12 Wrestling Rivalries That Were Too Real To Be Fake

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.