Failure to main event Wrestlemania...

[Kodo Sawaki]

Originally Posted by OYDK

Mania 28 had the highest Mania PPV buyrate of all time, so that probably had a huge impact on why WWE decided to do Rock/Cena again. Obviously, by the way they were touting their first match at Mania 28 as "Once in a Lifetime", there were no plans to do the match again. Once the numbers came out, they likely thought that adding the title would result in similar numbers for 29. And they weren't that far off to be honest. I think Mania 29 was something like the 5th or 6th highest of all time.

Actually, Wrestlemania 29 was highest grossing of all time

http://www.wwe.com/shows/wrestlemani...grossing-event

And Network came next year before Wrestlemania 30 so it is likely to remain this way forever. So from business standpoint of view they were right. Which doesnt mean it wasnt lackluster to see "Twice in a lifetime", just that WWE did great as business is concerned.

Now as I said, Punk could be included and it would add up perfectly to Cena story. Think even Punk himself said(on that Cabana podcast) to Vince and HHH that he wanted to be there even for just few minutes and even to take a pin from Cena. But they said no.

[Deoxyribonucleic A.C.I.D.]

WM 27, 28 and 29 where always the original plan. CM Punk just happened to be a fire that broke the boredom during that "3-year-plan". CM Punk's main event should have come at WM 30. WWE still had 2 world titles going into the event and had they been smart, Punk could have fought for the WH Championship and Bryan for the WWE Championship. Bryan gets his title win and Punk gets his main event and possibly sticks around for one more Wrestlemania where he puts someone over.

But noooo, they decided to go with Orton vs Batista, just because Batista happened to be in a big movie and WWE has no faith in themselves to sell Wrestlemania.

[El Rev sXe]

Originally Posted by Y 2 Jake

He never had a match that was worthy of closing the show at the time.
But fear not, he will come back years down the line and become one of those part-timers that he was so outspoken about. Then when Mania comes around he'll be put in a marquee match and WWE will.....put him on in the middle of the card. Because WWE will be able to spot somebody they can play with and Punk is one of them.

Are you kidding me? I understand that Punk didn't have many options that sounded like legitimate maint events for Wrestlemania. However there is one BIG match WWE failed to book it as the main event, CM Punk vs John Cena. There are probably 1 or 2 matches from them that are not very good, but the most majority of their matches are freaking awesome. They had the history, the rivalry, the chemistry worth of main eventing Wrestlemania.

I doubt he is coming back, he looks like a very stuborn person... But oh well

CM Punk deserved to main event one Wrestlemania, he was as good as Cena at some point, selling as much merchandise as him, if not even more, gaining mainstream attention to the WWE.

[d_henderson1810]

Originally Posted by ShinChan

As we know, CM Punk left WWE in the initial 2014 and his last appearance in WWE was at Royal Rumble 2014. Since then, he has gone away from professional wrestling and is currently signed with UFC.

CM Punk's major complaint with WWE was that he was never given the main event of Wrestlemania in his whole career. So this thread is about if his complaint was valid or not.

I think that he should've been in the main event of Wrestlemania at least once. CM Punk and Daniel Bryan are the only "stars" of this decade aka 2k1ish decade. Bryan got his Wrestlemania moment after Yes! Movement at Wrestlemania 30 just after CM Punk left WWE. But CM Punk didn't.

At Wrestlemania 29, CM Punk was defeated by The Undertaker. At Wrestlemania 28, he retained WWE Championship against Chris Jericho but still was in the co-main event as John Cena Vs. The Rock I was the headliner. At Wrestlemania 27, he was defeated by Randy Orton. At Wrestlemania 26, he was defeated by Rey Mysterio. At Wrestlemania 25, he won the Money In The Bank briefcase. At Wrestlemania 24, he did the same as well.

I totally agree that CM Punk should've been in the main event of Wrestlemania. Maybe 28/29. What about you?

If he should have main-evented Wrestlemania, I would have had him do it at Wrestlemania 29.

Now, normally I am not a fan of Triple-Threat Matches for the WWE Title (not that I haven't liked any of them, e.g. WMXX one was awesome but there have been too many, some with a party in it that was "making up numbers".)

However, I would have had the main event at Wrestlemania 29 be The Rock v John Cena v C.M. Punk in a Triple-Threat Match.

This would have made sense, since Punk had an issue with both men, and so he should have been part of it.

Besides, at "Wrestlemania 28", we had been promised that Rock v Cena was "once in a lifetime". I know when Rock won the belt that Cena would win the Rumble, as an excuse to not go back on their word, as the "champion always fights the Royal Rumble" winner.

