10 WWE Champions That Completely Buried Their Challengers
2. The Undertaker (Challenger: CM Punk)
CM Punk's 2011 rise to prominence as WWE Champion and 'Voice Of The Voiceless' was a direct result of a promo that cut through the politics and pollution flowing through the mechanics of the company that employed him. He wasn't speaking from second hand experience.
Punk had already suffered the ignominy of losing a title without even defending it when a ludicrous Randy Orton interjection terminated his maiden reign in 2008, but a feud with The Undertaker a year later wasn't exactly the most dignified end for that far superior spell.
Jeff Hardy had gamely put over the Chicagoan at the climax of their thrilling summer rivalry (and the former's second WWE tenure), but a follow-up summer programme with 'The Phenom' only yielded a cheap screwjob victory for Punk before he was resolutely buried when it really mattered. A 10-minute Hell In A Cell curtain jerker loss sunk Punk without trace from the top of the card on SmackDown.
'The Deadman' apparently took to killing CM Punk's 2009 main event run for the silliest of squabbles - how the 'Straight Edge Superstar' dressed. Punk rebuffed 'Taker's inferences that he suit up, but was fittingly dressed down on television for months as a result.