10 Times WWE Threw Their Champion Under The Bus

5. CM Punk's First World Heavyweight Championship (2008)

Punk€™s reign had started well enough, with that adrenaline-pumping Money In The Bank cash-in on Edge on RAW, moments after the Rated-R Superstar had taken a hellacious beating from Batista. Punk retained against JBL the very same night, and we thought we were all set for Punk to have an enjoyable run with the Big Gold Belt. Oh man, were we wrong. In a classic case of WWE wanting to protect their €˜big hitters€™, we got a match at The Great American Bash 2008 between Punk and Batista, the man who had enabled his MITB cash-in. So far, so logical. Unfortunately, Punk was made to look oh-so-midcard. Instead of a valiant effort to prove he could hang with the best, Punk got in only sporadic offense. It was, at times, a throwback to those early 90s matches where a jobber faced off against a €˜name€™. Big Dave€™s constant smirking, as if to say, €˜What are you doing here, with me?€™ didn€™t help matters. At last, Kane interfered (fair enough - if something already doesn€™t make sense, you might as well add Kane to the mix) and attacked first Batista, then Punk, chokeslamming him in the middle of the ring, causing a double DQ. The message from WWE was that Punk was not capable of retaining against someone like Batista, a point they then felt they had to underline with Punk eating a Batista Bomb. Incredibly, Punk ended up losing the title in a match he wasn€™t even involved in. A backstage beatdown from Randy Orton and Legacy meant Punk was replaced in the nonsensical Championship Scramble at Unforgiven by its eventual winner, Chris Jericho.