and Theory had the most standard match with nothing exciting involved. WWE may have been better off letting Cena cut a promo and saving his next match for a bigger opponent.

6 Surprisingly Awesome: Iron Man Match With Randy Orton

The rivalry between John Cena and Randy Orton was polarizing for years with many fans feeling they lacked the chemistry to face off so often. WWE announcing an Iron Man match received a lot of criticism for a stale feud having a guaranteed hour-long match.

Cena and Orton shocked everyone by having their most universally praised match with the pressure against them. Even the 6-5 falls score at the end featured a different form of storytelling for that match with more falls than usual. Cena was the MVP of this match leading Orton to an instant classic.

5 Surprisingly Sucked: Best Of Five Series With Booker T

WWE knew that John Cena was going to be the next face of the company about a year in advance during the Ruthless Aggression Era. However, they had to find creative ways to book Cena through 2004 before his planned ascension into the main event paid off at WrestleMania 21 the following year.

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Cena and Booker T had a long feud over the United States Championship that set up a best of five series with the title on the line. Unfortunately, it was among the worst best of five series in wrestling history since none of the matches were memorable. Cena lucked out by not losing any steam during this feud.

4 Surprisingly Awesome: All-Time Great United States Championship Reign

John Cena found his way back to the United States Championship about a decade after his mid-card time with the role. WWE realized it was time to remove Cena from the world title picture in 2015 when he won the United States Championship from Rusev, even though fans complained about that decision.

The rest of 2015 featured Cena having an incredible open challenge most weeks with unknown opponents. Names like Cesaro, Jon Moxley, Sami Zayn and others had strong performances in must-watch matches. Cena made the mid-card title feel more important than ever with a case for being the best United States Champion ever.

3 Surprisingly Sucked: WrestleMania 29 Rematch Vs The Rock

WWE billed the first WrestleMania 28 match between The Rock and John Cena at once in a lifetime. The match drew enough money for WWE to go back on their word and book the rematch just one year later at WrestleMania 28 with the WWE Championship on the line this time.

Unfortunately, that same magic of the intense promos and the overall match itself lacked compared to the first. Cena had one of his most criticized stints during this time since the rematch vs Rock just disappointed anyone that still wanted to see them face off again.

2 Surprisingly Awesome: Firefly Fun House Match

No one had any idea what to expect from the Firefly Fun House match between John Cena and Bray Wyatt at WrestleMania 36. The unique approach to storytelling saw the story playing out in manifestations of Cena’s fears rather than an actual match.

Wyatt’s Fiend portrayal last felt great during this match that was unlike anything else in WWE history. Cena has even praised this as potentially the most fulfilling match of his career. WWE took a huge risk with this cinematic match, and Cena committing to the idea made it come off perfectly.

1 Surprisingly Sucked: First Roman Reigns Dream Match

No Mercy 2017 was the stage where Roman Reigns and John Cena had their first-ever singles match. The personal promo exchanges ripping each other apart saw Cena getting more fan support in the rare polarizing babyface vs polarizing babyface dynamic.

Fans were hyped for the dream match after the promos sold the match as a must-watch attraction. Unfortunately, everything about the match lacked compared to the promos. Reigns didn’t even benefit much from the win since the overall match was viewed as a disappointment.