Here's how I would lay it out. Cena wins the Rumble, Punk wins the match against the Rock at "Royal Rumble", but loses the belt to Rock at "Elimination Chamber". That way, Punk gets in the match because he is using his rematch clause, Rock is champion, and Cena won the Rumble, so everyone has a legit excuse to be in. Also, these three men had issues with the other two, so there is no love lost between all three of them.

So, if Punk did this at WM29, then who would fight the Undertaker? I had a look through the card, and a good match would have been to drop Jericho fighting Fandango (since nothing became of Fandango's push anyway), and have him fight the Undertaker, since Jericho and Taker have rarely ever fought, and never on PPV.

[Dagger Dias]

They missed out on a couple of opportunities for Punk to main event Wrestlemania. The best times would have been at either Wrestlemania 29 or 30.

It wasn't going to happen at Wrestlemania 28. Cena VS The Rock was a dream match and it was a rare instance of something deserving close the show instead of one of the World Championship matches. This happened a lot during Punk's lengthy WWE Championship reign. At Wrestlemania 28 that made sense. During other shows where Kane in an Ambulance match or John Laurinaitis (of all people) got the main event over Punk, that was when it got to be a bit ridiculous. Anyway, back on topic. As great as the Punk VS Jericho feud was, Cena and The Rock should absolutely have still gone on last. It's the result of that match that I would change. Cena wins so that it truly does go on to be "once in a lifetime".

Then we have Wrestlemania 29. There are two different routes they could have gone here. Cena, Rock, and Punk could have done a triple threat for the WWE Championship which could have been good, however they would run the risk of Punk getting overshadowed by Cena and The Rock during this feud. Another option is to have Cena/Rock go as it did (in this scenario the Wrestlemania 28 match remains unchanged thus justifying a second Cena/Rock encounter) but then Punk gets to main event against Taker. Why is this? Punk ends the Streak. We would get a great match on top of a shocking moment to end the show. Plus it spares us the nonsense of having Lesnar end the Streak.

Last but not least, Wrestlemania 30. There's a couple of options here as well. A cool one to think about would be if they had Punk go after the big gold World Heavyweight Championship (perhaps facing Trips like the rumored feud we were hearing about at the time) while Bryan would still face Orton and Batista for the WWE Championship. It would have been a good path for them to potentially take had it been possible. This requires the TLC title unification match between Cena and Orton to not take place though. Or the better option which would have been Punk VS Bryan for the World Heavyweight Championship at Wrestlemania 30. That would have been awesome.

WWE did miss out on a few opportunities. There would have been others had Punk stuck around. Certainly not at Wrestlemania 31 since we were going to be stuck with Lesnar VS Reigns no matter what (thank goodness for Seth's cash-in!) but maybe he could have main evented against Reigns at Wrestlemania 32 or something. With this year's being what appears to be Taker's last it wasn't going to happen this year. It's interesting to speculate about. Maybe Punk will come back someday and still get the chance he wished he got. Yes it's doubtful although never say never. If Bret Hart came back then anybody could come back at some point.

[S.J. Maximus]

I see a lot of posters trying to make arguments for WrestleManias 28 and 29. From a career trajectory standpoint, 28 would've made the most sense because he was so popular so over and riding the wave of momentum from the "Summer of Punk". This year was Daniel Bryan's WM30, if you will. The only problem was the WWE's biggest 21st century star and the biggest Hollywood actor in the world was returning for an icon vs. icon match. From a roster standpoint, 28 made no sense at all. Nothing CM Punk could've done in 2011-2012 would've made him a bigger draw than Rock's first singles match in 9 years.

29 is a sound argument - the idea being that his momentum was arguably even bigger than the previous year and he was coming off the longest title reign of the Modern Era. I truly believe he could've beat the Rock at RR and go on to headline WM and interest wouldn't have waned at all. His promos were golden although his match quality suffered a little due to the chicken shit heel transformation that he underwent in late 2012. I think the biggest obstacle here would've been finding an opponent. He already faced all the full time guys throughout the whole year and part time guys weren't ideal title holders. Maybe Brock vs. CM Punk (c) could've been the main event here. Another classic option wouldve been a Punk vs Rock vs Cena triple threat match for the belt.

