The Top 7 Matches of CM Punk's WWE Career

CM Punk has been a WWE superstar for six years now, and is already well on his way to a Hall of Fame career. 

Though it was only a year ago that he became a name that is recognizable to the masses, he’s put together one incredible resume that started being assembled long before the “Summer of Punk.” 

From the start, Punk’s career has been defined by greatness—great storylines, great promos, great character development and, most importantly, great matches. 

Whether you like Punk or not, it’s hard to deny that he has had a number of fantastic matches, even though—at least by historical standards—he hasn’t been in the WWE all that long. 

Today, we celebrate Punk’s incredible in-ring abilities by looking at the top 7 matches of his career so far. 

NOTE: I’m sticking with singles matches here. No Money in the Bank matches will be on this list because of the number of superstars involved.

7. CM Punk vs. Dolph Ziggler, Raw, Nov. 21, 2011

The year 2011 was a fantastic year for the WWE in terms of TV matches, and CM Punk vs. Dolph Ziggler was the best of the bunch. 

At the time, Ziggler was really in a zone as one of the best performers in the company, while Punk had just won back the WWE Championship at Survivor Series. 

Their Raw encounter was, in essence, a precursor to the great match these two would have just two months later at the 2012 Royal Rumble. 

But it was even better. 

Given how little interaction (much less actual matches) Punk and Ziggler had prior to this bout, it had a sense of freshness to it, and things only improved when it was given considerably more time than 99 percent of TV matches. 

As expected, Ziggler sold his tail off, and he and Punk displayed chemistry that made it look like they were working together for the 1,000th time. 

No one expected Punk, the new WWE champion, to lose, but that didn’t matter much. 

We got great wrestling on Nov. 21, 2011 in a bout that was one of the first in a long line of great TV matches in late 2011 and early 2012.

6. WWE Championship Match: CM Punk vs. John Cena, SummerSlam 2011

The “Summer of Punk” was highlighted by two of the most memorable matches in recent history. 

This was one of them. 

After CM Punk had bolted the WWE following his unforgettable victory at Money in the Bank, he returned to the company to take on John Cena in a match for the Undisputed WWE Championship that was a clash of two contradictory superstars. 

There was Cena, the poster boy of the WWE, and then there was Punk, the rebellious spirit who stood for everything that Cena did not.

Punk vs. Cena at SummerSlam (2011, that is) had the ridiculously difficult task of trying to live up to their electric Money in the Bank match from a month prior. 

It didn’t do that. But it came pretty damn close. 

With one of the most raucus crowds of 2011 and an entertaining (albeit rushed) story-line to go along with it, Cena and Punk delivered one of the greatest matches in SummerSlam history.

5. No DQ Match for WWE Title: CM Punk vs. Daniel Bryan, Money in the Bank 2012

How many awesome matches have CM Punk and Daniel Bryan had together in 2012? 

Almost too many to count. 

They faced off in a number of champion vs. champion matches early on in the year that had many fans begging for a pay-per-view feud between the two, and that’s exactly what we got after WrestleMania 28. 

Bryan and Punk found themselves entangled in a long-running feud that allowed them to show off the unbelievable chemistry the two have stemming from their days in Ring of Honor. 

Realistically, you can point to any Punk/Bryan match and analyze just how great it was, but their No-DQ match at Money in the Bank (a late stipulation that was added here) was simply brilliant. 

It was such a phenomenal mesh of technical wrestling, brawling and storytelling that you couldn’t help but be entertained by it throughout its nearly 30-minute duration. 

This should have been the main event of Money in the Bank because nothing else on the card even came close to it. 

Surprised? Didn’t think so.

4. Chicago Street Fight for WWE Title: Punk vs. Jericho, Extreme Rules 2012

A lot of wrestling fans seemed to be very critical of the WWE Championship match between CM Punk and Chris Jericho at WrestleMania 28. 

Going into the bout, the expectation was that it would be a potential Match of the Year candidate. It fell short of those expectations, but I still think that people overreacted.

The pacing was a little slow during its first half, sure. But it was still nearly a four-star match that was arguably the second-best bout on the WrestleMania card. 

Either way, though, Punk and Jericho definitely silenced their critics at Extreme Rules with a match that was significantly better than their already-great Mania match. 

