The WORST Wrestling Moment Every Year (1989 - 2025)
15. 2011 | The WWE Roster Goes On Strike
In June, CM Punk was the “voice of the voiceless”; a rather too effective anti-establishment character whose insightful takedowns of WWE sparked a very loud demand for change.
WWE held no interest in changing to a fundamental extent; only in retaining the services of a want-away popular semi-main event player. Punk was allowed to unleash his frustrations on WWE, but over a span of months, the change failed to materialise. Punk essentially became a snarky babyface who was given John Laurinaitis to make fun of. It was low-stakes stuff, barely cathartic, yet another iteration of the only storyline WWE knew how to tell: heel authority figure torments babyface because it worked in 1998.
In the autumn, a renegade did take over WWE. He was a force so dangerous and disruptive that he frightened the rest of the roster into going on strike: the Miz!
Less than a handful of wrestlers stood by Paul Levesque, and one of them was CM Punk. Punk, who had called Triple H Vince McMahon’s “doofus son-in-law” just months earlier, became a scab. For the company he despised. When his persona was based on hating corporate power structures.
This was tremendous politicking even by Triple H’s standards. He had defeated Punk at Night of Champions before this total castration of an angle. Punk was less likely to destroy WWE from within, and more likely to ask a softball question at a post-PPV press conference.
Turning CM Punk from a straight shooter into a scab was truly braindead. It was almost like turning the Undertaker into Pretty Peter Avalon.