[2007-07-22-WWE-Great American Bash] John Cena vs Bobby Lashley

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Kadaveri]

This is Bobby Lashley's best WWE match by a million miles. Logic tells me this is just another 2007 Cena carry job but I don't want to take away any credit from Lashley. His offense actually looks a lot more impact than usual and he manages to show a bit of character and determination. It's only a very short segment of the match early on but his matwork offense was pretty neat and actually got a crowd reaction, weird how he rarely ever used it in WWE considering his amateur credentials. Commentary goes a bit overboard saying Cena has never faced anyone with Lashley's amateur background... did Kurt Angle just no longer exist in WWE canon once he moved to TNA?

 

The match starts with a strong lockup and both guys trying to overpower each other, which Lashley gets the better of. Suits the build of them being 'two young bulls' wanting to be the top star of the company. Lashley is put over as the more powerful of the two but he never really gets Cena in any real danger because Cena always comes up with some counter or unexpected offense to break up Lashley's control segments, like how he spins and hits him with a blockbuster and the commentary puts over Cena's 'experience' giving him that edge. Lashley kicks out of the AA after a delayed pin attempt but Cena puts him away with the Super AA, think that's the earliest I've ever seen Cena pull that out?

 

The Khali match at One Night Stand is usually given as Cena's best performance against a poor worker but I think this match is even more impressive. At least with Khali Cena had so much tape to watch of WWF babyfaces working against giants, and he follows that formula of mostly just bouncing of Khali fighting from underneath. Here I don't know what precedent Cena has to go off. He's wrestling a green as grass guy who's literally never had a good match in his life and it's a babyface vs. babyface PPV main event with no gimmicks or shenanigans at all. Just a straight wrestling match yet somehow it's still very good.

 

***3/4

[Clayton Jones]

Cena brings such gravitas to this match. I watched this on a whim never remembering hearing much about it and it totally floored me. Lashley did, to his credit, have the performance of his life with the pressure on. But yeah this is one hell of a notch in Cena's career of making big entertaining matches out of often underwhelming circumstances. His selling and struggle throughout this makes Lashley feel so much bigger than he ever did in this run otherwise. Overall this match isn't great but it is very good and the face VS face, miracle performance aspect makes it all that much more endearing.