10. World Heavyweight Championship (2009): CM Punk vs. Jeff Hardy (c)
At this point in his career, CM Punk already was a two-time World Heavyweight Champion, having cashed in his Money in the Bank briefcase successfully twice. The second time, he defeated a spent Jeff Hardy, who had just bested Edge in a ladder match to capture his first world title. Hardy would reclaim the title about seven weeks later, setting up the rubber match at SummerSlam. This time, Punk won his third world championship in a hard-fought battle, erasing any stigma that he was an accidental champion. His celebration would be short-lived, however. While standing over a fallen Jeff Hardy, Undertakers gong rang out and the lights went out. When they came back on, Taker had taken Hardys place under Punks feet. After a chokeslam to close out the PPV, it became obvious where Punks reign was headed next. The SummerSlam victory should have launched Punk into the stratosphere as a main-event player, but instead his title was sacrificed to the Undertaker less than two months later. Punk would go on to head up the Straight Edge Society into 2010 before finally re-reaching the summit in 2011.
Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.