In what would turn out to be the blowoff match of their feud, Punk and Jericho went one-on-one in a Street Fight in Punk’s hometown of Chicago. 

As expected, the Chicago crowd was raucous as they always are, and they were treated to one of the best Street Fights in recent history, a bout that was very similar to Punk’s No-DQ match with Daniel Bryan at Money in the Bank in terms of quality. 

There was a lot of heat to the Punk/Y2J feud at the time, which made the Street Fight stipulation more than appropriate, and the combination of technical wrestling and pure fighting made this a must-see encounter. 

The WrestleMania match may not have made everyone happy, but at Extreme Rules, Jericho and Punk showed why this was truly a battle to determine the best in the world.

3. TLC Match for World Heavyweight Title: Punk vs. Jeff Hardy, SummerSlam 2009

Many fans will point to the “Summer of Punk” in 2011 as the time when CM Punk truly became a superstar. 

But I point to the best feud of the year in 2009: Punk vs. Jeff Hardy. 

This, of course, was the rivalry that saw Punk go from the babyface Money in the Bank winner to one of the top heels in the company, a Straight Edge superstar who thought that his lifestyle choices made him better than everyone else, especially Hardy. 

The Hardy/Punk feud led to some of the best work of both men’s careers and, at least in my view, was the catalyst that made Punk a major player in the WWE. 

As we all know by now, the highlight of that feud was the epic TLC match for the World Heavyweight Championship at SummerSlam that stole the show. 

To this day, it remains the best non-tag team TLC match ever and one of the most unforgettable matches in the history of the storied SummerSlam pay-per-view. 

It was the exclamation point at the end of a masterfully done Punk/Hardy feud that stands out as the best gimmick match Punk has had in the WWE up to this point.

2. WWE Championship Match: CM Punk vs. Daniel Bryan, over the Limit 2012

In terms of hype and atmosphere, The Undertaker vs. Triple H at WrestleMania 28 will likely stand tall as the “Match of the Year” for 2012. 

But in terms of pure wrestling, nothing tops CM Punk vs. Daniel Bryan for the WWE Championship at Over the Limit. 

While these two had faced off in several non-title TV matches earlier this year, it was an Internet wrestling fans dream come true when they met one-on-one on pay-per-view with the WWE’s most prestigious title on the line. 

And man oh man, did they ever deliver. 

I’m not sure if I can recall a match in the last seven or eight years that featured two amazing technicians with such incredible chemistry. 

It was almost as if Punk and Bryan were inside each other’s heads, knowing exactly what the other person was going to do at exactly the right time throughout the duration of the match. 

The bout suffered, if only slightly, because there wasn’t much build up to it, and the finish was a little weird for my liking. 

But overall, it was an outrageously entertaining back-and-forth encounter between two technical masters who know each other like the backs of their hands. 

Punk was on that night, so was Bryan, and an instant technical classic resulted.

1. WWE Championship Match: CM Punk vs. John Cena, Money in the Bank 2011

At Money in the Bank in 2011, the stage was set for a match for the ages between John Cena and the hottest act in pro wrestling at the time, CM Punk. 

They didn’t disappoint. 

Punk promised to beat Cena for the WWE Championship in his hometown of Chicago, to take the title with him and leave the WWE for good. 

This made for a fantastic story-line in which a perfect script was hand-fed to the WWE creative team. 

Punk’s WWE future was legitimately up in the air, Money in the Bank was taking place in Chicago, and he was at the peak of one of the hottest stretches in recent wrestling history. 

In turn, we witnessed an absolutely amazing match at Money in the Bank, with one of the most electric crowds anyone has ever seen.

It was here that Punk delivered his best performance since joining the WWE, and Cena matched him step-for-step in what still ranks as his best in-ring performance as well. 

Say what you want about Cena “being carried,” but the bottom line is that it took two guys to use the incredible atmosphere in Chicago to their full advantage and deliver a match for the ages. 

That’s exactly what happened. 

The WWE’s two most popular stars kept the crowd into the match every second, and the arena exploded when the classic bout concluded with Punk walking away as the WWE Champion with his future still in question. 

A great story-line fell into the WWE’s lap, but Punk and Cena are the ones who truly made it work with the best match of 2011 and the best match of both of their careers so far.

Drake Oz is a WWE Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter and ask him any wrestling-related questions on Formspring.