12 Biggest "What If" Scenarios In WWE WrestleMania History
5. WrestleMania 29: What If Punk Co-Main Events With Cena And Rock?
In 2012, CM Punk was on fire in WWE. The Second City Saint was in the midst of a 434-day WWE Championship reign that would abruptly come to an end at Royal Rumble 2013, when The Rock would capture the title en route to a WrestleMania rematch with John Cena, this time for the championship.
Punk lobbied hard to stay in the World title/WrestleMania 29 main event picture, even proposing a three-way elimination match at Mania between him, Cena and Rock, offering to take the first pinfall five minutes in but allowing him to say he headlined a WrestleMania. Instead, Punk was given a singles match with The Undertaker, becoming the final victim of his 21-0 Mania streak
Had Punk gotten his main event match, it would have been a bucket list item checked off and might have tempered some of the animosity that built up during the following year. A lot led to Punk leaving WWE in 2014, but one thing he’s mentioned in the past was losing out on a Mania main event again and being “gifted” a match with Triple H instead.
If he already had wrestled in the main event, Punk might have been in a slightly better headspace. Perhaps he wouldn’t have walked out of WWE following the 2014 Royal Rumble. Maybe WWE would have viewed Punk a bit differently if the build to WrestleMania 29 went really well and pegged him for bigger things at WrestleMania 30.
Or perhaps Punk still would have been just as burned out and pissed off and still would have stormed out of WWE for a decade, just with a Mania main event under his belt.