When Batista won the 2014 Royal Rumble to a chorus of boos, nobody knew it would be CM Punk‘s last WWE Match.
And definitely, nobody knew that it would be the last time he would step into the ring for another 7 and a half years.
CM Punk is one of the all time greats in WWE. He held the WWE Championship for an incredible 434 days, and had some of the best matches in the companies history.
His matches against John Cena, The Undertaker and Brock Lesnar are some of the highest rated matches for WWE on Cagematch and his level of stardom matched even the great John Cena.
He left WWE in 2014, signing for AEW 7 years later after being out of the spotlight between 2014 and 2021.
Fans theorised for years about his return, with WWE even faking out the fans by playing his music before Paul Heyman entered the ring, in his home town of Chicago.
While he returned to AEW to wrestle in 2021, CM Punk’s last WWE match came 7 years earlier and was one of the biggest train wrecks in WWE history.
CM Punk last WWE match
CM Punk’s last match in WWE was the 2014 Royal Rumble match. The match took place at the 2014 Royal Rumble Pay-Per-View, and was the main event of the show.
CM Punk entered at number 1 in the match, as decreed by COO of WWE Triple H, and faced Seth Rollins in the ring to start the match.
He lasted until the final 4, finishing 27th in the match after being eliminated by Kane late on. CM Punk lasted 49 minutes in his last match, lasting the longest time in the entire match.
He eliminated three men in the match, which were Damian Sandow, Kane and Rusev.
After the match, CM Punk argued with Vince McMahon and Triple H about his many grievances in WWE, including his booking, being forced to work whilst injured and never being given any time off, among other things.
He detailed all these things in his podcast interview with Colt Cabana, which you can read about below.
The 2014 Royal Rumble match hilarious. CM Punk’s last match was dominated by chants for Daniel Bryan.
He had faced (and lost to) Bray Wyatt earlier that night, and the American Dragon was the fan favourite to win the Royal Rumble and go on to the main event of Wrestlemania.
However, when Rey Mysterio entered at number 30 in the 2014 Royal Rumble match, all hell broke loose.
The fans turned on the match, booing for literally everyone except CM Punk and completely ruining the match. When CM Punk was eliminated, fans stopped caring about the match and just booed everyone to their hearts content.
It was this reaction that forced WWE to change course and finally book Daniel Bryan to win the WWE Championship at WrestleMania.
It was this and CM Punk walking out after his last WWE match that are responsible for WWE finally giving Daniel Bryan the chance to be a top guy in WWE and have one of the best WrestleMania main events of all time.
CM Punk vs Billy Gunn
CM Punk’s last singles match in WWE was on the Monday Night Raw before the 2014 Royal Rumble.
Despite interference from Billy Gunn’s partner Road Dogg, CM Punk picked up the win with a Go 2 Sleep in his last even singles match in WWE.
With the pair now both wrestling in AEW, there is a chance for a rematch for CM Punk’s final WWE match.
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