Every WWE Five Star Match Ranked From Worst To Best
5. John Cena Vs. CM Punk - Money In The Bank 2011
It seemed as if CM Punk held the answer to everything in the late spring months of 2011.
His legendary Pipebomb promo threatened to shatter a turgid, John Cena-shaped landscape. The self-devised nature of the promo itself promised a new WWE, one more realistic and extemporaneous than in years past. The fact that his challenge was scheduled for his home city of Chicago led us to believe that fate itself was on his side and ours. The sustained, deafening reaction to every last moment of that molten Money In The Bank main event felt at once defiant and celebratory. Or, to use just one word, magical.
In the match itself, Punk did hold the answers; his excellent escapologist act held the answer to Cena's in-ring stronghold and the elusive expansion of WWE's methodical, primary mode. This was Punk inspiring hope with every last reversal, countering moves that otherwise killed off a raft of increasingly diminished challengers. This was Punk proving that he could project his smooth*, technical work to the spellbound masses. A rare match in which the moves reflected perfectly the wider storyline, that an alarming number of those moves were botched hardly detracts from the retrospective experience. What does is the fact that, dispiritingly, so little changed in the aftermath, the revised talent recruitment process excepted.
Not the platform for change, but a moment in time - but what a moment.