My personal choice is WrestleMania 27. Go back and watch Punk's "Best in the World" DVD and he will tell you this was the major turning point in his backstage demeanor. He was the top heel in the company at this time, and Randy Orton was the most popular face. Their match stole the show but they shouldn't have had to steal the show, they should've been given the top slot. Instead, Cena got another needless main event tally and Miz's misguided push reached its culmination as Cena/Rock was also setup a year in advanced. I think Orton should've kept the belt and dropped it to CM Punk at the main event of WrestleMania 27 but in hindsight I'm glad he didn't. Seeing Miz get his top slot got Punk disgruntled and it was this attitude the started the 'Summer of Punk' and gave us the most memorable WWE Title reign of the 21st century.

[shooter_mcgavin]

Originally Posted by S.J. Maximus

My personal choice is WrestleMania 27. Go back and watch Punk's "Best in the World" DVD and he will tell you this was the major turning point in his backstage demeanor. He was the top heel in the company at this time, and Randy Orton was the most popular face. Their match stole the show but they shouldn't have had to steal the show, they should've been given the top slot. Instead, Cena got another needless main event tally and Miz's misguided push reached its culmination as Cena/Rock was also setup a year in advanced. I think Orton should've kept the belt and dropped it to CM Punk at the main event of WrestleMania 27 but in hindsight I'm glad he didn't. Seeing Miz get his top slot got Punk disgruntled and it was this attitude the started the 'Summer of Punk' and gave us the most memorable WWE Title reign of the 21st century.

I think Punk was injured during the latter half of 2010 so he didn't have much momentum coming in.

WM27 should have been Wade Barrett vs. John Cena with Barrett as The Champion going in. Of course this would have only been possible if WWE booked Nexus properly.

[Nate DaMac]

Originally Posted by Kodo Sawaki

Actually, Wrestlemania 29 was highest grossing of all time

http://www.wwe.com/shows/wrestlemani...grossing-event

And Network came next year before Wrestlemania 30 so it is likely to remain this way forever. So from business standpoint of view they were right. Which doesnt mean it wasnt lackluster to see "Twice in a lifetime", just that WWE did great as business is concerned.

He said 28 had the biggest buyrate ever, which it did. 29 had the biggest gate which when coupled with the PPV buys makes it the highest grossing Mania ever, but did not sell as many PPVs.

The match at 29 should have been either a Triple Threat or a one on one with The Rock. The match we got was a dud and anyone with half a brain knew it was going to be.

[radec]

WM 29 and WM 30 were 2 WM's that Punk could have main evented. Having Cena and Rock be the main event of Mania 28 made sense, but then Mania 29 was just plain dumb, and i'm not a fan of two guys main eventing back to back Mania's. Plus, how does Rock pass the torch to Cena? Cena is already the torch, Cena should be passing the torch to CM Punk. Which goes into: Why CM Punk and John Cena should have main evented WrestleMania 29. Both men had the feud of the year in 2011, a story that revolved around the guy that fans like vs the guy the company likes. It was the first time that in storyline that they acknowledge, John Cena wasn't facing the man, he WAS the man. True, the WWE still acts like Cena is fighting the man to this day, but a guy like Punk brought up how Cena represents what Corporate wants. Instead of going with the flow, they ruined what could have been something special, with CM Punk as the top guy in the WWE. All they had to do was have Punk NOT come back in 8 days after MITB, have him come back after the "the never before, never again" tag match in Survivor Series. Have him confront Cena, set up the unification match at TLC. Punk beats him, and has a much more gain and depth to his title reign. Cena goes into a slump afterwards. He loses to The Rock at Mania AND he loses to Brock Lesnar in Extreme Rules. He disappears for a while, before eventually returning at MITB and winning the briefcase. Cena turns heel on Punk at Raw 1000. He injures Punk and has a dominating reign for a few months. Punk returns in the Royal Rumble, wins it and beats Cena in the main event of WrestleMania 29.

[Charismatic Enigma]

I don't think there's even a reason to discuss it, of course he deserved it. He was against the odds from the minute he walked in the door, and he overcame to the point that he had the longest title run of the modern era. Back in the day, being world champ meant you closed the show, period.

Not only in WrestleMania, but during his entire run as champion there were only 5 PPVS OUT OF 17 that he main evented. That's fucking criminal!

Both his biggest asset and ultimately his undoing, was that he's a mark. He loved the business so much, much like Bret Hart before him, that he took every aspect of it very personally. The belt wasn't just a prop to him, and headlining shows meant something to him. This is the same guy that special requested Fink intro him for a PPV, because he grew up hearing that voice. His love of the business and his passion for it, gave him the fuel to fight his way to the top, despite being undersized and unconventional, but eventually when he hit the glass ceiling he couldn't shatter, the frustration beat him.

But to me that just further validates, that yes, of course he should've main evented WM, and over other show during his title runs.