#77: John Cena vs. Sami Zayn, WWE Raw (5/4/2015).
This is for Cena’s United States Championship.
Sami hasn’t even been revealed yet, and the crowd is already chanting “Ole!” Cena talks about his upcoming I Quit Match at Payback against Rusev, but the crowd is preoccupied with chanting for...someone else. Cena praises the crowd for their passion. He continues to hype his Payback match, and here comes...Bret Hart. Could you even imagine? He’s not dressed to wrestle, but here in Montreal, they give him a pop like it’s 1996.
Bret is here to introduce a great wrestler, but before we get to that, here comes Heath Slater, from my home state of West Virginia! The crowd is not happy. He talks about all the times he’s tried to answer this challenge, and all of the times he’s been attacked and prevented from doing so. Bret decks him in the jaw, and sends him to the outside. Bret continues his speech, as he’s here to introduce a hometown boy from Montreal – one of NXT’s hottest stars, Sami Zayn!
The crowd explodes, as Zayn comes out. Zayn is so hyped, that when he throws his arms up, he legitimately tears his rotator cuff! That’s honestly the most insane thing about this match. He shakes Bret’s hand, and we go to commercial!
The match is under way already, and Zayn dropkicks Cena to the outside. He fakes out a senton, and bounces off the ropes. Cena returns to the ring, and hits a back suplex to Zayn, and goes into a chin lock. Another back suplex, and that gets a nearfall. The ref checks on Zayn, who is clearly feeling the pain. Zayn is good to go, or at least as good as he can be. Cena kicks Zayn into the corner, and punches him to the mat.
Zayn explodes at him with a clothesline. More rights and lefts from Zayn, and he sends Cena into the ropes. Two shoulder tackles from the champ, followed by a side slam. He gears up for the Five Knuckle Shuffle, but Zayn rolls him up for a close 2. Zayn hits an elbow to Cena, and he comes off the top rope with a crossbody for another nearfall. With Cena catching his breath on the outside, Zayn comes flying outside with a senton!
He throws Cena back into the ring, and Cena goes right into the STF submission. Zayn is able to somehow crawl and get to the bottom rope. Zayn recovers quickly and catches Cena in the Koji Clutch submission! Cena breaks the hold and grabs Zayn for an AA, and Zayn counters into a bridging German Suplex pin for 2. Zayn comes off the ropes, and Cena explodes with a huge clothesline. Cena tries for the AA again, and Zayn escapes it. Both men take the other down with a clothesline at the same time.
On the outside, Zayn flies through the bottom turnbuckle to connect with a DDT to Cena on the floor! Zayn rolls Cena back into the ring, but Cena is right back up and hits the AA. He makes the cover, but Zayn kicks out! Even I bit on that, and this happened 9 years ago! Zayn bounces off the middle rope and hits the Blue Thunder Bomb to Cena, and that gets a close nearfall! Zayn with a punch to the head, and Cena with a kick to the gut.
Cena hits the middle rope springboard Stunner to Zayn, and goes right into the AA, and he wins and retains the title. Post match, Cena shows huge respect to Zayn, and they shake hands.
In hindsight, I think I like this match a lot less than I did when it first happened. Don't get me wrong, the work here is awesome. Sami Zayn in particular does a lot to make you remember him after this, which is crazy when you remember that he tore his fucking rotator cuff during his entrance! True guts from the future Hononary Uce. I do think the charm of this match is the fact that Zayn wrestled injured. The match itself is just okay, in my opinion. Compared to other matches in the US Open Challenge, this one is a little on the lower tier. That's not a bad thing, though.
He and Cena had great chemistry, and Cena made sure to make Zayn look like a million bucks in front of his hometown crowd. Though Zayn's main roster run wouldn't begin until March of 2016 - and he'd sit out most of the remainder of the year due to this injury - he made sure to stand out enough that when he did return to the main roster, fans were hyped.