Steve Austin Helped Craft Iconic John Cena Match
John Cena has discussed the influence Stone Cold Steve Austin may have had on his infamous SummerSlam 2014 match against Brock Lesnar.
2014 was the biggest year of Brock Lesnar’s career as he conquered The Undertaker’s legendary WrestleMania Streak before recapturing the WWE Championship for the first time since returning to the company in 2012.
That title win came courtesy of a win over John Cena in the main event of SummerSlam 2014. That win was one of the more one-sided main events in WWE history with Lesnar brutalizing Cena with suplex after suplex on his way to victory. And it turns out Cena may have Steve Austin to thank for his rough night.
Speaking in an interview with Sam Roberts, John Cena recalled how the idea for that match came to him and explained why he was absolutely fine with being taken apart in a way not seen before in a WWE main event all because of the unthinkable achievement Brock Lesnar pulled off just months earlier:
“I remember Brock being like ‘Hey I had dinner with Steve Austin last night and we came up with this idea where I just start suplexing you and don’t stop and then beat you.’ I said ‘Yeah’, he said ‘What do you mean?’ I’m like well we both collectively agreed that you just beat The Streak, we ruin that if we have a fifty-fifty match.
“It’s not my night kid – Arn Anderson in the back of my head, I hope he understands the influence he had on my wisdom of this – it’s not my night.
“How do you showcase the enormity of that win, how do we not waste The Undertaker’s Streak? It’s not just Brock winning a match, it’s all those matches that he had to lead up to losing. If I go out and have a fifty-fifty match and he just sneaks over, we wasted all that. But if you take that unbelievable feat with another unbelievable feat now we have passed the energy and that is how you make someone, and that someone can make others. That’s how the business works.”
https://twitter.com/ChayMarte/status/1660678620099035136
If you use any quotes from this article please credit original source and then h/t with a link back to TJRWrestling for the transcription.