This Day in Wrestling History marks a moment where the one and only Brock Lesnar’s Suplex City started, and it was a painful experience for John Cena.
If there’s one wrestler that gets booed just by having his name mentioned, it’s Brock Lesnar. He’s a monster and has dominated like few others when given the chance.
Many fans complain that he only does a couple of moves, but many of us remember when his matches weren’t laid out by Paul Heyman and he actually used a wide range of holds and moves.
The change came at on August 17, 2014 at SummerSlam at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California in front of nearly 18k in attendance and roughly 150k watching from home.
This event is known as the first where every championship changed hands, but it’s also the birth place of Suplex City.
Destroying John Cena
Cena entered the match as the Undisputed Champion, but Lesnar wasted no time in tearing into Cena to reclaim the championship.
Special thanks to @awrestlinghistorian ( https://www.instagram.com/awrestlinghistorian/ ) for the excerpt.
“We knew we were on to something brand new and perhaps even career defining. The entire Suplex City phenomenon has changed the public’s desire in what they see Brock Lesnar do. His signature is to waist lock someone and fling them all over the ring so it’s changed the public’s perception or the public’s desire in what they want from a Brock Lesnar match.” – Paul Heyman, USA Today interview September 6, 2017.
This has since been Lesnar’s MO as he’s laid waist to a vast majority of his opponents and held the championships for extended periods of time.
Addition cool facts
While the term Suplex City wasn’t officially coined until WrestleMania 31, this was the building blocks put in place for that moment.
It’s an impressive site to see Lesnar launch any and everyone across the ring, but it’s led to a fair share of criticism as he’s capable of doing so much more.
Another fact that we’re not too happy about is this was the last appearance of the Big Gold Belt World Heavyweight Championship.
Since then, the WWE has switched to multiple titles for each brand for marketing purposes, and we feel it’s taken away from the prestige of chasing and winning the championship.
But despite all of that, This Day in Wrestling History was one of those moments that left its mark on people as Cena’s gutsy performance wasn’t enough and we got to see the beginning of a phenomena.
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