John Cena's 5 greatest rivals of all time

#3 Batista

Friends turned enemies.

In my opinion, an extremely underrated rivalry, Batista and John Cena had a great rivalry in their time together in the WWE. With identical paths to the top of the card, Batista and Cena were sons inter-connected from their day in OVW, that it is mind-blowing to think that they didn't come to blows until 2008.

Cena and Batista first interacted as the final two of the 2005 Royal Rumble, which Batista won. Despite this, both men became world champions at WrestleMania 21. Cena captured the WWE Championship and Batista did the World Heavyweight Championship. As both men anchored different brands, it took till 2008 for the two to meet for the first time. They made an odd-couple Tag Team Championship pairing on their way to SummerSlam 2008, where Batista won (and injured) John Cena.

The Cena injury becomes a big part of their eventual 2010 rivalry. Batista stole the WWE Championship from John Cena after having a match with him after he won the belt at Elimination Chamber 2010. After this, the two were on a collision course towards WrestleMania 26, where Cena recaptured the belt. He then defended it in a Last Man Standing and an I-Quit Match, comprehensively vanquishing Batista.

Their best match cannot be pinpointed, as all the matches have a similar level of quality, but if pressed, it would either be their WrestleMania encounter or their SummerSlam match. This may be the case because both matches were simple one-on-one matches without any screwy finishes. SummerSlam was a clash of titans won by Batista and WrestleMania was a revenge match, won by Cena.