10 Strange Things WWE Champions Did With The Belt

8. Put It In The Fridge (CM Punk)

Dean Ambrose
WWE

Like so many other Chicago natives on the cool summer evening of July 17th 2011, CM Punk got home from work and put his shopping in the fridge before settling in to a relaxing evening not changing the world from his couch.

He'd done that bit at work.

His instantly iconic match with John Cena (and the smash-and-grab victory celebration) was the stuff of legend, redefining the era and eventually the decade of the back of an equally-weighted "Pipe Bomb" promo weeks earlier. Raging against a machine he sought to reconfigure, Punk started his project by intentionally undermining the prestige of the top prize the second he got through his front door.

There was something so wonderfully inspired about all of it - that Punk had gotten home before half of the audience was a reminder of just how close the Allstate Arena was from his beloved home base. That he'd normalised it in such a way was a bonus boy-popper. Punk's iconoclastic words had struck a chord with vast swathes of the existing and lapsed audience - here was his first indication that he was willing to be at one with his people.

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Michael is a writer, editor, podcaster and presenter for WhatCulture Wrestling, and has been with the organisation nearly 8 years. He primarily produces written, audio and video content on WWE and AEW, but also provides knowledge and insights on all aspects of the wrestling industry thanks to a passion for it dating back over 35 years. As one third of "The Dadley Boyz" Michael has contributed to the huge rise in popularity of the WhatCulture Wrestling Podcast and its accompanying YouTube channel, earning it top spot in the UK's wrestling podcast charts with well over 62,000,000 total downloads. He has been featured as a wrestling analyst for the Tampa Bay Times, GRAPPL, GCP, Poisonrana and Sports Guys Talking Wrestling, and has covered milestone events in New York, Dallas, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, London and Cardiff. Michael's background in media stretches beyond wrestling coverage, with a degree in Journalism from the University Of Sunderland (2:1) and a series of published articles in sports, music and culture magazines The Crack, A Love Supreme and Pilot. When not offering his voice up for daily wrestling podcasts, he can be found losing it singing far too loud watching his favourite bands play live. Follow him on X/Twitter - @MichaelHamflett