#78: John Cena vs. Neville, WWE Raw (5/11/2015).
This is for Cena’s United States Championship.
Cena talks about the importance of the US Title. He talks about how people work their whole career and never even get a WWE Title shot, but as long as Cena holds the US Title, he will give an opportunity to anyone brave enough to come out and take a chance. He says that Rusev wants to get an upper hand before their I Quit Match in six days at Payback, and Cena has been advised to cancel the Open Challenge. He leaves it to a vote, and the fans overwhelmingly vote for the challenge to go on.
Here comes Neville, the former NXT Champion who made his main roster debut just weeks prior. As far as styles go, these two couldn’t be any different.
The bell sounds, and Cena forces Neville into the turnbuckle with their lock up. Cena with the obvious size advantage. Cena takes control of the arm, and Neville is quick to take Cena’s arm. He suplexes Cena and goes into an armbar. We get a clean break, and a stalemate. Cena sends Neville into the ropes, and hits a back elbow for a 2 count. He gets a headlock applied next. Neville escapes and hits a nice dropkick to Cena that sends the champion to the outside.
Back from commercial, and Neville irish whips Cena to the turnbuckle. He misses a boot, and Cena fires back with two shoulder tackles and a side slam, but Neville counters the side slam into a bridging German Suplex for 2. Cena wisely rolls to the outside. Neville with a baseball slide dropkick to Cena, then a springboard corkscrew moonsault off the top rope to the champion. Back in the ring, Neville gets a nearfall off of that.
Neville with a shoulder to the gut from the apron. He comes back in and misses a right hand, and Cena catches him with the side slam. Cena hits the Five Knuckle Shuffle. He goes for the AA, but Neville escapes and boots Cena in the face. Neville goes to the middle rope, and hits a Phoenix Splash that gets a close 2 count. Cena with punches to the head, and Neville blocks one. A back kick to the gut, followed by a fist. Cena catches him in an Emerald Flowsion variant for a 2 count!
Cena tries for the AA again, but Neville counters into a back slide for a nearfall. Back elbow to Cena from Neville, and a second rope crossbody. Cena catches him and tries the AA, but Neville lands on his feet and kicks him in the face. He gets a nearfall off of that. Neville drags Cena towards the corner for the Red Arrow, but Cena counters into the STF submission. Neville reverses into a pinfall attempt that gets 2. Cena is right back up and hits a huge clothesline that flips Neville inside out.
Neville avoids a Cena attack in the corner, but Cena rebounds off the ropes and hits Neville with the AA! He makes the cover, but Neville kicks out. Cena lifts Neville up on the second rope for an avalanche AA, but Neville counters into a sunset flip powerbomb that gets a close nearfall. He rolls Cena to the corner, and he scales the top rope. He hits the Red Arrow beautifully, but here’s Rusev to attack Neville. The match ends in disqualification, as Rusev kicks Cena right in the face, and beats down the champ before their match at Payback.
I was sad that Rusev interfered in this, because man, these two were having a cracker of a match before it ended on a DQ. Despite the difference in styles and size, Neville looked awesome going against a legend like Cena, and they meshed better than I think anyone would've predicted. Just like everyone in the Open Challenge, Cena made sure to give Neville everything and make him look good, and that he did indeed.
In a different universe, I'd take out the Rusev interference, and take the Neville false finish from the Seth Rollins match a few months later and put it here instead. Could you imagine how well that would have looked in this context?