8 Times Wrestlers Levelled Up INSTANTLY!

2. CM Punk

It may have been done to death, but 'The Pipe Bomb' in Las Vegas is one of the most defining moments in WWE history. CM Punk's talent and abilities were honed into a nuclear weapon long before he sat cross-legged at the top of a Nevada wrestling ramp and cut a promo that most fans can recite by heart, but that doesn't make the moment itself any less impactful.

A whole bunch of people who had become disenfranchised with the wrestling landscape, largely because WWE had no competition to challenge it, were awoken by the sound of someone challenging the company itself from within its own walls. Millions of fans who couldn't relate to Hustle, Loyalty, and Respect were reengaged by an imperfect man who looked less like a chiseled cartoon character and more like them.

It was a huge moment for WWE, but it's a moment so massive that it made CM Punk a wrestling icon for an entire generation (even when he skipped wrestling for half of that timespan). Punk is one of the biggest names in wrestling history at this point and an actual pop culture icon, but without 'The Pipe Bomb', who knows what his life and the industry as a whole would have looked like.