10 Times WWE Stipulations Meant Nothing

"You'rreeee firreeed!" Or not.

MITB CENA PUNK STIPS
WWE

A wrestling match is only as exciting as the stakes resting on its outcome. The tension and drama is always amplified several fold when you know that after the bell rings, someone will be standing tall with a big gold belt wrapped around their waist.

Ever the creative people, WWE have expanded their storytelling tropes over the years to include all sorts of mad stipulations being attached to matches. We had the actual custody of a child decided by a ladder match, lest we forget.

But at the very least Dominic did end up going home with the match's winner. There have been numerous times when WWE, despite heavily promoting a certain stipulation, just didn’t bother follow up on it afterwards. Often, the loser of a match only fulfils the obligations mandated by defeat for a short while before they no longer apply for some reason.

Even worse are the times when WWE just straight up ignore the pre-set rules. We have seen people fired at the end of matches simply wander back into programming, contracts regarding authority privileges being discarded for no reason and whatever on earth all that nonsense with Shane McMahon and the lockbox was.

What are the worst of these instances? Let's take a look.

10. CM Punk Vs. John Cena (Money In The Bank 2011)

MITB CENA PUNK STIPS
WWE.com

Ah yes, the match we will never stop talking about until the apocalypse claims us all. Money in the Bank 2011 was in many ways WWE at its quintessential best. The main event pitting a soon departing CM Punk against the champion and face of the company, Big Match Superman John Cena, was the most tantalizing of encounters.

Punk had just dropped his era defining Pipebomb promo and fans were still arguing over how much of it was actually a work. And when the match did come around, the stakes could not have been higher.

While the Punk side of this affair gets addressed later, it’s the Cena part that gets all the attention for now. Beforehand, good old Vinnie Mac had informed the champ, who had vehemently argued for Punk to be reinstated for this match, that if he lost and Punk left with the WWE Championship, then Cena himself would also be fired.

After their epic encounter had finished and Punk did in fact win, Vince strutted into Raw the next night to carry out the sentence. Except, it never happened. Interrupting Vince was none other than Triple H who told the boss that the board had grown distrustful of his policies and were relieving him of his duties. So all that build highlighting how Cena risked losing everything in this match was for nothing.

Contributor
Contributor

After battling Galactus and pinning Hulk Hogan in the main event of Wrestlemania, I've taken a break from living in fantasy worlds, to focus on writing about them. I'm a comic book geek, a wrestling mark, a break dancer, and a scientist. One of those things may not be true.