WWE News: Pay-Per-View Featuring Major CM Punk Win Quietly Gets Removed From Network
It appears that WWE removed the 2013 edition of the TLC pay-per-view — an event that featured one of the more significant wins of CM Punk’s stint with the company — from the WWE Network.
The curious omission was covered by Sportskeeda on Thursday, which noted that all previous editions of the annual pay-per-view can be viewed on the Network, save for the 2013 iteration. This was similarly observed on Wednesday night by Wrestling Inc.’s Raj Giri, who tweeted that it was “weird” for WWE to pull the event and added that he had checked with the promotion to verify whether this was done in error or if there was “another reason.”
As explained by Sportskeeda, the 2013 edition of TLC was notable for the main event contest between John Cena and Randy Orton, where both men fought to unify the WWE and World Heavyweight Championships, thus resulting in the company having only one top-tier men’s title.
However, there were several matches in the pay-per-view that featured notable former superstars, including a handicap match where Punk defeated all three members of The Shield and a Fatal Four-Way elimination match for the WWE World Tag Team Championships that saw Cody Rhodes and his brother Goldust pick up the win.
As recalled by WhatCulture, the handicap bout was supposed to be the catalyst for the iconic faction’s dissolution, which was eventually postponed by a few months. Punk ended up defeating the stable by pinning Dean Ambrose (now Jon Moxley in AEW), who was accidentally speared by Roman Reigns to set up the final spot. The outlet opined that the booking “made little sense,” considering how The Shield wasn’t able to defeat one man despite how strongly they were made to appear in the months prior.
In addition, Punk memorably mentioned the aforementioned contest when he appeared on Colt Cabana’s Art of Wrestling podcast in 2014, blasting WWE officials and accusing them of specifically instructing him to make Reigns look “really, really strong.” The former world champion also wondered if there was a point in doing that if The Shield was going to lose anyway.
The mysterious disappearance of TLC 2013 from the WWE Network marks the second time in recent months that the company removed content featuring a controversial former champ from its streaming service. In August, WWE pulled six documentaries featuring Hall of Famer Bret Hart, with reports at that time suggesting that the move may have been related to the fact “The Hitman” owns the rights to his footage from his father’s old promotion, Stampede Wrestling.
