(PWPNation) — The 2014 Royal Rumble will live on in infamy for two reasons, one of which a lot of fans don’t actually remember.
Daniel Bryan was the odds on favorite to win the Rumble. The “Yes Movement” was going full force and it was obvious that Bryan would win and main event WrestleMania. This was the night Batista returned and won, causing huge heat on the entire company from fans. Oh, before I forget, Daniel Bryan didn’t even enter the Royal Rumble that night…
It was also the last time we saw CM Punk, not only in a wrestling ring but in the WWE, period. He went home hours before the next night’s Monday Night RAW and the rest is history, riddled with lawsuits, bad talk, and one hell of an iconic tell-all podcast with Colt Cabana.
Fast forward almost six long years. CM Punk has, um… returned? Well, he’s one of the hosts now of WWE Backstage on FS1. Allegedly now a FOX employee, not a WWE employee. We’re not here to argue semantics though, we’re here to talk about the 2020 Royal Rumble being the SIX YEAR ANNIVERSARY of CM Punk’s last wrestling match, and five dream matches we want to see. I’d pay to see him face guys like Ciampa, Gargano, Keith Lee, Balor, King Corbin, Shinsuke and Zayn, even one of the two Revival or Viking Raiders, but here we go with my Top 5:
5. CM Punk vs Seth Rollins
Maybe that’s not a dream match with the current Seth character, but when Seth is running on all pistons, the guy truly is one of the best. CM Punk vs The Shield’s Seth Rollins might have happened, but Rollins has evolved 10 times over in the past 6 years. These two would pull out all the stops for a WrestleMania dream match.
4. CM Punk vs Daniel Bryan
Yeah, we’ve seen it a number of times, but six years later, I truly just want to see this one more time. It literally speaks for itself and sells itself. “The Culture” vs “The Yes Movement“… book it. One. More. Time.
3. CM Punk vs Adam Cole
Say what you want about Cole usually relying on antics from the Undisputed Era, but the guy will put on 5-star matches before the get involved in the ending. The build to Survivor Series proves it all. Cole vs Bryan, Cole vs Rollins, Cole in a ladder match, Cole in War Games. Now we need Adam Cole vs CM Punk.
2. CM Punk vs Matt Riddle
Sounds strange at first, right? Riddle can wrestle though. Maybe he’s no Adam Cole or CM Punk, but he can go. And he can fight. He is a former MMA star… the same kind of fighting Punk has been training to do, even if he was unsuccessful in the octagon. The two of them would do what Lesnar/Cain couldn’t… tell a great story with a perfect mix of fighting and wrestling.
And Number 1
CM Punk vs AJ Styles
Again, a match you can find all over the indy scene, but lets just fast forward and appreciate the impressive, undeniable, phenomenal evolution of both ROH/TNA wrestlers. People around the world will agree that Aj Styles can have a great match with anyone. They’d agree on the same with CM Punk. Assuming that they would be given a good 30-minutes in that ring, it would be fantastic. Let’s also salivate over the storyline and the promos. It would take less than 2 minutes for Punk to start ragging all over Gallows, who used to be in the Straight Edge Society. Who used to be Festus…
Punk would tear into Anderson, Punk would tear into AJ. And when WrestleMania is approaching and The Club is too much on Monday night… enter CM Punk’s allies: Samoa Joe and (in his RAW return) Finn Balor.
What do you think about a CM Punk dream match? Which would you like to see? Hit us up on Twitter and Facebook to let us know!
