Brock Lesnar vs John Cena (WWE, 4-27-2003)

WWE Backlash, Worcester, MA

Lesnar, your reigning WWE champion, and Cena, the challenger, had had a couple of TV matches already, one in September 2002, another in February 2003, but this is their first big time big event match together in what would become a pretty notable rivalry many years later.

Lesnar fucked up Cena’s knee, so Cena did a rap about fucking Lesnar’s butt in a jail shower. There was a tournament to be No. 1 contender and Cena beat Eddie Guerrero, The Undertaker (with interference help, natch), and Chris Benoit.

Cena has “Basic Thugonomics” now and he’s out in a Roger Clemens Yankees jersey in Massachusetts so you KNOW he’s a bad guy, even though he is also from Massachusetts.

“Yo, the list of legends that held the title, now include me, bro
“I’ll be a better champion than Bruno Sammartino
“This is thugonomics, I got opponents holdin’ crutches
“I’m iron like the Sheik, I got you in my camel clutches
“I lost my mind like Mankind, pullin’ socks from his ass crack
“I’m straight, you’re Dude Love, so get off the cactus, Jack
“I’ll take your varsity letters and medals, I’ll leave you mangled and hurt
“I’m attackin’ from all angles, you’ll be callin’ me Kurt
“And I’m wearin’ this Jankees (not a typo) jersey, ’cause Massachusetts makes me sick
“You don’t like what I’m sayin’? Well you can suck my” DICK!!!!!!

Cena jumps Lesnar from behind to start, but Lesnar turns it around and whips Cena hard to the corner. Cena bounces out and into the clutches of Lesnar, who hits him with two backbreakers and launches him with a fallaway slam. Lesnar calling attention to his bandaged forehead, which Cena opened up the previous week on Smackdown.

Vertical suplex from Lesnar, he’s raging and dominating early. Another vertical suplex. Two count on a cover, and Lesnar holds a front facelock after. Cena tries to roll out, but Lesnar hangs on to the grip. Another suplex, this time fisherman style. Lesnar yelling at Cena to get up, but then stomps him down in the corner.

Cena gets an elbow up on a corner charge, but Lesnar press slams him on the next move, then clotheslines Cena over the top to the floor. Brock follows him out to the floor. Lesnar chucks Cena into the commentary desk, then grabs his title belt and shouts at Cena, then throws the belt away.

Cena sent back into the ring, Lesnar follows quickly. Cena off the ropes, holds on and bails out to get some breathing room. But Brock follows. Cena going for a chair, Lesnar cuts that off. Kneelift from Lesnar, forearm over the back. Lesnar’ breaks the count. He keeps yelling at Cena, but finally Cena gets some offense, reversing a whip and sending Brock crashing into the steps. Cena smacks Brock’s head off the steps a couple times, looking to bust Brock back open, which shouldn’t take a ton.

Cena breaks the count. Lesnar’s bleeding. Right hand from Cena, then back into the ring. Cena covers for two. Back suplex from Cena, another cover gets two. Cena with a choke, stomp to the head, another one, a third. Elbowdrop gets two. Back elbow from Cena with Lesnar coming off the ropes. Another two count.

Cena off the ropes, he shoulder tackles Lesnar to the apron, but Brock tries to roll back in quickly. Knees to the head from Cena, he hangs Lesnar over the middle rope and delivers a guillotine legdrop. Lesnar to the floor again, and Cena follows, sending him head-first into the ring post. Back in, cover gets two.

Rear chinlock from Cena, as he’s got some of Lesnar’s blood on his face. Lesnar, of course, has a lot of Lesnar’s blood on Lesnar’s face. Cena lets the chinlock go, kicks a couple times, and hits a DDT for two.

Cena stomping away some more. Cena runs, but runs right into a SPINE ON THE PINE. Both men down and the count is on. Both up about the same moment, Lesnar hits some kneelifts and Cena counters with a jawbreaker and a big clothesline. Cover gets two again.

Cena grapevines the body with a chinlock now, trying to wear Lesnar flat out at this point. They stay in this for a good while. Crowd rightfully grows a bit restless as it goes on. This was a pretty hot match until this and I’m not against a “rest hold” or whatever you prefer to call it, but when it doesn’t match the style of the rest of a match it just feels forced in.

Anyway, Lesnar finally stands it up and rams Cena into the corner repeatedly, piggybacking him back-and-forth to different corners three times. So he’s free, but still down. Cena with a goofy running shoulder/elbow, but Lesnar catches him with a sweep clothesline, clothesline, clothesline. Cena caught with a powerslam for two. That whole sequence was off.

And now they lose grip on a whip to the corner, but Lesnar covers by driving Cena into the corner. Then they get clumsy again, Lesnar into another powerslam, this one over the shoulder style. Two count. Lesnar with shoulders in the corner. They do another Sequence that results in a fakeout ref bump that isn’t, and then a Cena low blow for two.

Cena with a rolling neck snap, cover gets two. Lesnar picks him up and drives him hard into the turnbuckle, Cena’s neck whiplashing, but John gets the steel chain and wraps it around his fist. The referee clearly sees this, and steps in to stop the swing. Cena doesn’t complain, goes at Brock, but whoops, F5! Lesnar with a delayed cover, but it’s enough for the three count to retain his title.

“For John Cena, there will be many more nights like this one.” No shit, Mike.

Rating: 2.5/5. A lot of this match is pretty fun, but it breaks down a bit at the end when they start doing Sequences and Bits and Cena’s still too green and uncoordinated to get through them without looking like ass, and that’s really a problem he had throughout his career. He doesn’t have that athletic flow to his movement, there’s no grace to John Cena. I’m not saying he’s not a hell of an athlete, because obviously he is, but the man just isn’t smooth in the ring and he never got there. But that’s fine, a lot of greats weren’t what you’d call smooth. For a first big match with Cena still in his formative stages, this showed a lot of what they COULD do together. The promise was there, even if this end result was pretty mediocre.