10 unexpected WWE World Champions

#5 CM Punk

Punk evolved immeasurably from his first world title to his last

With the benefit of hindsight, it would be very easy to claim that CM Punk always looked like a star and that his multiple World Heavyweight title and WWE title reigns were predictable from the very beginning. However, this simply wasn’t the case.

When Punk arrived, the office genuinely saw nothing in him and was very reluctant to give him any sort of push. Indeed, it is claimed that the only reason Punk was even able to win the ECW title in 2007 was that during the steroids scandal that was developing at the time, it was good PR to have a straight edge champion. He was simply in the right place, at the right time. Chris Benoit was originally supposed to win the ECW title against CM Punk at Vengence 2007, but we all know what happened on that fateful day.

Somewhere down the line, however, WWE started to change their minds. He initially won the World Heavyweight Championship in exciting fashion, back in the days when the novelty of Money In The Bank hadn’t fully worn off yet, cashing in on Edge to the absolute delight of the RAW crowd.

He repeated the feat in the following year, winning MITB for the second consecutive year and proceeding into the aforementioned programme with Jeff Hardy. He took a step up even further in the years that followed, engaging in two more WWE Championship runs that cemented his legacy as the “Best In The World”.