10 Times Wrestlers Quit Before Major PPVs

4. CM Punk (WWE WrestleMania XXX)

CM Punk last made an appearance for WWE in January 2014 at the Royal Rumble PPV, where he lasted nearly 50 minutes in the Rumble and ferociously fought at ringside with Kane.

Punk was supposed to appear on Raw the next night as per usual, but that never occurred. Instead, he got into a huge shouting match with Vince McMahon and Triple H over creative, money, his overall health and the fact he wouldn’t be headlining WrestleMania once again. Punk wanted no part of what WWE had lined up for him at Mania, wrestling Triple H somewhere on the card. Punk felt his work over the last year and fan support had earned him a place in the WrestleMania main event, which at that time was scheduled to be Batista going one on one with Randy Orton for the World title.

Punk quit at Raw that night, with WrestleMania right around the corner. The 30th annual PPV would end up being huge for WWE, with it going on to break attendance records and WWE Network subscriber figures. But Punk, frustrated, didn’t care at that point.

WWE had to spend weeks rewriting plans when Punk went home, with Daniel Bryan being promoted to the main event spot partially because of the actions of Punk.