CM Punk vs. Chris Jericho: WrestleMania Revenge Sweet but Expected for WWE Champ

There was no way that CM Punk wasn't going to defeat Chris Jericho at WrestleMania XXVIII on Sunday, no way that he would be forced to relinquish his WWE Championship belt to his greatest tormentor.

Not after the lengths to which Jericho went to embarrass and disgrace "The Straight-Edge Superstar," laying bare his family's struggles with drugs and alcohol for all the world to see.

There was just no way that the WWE was about to reward Jericho's heel turn against one of wrestling's fastest rising and most popular figures in sports entertainment.

In a sense, then, Punk's victory was somewhat anticlimactic. Jericho did his best to taunt and tease Punk into disqualification—and the relinquishing of his belt that would've come with it—but as much as he bit each time, the thought of Punk losing it all on a technicality seemed too preposterous to truly be a possibility.

Though, after the way Sheamus snagged the World Heavyweight Championship belt from Daniel Bryan in all of 18 seconds, there remained plenty of leeway left for disbelief to be suspended.

Yet, Punk tempted fate, time after time, even as the odds of his being disqualified seemed inordinately slim.

It took Punk quite some time to pull out the victory, doing so even as Jericho twisted and trampled Punk's achy back into torturous positions.

But, in the end, he came out less like a "Chris Jericho wannabe" and more as a man whose career path seems destined to follow that of Jericho all on its own. Surely, there's nothing wrong with Punk being compared to a wrestler with a whopping 30 championships on his resume.

Perhaps, then, it was Punk's opposition that made his win so predictable. After all, how could he ever become the next Chris Jericho (or better) and lose to the man whose legacy he's bound to surpass?

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