10 Times Wrestlers Told You They Were FINISHED
2. CM Punk (2013)
It'll be a long time before the novelty of CM Punk's 2023 WWE return wears off, but for a pained reminder of how it could all go if the company ends up normalising the magic, take a look at his December 2013 run to see a man on the edge.
As he infamously recounted in the Art Of Wrestling incineration of his final years with the company, he was required to "keep Roman strong" while beating The Shield, was suffering as a character from the stuttering conclusion to his feuds with Paul Heyman and The Wyatt Family, and appeared to be the latest babyface about to eat an awful lot of Authority beatdowns before facing Triple H at WrestleMania.
Promos found him trying to explain away Daniel Bryan's abrupt defection to Bray Wyatt's cult, barely keeping kayfabe and begging fans to keep cheering for him nonetheless. A memorable car crash Monday Night Raw Championship Celebration segment found him laughing and the obnoxious refusal of the McMahons to acknowledge the star on the rise rather than the tired ones in the ring.
Darkly amusing (at points) in hindsight, this was the real and bleak deconstruction of the man behind the mythology in real time.