5 WrestleMania-caliber matches that WWE gave away on a 'B' PPV

#3 The Rock vs. CM Punk

The Rock vs. CM Punk went down at the Royal Rumble, with a rematch at Elimination Chamber.

The Rock's return to the WWE fold in 2011 was quite shocking. While he was an undeniably important part of the company’s history and had family roots in the wrestling business, he’d gone on to become one of the top movie stars in the world, and few expected him to revisit his career in sports entertainment.

After some intrigue in 2011, Rock had a dream match with John Cena at WrestleMania 28 in 2012. This led to his return and the longest reigning world champ in WWE’s modern era, CM Punk, for the WWE Championship at the Royal Rumble 2013.

The rematch could have gone down at WrestleMania, however, it was just a bump in the road at Elimination Chamber as The Rock blazed a trail toward WrestleMania and a rematch with Cena.

While I can’t take anything away from Rock-Cena in terms of star power, it’s a shame that Punk didn’t get to cap his historic year-plus run with the title by defending it against The Rock at the biggest show of the year.

At the time, Punk was probably second only to Cena as the biggest full-time star WWE had and could have used the Rock match for his legacy to reach the next level. Instead, we got Rock-Cena II, which fans weren’t exactly clamouring for, and a thoroughly disgruntled Punk who got settle his conflicts at a WrestleMania.