Punk's 434-day WWE Championship reign came to an abrupt end when he was defeated by The Rock at the 2013 Royal Rumble. In a rematch at Elimination Chamber, the result was the same, and just like that, the man with the longest reign of the past 25 years was out of the title picture. Reportedly, Vince McMahon felt that the John Cena-CM Punk program was overdone, despite being one of the company's best in-ring feuds ever. The amazing match the two men had on the February 25, 2013 Monday Night Raw, in which Cena successfully defended his position in the main event of WrestleMania XXIX, was seen as a "blow off" of sorts to their feud, as McMahon didn't want Punk challenging Cena for the title after he won it. Even after Cena lost the title to Daniel Bryan (and Bryan subsequently lost it to Randy Orton), Punk was still out of the main event, feuding with Paul Heyman and his representatives. While the Heyman feud was necessary to establish Punk as a babyface once again, it dragged on and on, and by the end, Punk wasn't considered a contender to the WWE Championship or a fixture in main events two things which couldn't have made him happy.
Scott Fried is a Slammy Award-winning* writer living and working in New York City. He has been following/writing about professional wrestling for many years and is a graduate of Lance Storm's Storm Wrestling Academy. Follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/scottfried.
*Best Crowd of the Year, 2013
