8. John Cena vs. Alberto Del Rio vs. CM Punk for the WWE Championship – 2011
Hey, look, it’s the Hell in a Cell thing that this whole pay-per-view is named after. Nice of it to finally make an appearance on this list.
This Triple Threat Hell in a Cell match (the first of its kind) may have been good, but it shouldn’t have happened.
CM Punk had won the WWE Championship from John Cena in a now-legendary match at Money in the Bank earlier that year, starting what many hoped would be a long and exciting reign. How wrong they were.
Punk defeated Cena again at SummerSlam to become the undisputed champion, then lost the belt to Alberto Del Rio, who cashed in his Money in the Bank contract after Punk was laid out by a returning Kevin Nash. Kevin Nash. In a main event story. In 2011. Why did we keep giving this company money?
Punk would then become involved in a feud with Triple H, while Del Rio lost the belt to John Cena, who was going into this Cell match as champion. The ‘Summer of Punk’ was turning into a “Bummer of Punk” quicker than you can say “that was a terrible pun and you should be fired.”
Nevertheless, this match was great – the chaotic nature of a Triple Threat match combined with the Cell made for an interesting and unique dynamic, something WWE fans were in need of after so many repetitive Cell matches.
The three men traded near falls throughout the match, but the real genius of this encounter came at the end, when Del Rio’s personal ring announcer, Ricardo Rodriguez, broke into the Cell and coaxed Cena to the outside. Del Rio took this opportunity to lay Cena out with a steel pipe and re-lock the Cell door, making the match between just himself and Punk.
This led to a great sequence in which fans were unsure of who was going to win – the conniving Del Rio, or the anti-hero, Punk. Unfortunately for most die hard wrestling fans, it was the former who won out, striking Punk with the pipe again to claim his second WWE Championship and postpone Punk’s mammoth championship reign for a little while longer.
The action before the ending of the match was excellent, as all three men are great workers, but the final sequence was what changed this match from good to great. Just a shame that two out of the three men in this stellar match-up are probably never going to step back into WWE ever again.
6 years ago by Wrestle Talk
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