20 Most Hated Heel Moves In Wrestling History
6. Speaking Ill Of The Dead
After losing the WWE Championship to The Rock in January 2013, CM Punk’s next challenge was the big one: facing the Undertaker at WrestleMania. He’d win a Fatal Four-Way match on RAW on March 4th to be named the Dead Man’s opponent on the grandest stage of them all. The following day, William Alvin Moody was pronounced dead after a heart attack caused by an episode of supraventricular tachycardia.
Bill Moody, of course, was Paul Bearer, the Undertaker’s old manager and (kayfabe) father to his half-brother Kane. Literally six days after Moody’s death, Punk interrupted the Undertaker’s tribute to his fallen friend and colleague, coming out to the stage to taunt him and later stealing the classic urn from ringside.
That set the tone for the remaining few weeks leading up to WrestleMania, with Punk disrespecting that urn and Paul Bearer, by implication. In fact, there was another implication, one that made the theft of the urn more of a kidnapping offence: it was heavy implied for weeks that this wasn’t the Undertaker’s urn, the one that Paul Bearer had held up like some mystical totem. No, this was Paul Bearer’s urn, containing Paul Bearer’s ashes.
On the final RAW before WrestleMania 29, Punk set up a line of menacing hooded cultists with Paul Heyman at the head, dressed as Bearer from head to foot, holding the urn aloft as Bearer used to. As the Undertaker advanced upon Paul Bearman, Punk (disguised as one of the cultists) suckerpunched him from behind, beating him up the ramp and then assaulted him with the urn itself, until finally he dumped the contents all over him: the Dead Man, covered in dead man.
It was usually the Undertaker playing the mind games leading up to a big match, but not this time. Punk freely admitted that he was trying to get into the Phenom’s head, make him go nuts and get disqualified: he’d happily take a DQ victory. The Streak would still be dead.
Of course, on the night itself Punk came up short. Still, the build to the match not only had people mad as hell and begging for Punk to be taken down a peg, but it had people actually doubting the outcome, if only temporarily. After twenty victories at WrestleMania, that’s an impressive feat.