WWE Champion Randy Orton vs. John Cena
for the WWE championship

John Cena has beaten brutes, behemoths and big mouths in the past several months during which he has chased championship gold. But it was beating the clock that earned Cena a one-on-one opportunity against WWE Champion Randy Orton.

His coils tightly constricting the WWE Title, The Viper has spent the same number of months enduring a gold-hungry Animal in Batista, an extremely personal vendetta with The Game (which still appears yet to be fully resolved), and even the 12 Rounds star himself, who fell to The Legend Killer just recently in a chaotic Triple Threat Match at Night of Champions.

None have been able to dethrone Orton – for long, at least – while armed with a pair of well deployed mercenaries in Cody Rhodes and Ted DiBiase, his Legacy.

But if it’s one thing Cena has done time and again, it is excel in the most critical settings. A signature clutch performance against The Miz in a “Beat the Clock” Match on Monday Night Raw earned Cena his dance with Orton at SummerSlam. The brief instance by which the No. 1 contender secured his title bout could lead to the ushering in of a new WWE Championship reign at The Biggest Event of the Summer.

Will The Viper shirk this challenge as easily as a serpent molts its skin? Or will Cena strip the gold from the scales of The Legend Killer en route to capturing his fourth WWE Championship? Tune in to SummerSlam, live from Los Angeles’ STAPLES Center to find out.