5 WWE Matches with the Most Controversial Finishes

#2 John Cena vs. Triple H

John Cena beating Triple H cleanly seemed all but unthinkable going into WrestleMania 22.

By WrestleMania 22, WWE was at a crossroad. John Cena had won the WWE Championship a year earlier, then moved from SmackDown to Raw in a move that seemed to solidify him, over other front runner Batista, as the new face of WWE.

Fans were starting to reject Cena in a vocal way around this time, though, in a way they hadn’t really done historically. There was a contingent on the Internet in particular deeming Cena a failed experiment. His WrestleMania 22 title defense against Triple H looked like an opportunity to reverse course, or conceivably really shuffle the deck with the second ever Money in the Bank briefcase in play as the night closed.

The unlikely happened when Cena not only defeated Triple H, but did so cleanly and via submission. Just as a large group of fans seemed ready to dismiss Cena and move on, he scored one of the biggest victories of his career and shored up his spot as a franchise player, for a run on top that would last most of the decade to follow. In hindsight, it’s hard to imagine this match ending any other way, though it remains up for historical debate whether WWE made the right call.