10 Times WWE Seriously Disrespected Hall Of Famers
5. CM Punk And Paul Heyman Mock Paul Bearer A Week After He Dies
It didn't take long for WWE to use William 'Paul Bearer' Moody's death in the storyline for the CM Punk versus Undertaker match at WrestleMania 29. Bearer died on March 5th, 2013 and CM Punk stole Undertaker's urn the next week. The week after that, CM Punk cut an insulting promo where he mocked Bearer's voice and spoke to the urn, which apparently contained Bearer's ashes, while tossing it around.
The next week on Raw, things took another unsavoury turn when Paul Heyman came out dressed up to look like Bearer while holding the urn. The audience laughed, which was not the desired reaction. Punk then attacked Undertaker and ended the segment by tipping the ashes of the content over him. The segments divided opinion. Many, such as Dr. Tom Pritchard, thought that Bearer would have approved the segments because he loved the business and that it was a great way to get heat.
Punk himself had this to say in an interview with the Asbury Park Press:
My job is to get people to be mad at me and I think I do that very well. I think I blur the lines. Everything is designed to push peoples buttonsso its unfortunate that Percy had to die for him to be a part of this storybut trust me, he would have loved it. He really would have loved it.
Others were dismayed that the WWE would use a real death to advance a storyline, especially after the negative reaction to a similar storyline WWE featured following the death of Eddie Guerrero in 2005. Paul Bearer's own sons thought that the angle was disrespectful, claiming on Facebook that the way WWE had pitched it to them (and they approved it) was very different to how the angle played out on television.
There were many ways that WWE could have built the Undertaker versus Punk match. They didn't have to poke fun at Bearer or his character to do it.