10 Big Money Matches WWE Needs To Make

Another example of WWE sleeping on a possible behemoth of a match until the possibility simply went away on its own, the Punk/Austin dynamic was talked about casually amongst fans and pundits for a couple of years due to the personalities involved. However, the idea was never given any traction in WWE until Punk made his own name in Summer 2011, elevating himself into the conversation.

Austin famously had a long, drawn out and sketchy medical retirement from in-ring competition, fading away rather than definitively bowing out. The inconclusive nature of that retirement has caused many to question over the intervening years whether he might be able to come back for one more big match: a proper send-off.

A canny operator who knows how to protect his value in the marketplace, Austin has carefully fed those rumours by regularly hinting that he’d be open to the right offer. However, as time goes on the realistic viewpoint has to prevail: he’s coming up to fifty-two years old, and he retired for a reason.

Then there’s Punk, who notoriously retired himself in January 2014, citing poor health, burnout and disillusionment with WWE and the business as a whole. Since then, he’s gone to some length to distance himself from professional wrestling.

There’s still time, however - not much of it, but enough. Both men are smart enough workers to cover for Austin’s physical limitations. The story and the characters are the unique selling point of the angle - they’ll easily paper over any cracks. If Punk and Austin could come to terms with WWE, this match could still happen - and there’s no world in which CM Punk versus ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin doesn’t headline WrestleMania. Indeed, one would imagine that would be one of those terms.

There’s that ‘if’, though. Vince McMahon isn’t about to let Punk come back without putting him firmly in his place again - even Brock Lesnar, a man who McMahon can’t look at without drooling like a cartoon wolf and making cash register noises, had to eat a loss to John Cena when he returned in 2012.

Punk knows that, and pride/ego (delete according to prejudice) is a significant factor for him: supposedly he was back in the gym training MMA two days after losing at UFC 203. He may simply stick to his guns and stay away from the business altogether.