What if CM Punk left WWE in 2011?

#2 Brock Lesnar becomes a part-time world champ sooner

Without Punk as champ, WWE may have pushed along the part-time champion experiment sooner.

In 2014, WWE rolled the dice on booking Brock Lesnar as its first sustained world champion—holding the WWE Championship for approximately two-thirds of a year—who was also a part timer. There are ongoing debates about the merits of this approach. Lesnar’s sporadic appearances have kept him special, and protected him from losses. Meanwhile, it feels off not to reward talents that are there every week with the company’s top prize.

Remove CM Punk, and you remove the guy who reigned as WWE Champion from late 2011 to early 2013. While there were a number of options to step up in to the champion’s role, it’s unreasonable to think WWE would have pulled the trigger on crowning Lesnar sooner in that scenario. Heck, maybe rather than John Cena vs. The Rock part two at WrestleMania 29, we might have seen the Great One unseat Lesnar for the title there, before ultimately giving Cena his win back. We’ll never know now, and the week to week wrestling was probably better with Punk on top. Still, his absence could have had some intriguing implications like this.