12 Wrestling Rivalries That Were Too Real To Be Fake
It's all a show...right?
We all love the style of staged combat that pro wrestling provides, but feuds are what really captures our imaginations. When promoters give wrestlers a logical and compelling reason to want to fight each other, fans get interested and shell out money to watch the resulting matches (at least in theory).
Sometimes, though, the promoters are taking their cue from reality. Wrestling is a business, sport - whatever - where the lines between fact and fantasy are often blurred, and top stars in the business are often known for their egos.
Even though it's a not a competitive sport in the way football or baseball are, there's very real competition for a limited number of top spots and the fame and fortune that goes with them. That competition creates a stress on the stars who are looking to become legends, which sometimes leads to some serious interpersonal issues.
This list looks at the feuds that got heated in real life - programs where stars rubbed each other the wrong way, or were venting some legitimate pent-up frustrations. In most of these cases, the feuds were successful and lucrative, but there's no telling if that was enough to put the bad blood aside.
12. CM Punk Vs. John Cena
There's no reason to believe that CM Punk ever had anything personal against John Cena. After all, in his famous "pipe bomb" promo, he mentioned having respect for Cena, and when he went on Colt Cabana's The Art of Wrestling podcast, he didn't have a bad word to say about Big Match John.
Nevertheless, there was still a lot of reality in their on-again, off-again feud. Punk's look and style ensured that he always had an uphill battle in WWE, while Cena had the WWE babyface package down pat. Punk stayed true to himself and worked hard, finally forcing WWE to recognise his talent, but he was still always in Cena's shadow.
Every time Punk and Cena stepped into the ring, "The Straight Edge Superstar" was undoubtedly trying to prove something - not to Cena, but to Vince McMahon and Triple H for choosing Cena over him.
Punk was very vocal about not getting what he wanted from his WWE tenure - a WrestleMania main event. Undoubtedly in their last match against one another - where Cena beat Punk on a February 2013 episode of Raw in a classic to keep his slot in WrestleMania 29's final match - Punk was doing his best to prove to WWE's higher-ups that they'd made a mistake.