When fans think back to The Rock’s final run with WWE it is his matches against John Cena that tends to spring to mind first. While those WrestleMania main events were classic encounters, the People’s Champion also put together a memorable storyline against CM Punk during that period of his career.
Punk was on top of the business at that point, and putting him up against The Rock led to a couple of dream matches between them. Considering they’re both great talkers and in-ring workers, this was always going to create something memorable, but there are certain aspects that fans can forget about this time.
10 Started By Saving John Cena
Something that a lot of fans forget is how the rivalry between CM Punk and The Rock started to begin with. While people tend to recall Punk turning heel by attacking the WWE legend, the reason that the People’s Champion was out in the ring often gets overlooked.
The Rock was actually saving his rival John Cena, which isn’t something most people would have expected. That is why it has ended up being forgotten about, but Cena was getting attacked by The Big Show when he originally made the save.
9 Demanding Respect
Coming out of the initial interaction with The Rock, CM Punk ended up going on a regular rant where he demanded respect for his contributions to the business. There was a lengthy gap between his first interaction with The Rock and the next one, therefore WWE had to fill the time with something.
This led to Punk confronting people like AJ Lee and Bret Hart to demand he would get more respect. He even had a short feud against Jerry Lawler in this period which led to them having a match, which is normally forgotten.
8 The Shield’s Involvement
When fans think about The Shield, they instantly go to all the iconic rivalries and moments that they had, but people often forget they were initially brought in to help CM Punk. They were a protective unit for him, and that led to them getting involved in this story.
There was a segment that saw them jump The Rock, which was a huge moment for three upcoming stars. They left him laying as he spat out his own blood, but people often forget this was all involved in this storyline.
7 The Rock Restarted Their Match
The first bout that The Rock and CM Punk had was at the Royal Rumble, and there was a stipulation that The Shield were not allowed to get involved, but that is what they did. It led to Punk winning, but then Vince McMahon was going to strip him of the title which The Rock ended up stopping.
Instead, the People’s Champion demanded that the match would be restarted instead, and he ended up winning the WWE title that way. Their encounter was a great one, but the fact things went down this way can often be overlooked.
6 The Rock Debuted A New WWE Championship Design
The latest version of the WWE Championship is different from what The Rock would debut, but the overall design is similar. However, fans have become so used to seeing that style that most fans have ended up forgetting when it was first shown, which was after he won the title from CM Punk.
The Rock was given the honor of getting rid of the iconic spinner title design, which had been around for a long time at that point, and he gave fans something completely different to enjoy.
5 A Daniel Bryan Match Was Teased
When The Rock first let the WWE Universe know that he’d be getting a shot at the WWE Championship, it took place just after Daniel Bryan’s wedding segment with AJ Lee. That ended in disaster, and the segment took place with The Rock, Bryan, and CM Punk who was in the ring at that time.
The Rock was heavily teasing he’d end up facing Punk – which he did. However, Bryan made it clear that he would put himself in that spot, teasing a match for himself and The Rock, which resulted in him being hit by a Rock Bottom instead.
4 The Rock Gets Banned
During this storyline, The Rock delivered one of his famous concerts with the focus being primarily on Vickie Guerrero. However, that created a problem for him the following week as she ended up banning him from the arena, with the police stopping him from getting in.
Ultimately, he would get himself back inside and he had a promo segment on the show against Paul Heyman and CM Punk, but seeing him banned was something different for his character.
3 CM Punk Stealing The WWE Title
While The Rock won the WWE Championship fairly at the Royal Rumble, heading into their Elimination Chamber match he would have his gold stolen by Punk himself. As they built to their second encounter Punk attacked The Rock, and thanks to the help of Paul Heyman he got the best of it.
This led to Punk just stealing the WWE Championship which allowed him to claim that he was still the champion as he physically had the title. Of course, Rock would win the rematch as well, but this specific moment is a forgotten one from this story.
2 Punk Almost Earned A WrestleMania Match
One of CM Punk’s biggest gripes throughout his time in WWE was that he didn’t get the chance to headline WrestleMania, and there is certainly an argument to be made that he should have done. In storyline at least, WWE did give him a shot to do that following his defeat at Elimination Chamber against The Rock.
This was firmly the end of his storyline with the WWE legend, as he competed against John Cena on Monday Night Raw to become the number one contender to the title. It was one of his best matches with Cena, but because it happened on free television it is often overlooked.
1 The Rock Calls Punk
One element that a lot of fans aren’t aware of with this rivalry is the fact that the two men did end up having a lot of respect for each other in real life. It led to them becoming friends and that w clear when The Rock returned to WWE to tape the final scenes of “Fighting With My Family.”
To get fans onboard after the show The Rock cut a promo explaining what was happening. He was met with a lot of “CM Punk” chants at the time, and that led to him legitimately calling Punk in the middle of the ring. Unfortunately, Punk didn’t answer, but it could have been an insane moment had he done considering the heat Punk had with the company at that point.
