25 Best Wrestling Moments Of 2025
15. CM Punk And John Cena Meet Again
The actual revisited rivalry was terrible.
John Cena’s version of the ‘Pipebomb’ was cryptic edgelord nonsense, defeating the purpose of Punk’s incisive burial, rendered all the more farcical because Punk had to lie motionless on a Slim Jim-branded table. Punk’s retort, a freestyle rap in which he cosplayed as the ‘Doctor of Thuganomics’, would have been cringeworthy even if he nailed it. He did not nail it. He stumbled over several lines to cap off the most embarrassing, aura-destroying weekend of his career. The match at Night of Champions was only OK, too.
But, at Elimination Chamber, the old magic was cast. Punk and Cena registered the moment brilliantly, and that’s because they’d earned it. You see the Rock Vs. Hogan “this is going to be epic” showdown far too often in 2025, but Cena and Punk, for three glorious, time-travelling minutes, earned it.
Their match-within-a-match revisited their wonderful in-ring telepathy - the struggle, the deep knowledge of one another’s arsenals, the hypnotic rhythm.
Nostalgia elevated the sequence, for sure, as did the thought that, for several years, you never thought they’d do the dance again. Punk was once the “never” in “never say never”’; Cena was a part-timer when Punk signed with AEW.
They were wrestling soulmates, and their series meant a great deal to people because almost everything else in WWE was so bland or lame at the time. Watching them wrestle their way into a massive reaction amid the resurgence was something more than blissful for a generation of long-suffering fans.