Greatest matches that never happened: John Cena vs CM Punk WrestleMania 27

[I am Mr. Excitement]

Now I know this might sound crazy but before Royal Rumble 2011 there was a boiling fued between CM Punk/Nexus and John Cena. Obviously during the year of 2010 Cena was battling against the Nexus led by Wade Barrett and we all know how that ended. CM Punk became the new leader of the Nexus. But the build-up was great towards Royal Rumble because Barrett had moved on to SmackDown with the Core and obviously Punk started a random fued with Orton at The Royal Rumble building a match between the two at Mania 27, which was good but at the wrong time. The build up to The Royal Rumble was great between Cena and Punk but it should have kept going thru the Chamber and WrestleMania 27. Punk should have won the Rumble and Miz should have dropped the title at Elimination Chamber with John Cena winning the belt to face Punk at Mania 27. Could you imagine if Punk had dropped the same pipe bomb he did on the WWE after winning the Royal Rumble? The build-up to WrestleMania 27 would have been even better since The Rock was already involved with John Cena in the first place.


Your thoughts, opinions, etc.

 

[RkoMachine]

though i believe your idea is great!.... It wouldnt work! The Rock will always be the main focus in that feud! Doesnt matter if its Miz or Punk! Sure Punk's shoot at that time woulda gained some attention but not nearly as much! I love the idea but it would have sadly never worked the same way that Cena-Miz didnt work!

 

[aza1294]

Great idea for a thread series. Great thought out feud and it would work however not much of a difference in the end as the focus of Cena-Miz was to build up to next year with Rocky. Punk would have been far more entertaining than Miz because his Punk but he could do nothing to take attention away from Cena-Rock. Shooting at that time would also not be very believable because they gave him a stable and a rumble win were your ideas to go through, i doubt much people would think it was real with all that given to him. All in all good idea, but not a major difference except for the quality of the match itself

 

[DeathClutch]

Their feud wouldnt have had the same effect as it did month later due keykabe lines being blurred, which added to the feud plus Orton/Punk was needed for Mania, Miz/Cena wasn't bad but Miz being the guy to beat Cena at Mania one on one for the first was a kicker but WM27 was the sacrafical lamb as they say for WM28.

 

[justinept]

I agree completely that Punk/Cena should have happened at WrestleMania 27 - though I don't think it should've been done for the title. In fact, I'll one-up you on crazy and say that the WWE Title match should've been Miz vs Morrison.

In terms of Punk/Cena, I wouldn't make that the WWE Title match because of the Rock's involvement. Obviously, the Rock NEEDED to be involved in any Cena match at 'Mania 27 in order to spark the challenge for Mania 28. However, his involvement completely overshadowed the WWE Championship feud - it made Miz completely irrelevant - and for that reason, if I re-booked Mania 27, I'd keep the Cena/Rock spat away from the title.

In terms of Punk's pipe bomb - that needed to happen over the summer. Not only did Punk's contract blur the lines of reality, but you need to remember that Punk REALLY got over at MITB ... NOT during the promo. During the promo, Punk was booed. The following week, he was off the show due to being "fired" ... and the week after that, he was still getting a 50/50 reaction. It wasn't until his music hit, in his hometown, that Punk became a babyface. I don't know that Punk gets that reaction anywhere else, but I do believe that reaction at MITB is what solidified him.

I should also mention that having Punk/Cena at 'Mania 27 wouldn't have prevented them from wrestling again at MITB a few months later. In fact, it would've enhanced it. There's a good chance that the Cena/Rock feud during the Mania buildup would've pushed Punk to the side, and he could've used that in his "worked shoot".

 

[Wolf Pac]

As good a idea it sounds, I wouldn't change what happened. I don't care how good a match it could've been with Punk instead, it was The Miz's time to shine, it was his push, he had worked for it for years and finally gotten over, so I wouldn't kill that over Punk who had already had his push and fucked it up when he blabbed to Taker about how he thought he was just as big as Cena and should be getting all the privileges Cena gets, that just ain't right. In fact I don't know why you're suggesting that the WWE should've pushed Miz to the side in favor of Punk cause the IWC is always asking for new guys to be pushed, which they did with Miz and now you're saying WWE should've given up on that push. And everybody can say Miz looked irrelevant in the feud but when you're retaining the belt in the main event of a WM, that's anything but looking irrelevant, that made The Miz & his push look stronger as a main eventer. Actually Miz outdid both Cena & Rock at the same time in one promo before WM, again, he looked anything but irrelevant. Maybe the focus was more on Cena-Rock but I don't think the WWE made Miz look bad at the same time as everybody is saying they did. Also Punk winning the Rumble then main eventing WM for the WWE Title goes against the point of the shoot, which was that he was frustrated with them not doing anything with him and he wanted out but if he was getting what he wanted then what's there to complain about?

 

[HBKistheHOF]

I would have rather had:

WWE Championship Match: Randy Orton(c) vs. CM Punk

They had an amazing match at Mania 27!

Just imagine what could have happened if:
-WWE invested some real time into their story/build (That already had alot of history!)
-They were given the main event slot!
-They were given more time in the match!
-The feud contnued past Extreme Rules (Which they had match of the night IMO.)
-WWE didn't just kill off Nexus with Punts to the Skull

 

[HBsam31]

It is a really good idea, but I think everything should have been how it was. With Punk's contract expiring we had the lines blurred between real and fake, and it made for a really great summer of wrestling. I don't think the match would have had the same impact if not for the threat of Punk leaving with the title. We really didn't know how it was going to turn out, and it ended up being one of my favorite matches in a while. Definitely one of my top Cena matches. Just seemed to play out well as it was.

 

[Dagger Dias]

This would have been a MUCH better Wrestlemania 27 match than what we got. I would change up the booking a bit in order for it to have worked, but it is a better alternative that I am surprised they did not ultimately go with back then. Punk and Cena's angle should have started a month later than it did, with Miz VS Cena happening first at the beginning of the year. Cena defeats Miz to become the WWE Champion. This spares us from seeing the awful pointless angle with Lawler of all people getting title shots on PPV. He can still get one on Raw that Cole ruins, to set up the announcer match angle.

So with Miz VS Cena no longer happening, Punk VS Cena can begin during the Road to Wrestlemania. Punk disbands the New Nexus so that Orton giving them all the Punt of Doom never happens. They enter a feud with The Corre, where Barrett's team defeats Otunga's Nexus team. Orton squashes Miz in a Wrestlemania match, and Punk defeats Cena to become the new WWE Champion. Cena could still win the belt back again to set up their MITB/Summerslam feud. It could have worked if they booked it properly and would fix a couple of major mistakes Wrestlemania 27 had match-wise. There's more that I would fix on that show but going into that takes us off topic. Cena VS Punk at Wrestlemania 27 SHOULD have happened. It would have been a better option than Cena VS Miz. I never wanted to see that match and even looking back on it now, I struggle to find anything positive to say about it other than Miz having a cool video package before the match itself started. I wish they had gone the Cena/Punk route instead, most would argue the match would have been better that what we actually got. We'll never know though.