CM Punk tries to gain the upper hand on The Rock before their WWE Championship Match at Elimination Chamber.

The WWE Universe witnessed a shocking act of thievery as the Feb. 11 edition of Raw went off the air. After storming the ring and nailing WWE Champion The Rock with a crushing Go to Sleep — with some underhanded assistance from Paul Heyman — CM Punk stole the WWE Title from the incapacitated Great One.

The Straight Edge Superstar has long declared that the WWE Title still belongs to him and that his reign is, in fact, at 455 days and running. While that’s simply false, what is true is that the challenger holds the illustrious championship gold less than a week before his title match against The Most Electrifying Man in All of Entertainment at the Elimination Chamber pay-per-view Sunday, Feb. 17.

Whether Punk actually believes he is still the rightful champion or if he is just trying to get into The Brahma Bull’s head is somewhat unclear. ( VOTE) Nevertheless, the nefarious actions of the former titleholder are nothing new. The history of the squared circle has included numerous title robberies, one just as devious as the next.

After all, The Rock himself has committed title larceny, stealing his longtime rival “Stone Cold” Steve Austin’s personalized “Smoking Skull” WWE Championship in 1999, a theft that was supposedly revenge for The Texas Rattlesnake throwing The Great One’s Intercontinental Title off a bridge two years before.

That sort of destruction befalling a stolen title is a real and dangerous possibility. In 1989, while The Genius defeated then–WWE Champion Hulk Hogan by count-out and failed to win the title, he and Mr. Perfect instead stole the coveted prize and smashed it to pieces with a hammer. In 2005, JBL took things to a more volatile level, using explosives to destroy the spinner United States Title he stole from John Cena.

But not every Superstar bandit has stolen a title to destroy it. Some take “extra special” care of the championships. In the lead-up to their match at WrestleMania VI, Jake “The Snake” Roberts stole Ted DiBiase’s Million Dollar Championship and kept it somewhere for safekeeping … in the canvas sack with his python Damien.

And one of the most recent and well-known instances of a title being stolen was the infamous incident at the 2011 Money in the Bank pay-per-view, which saw The Second City Saint running out of Chicago’s Allstate Arena with an expiring contract and the treasured WWE Title.

So is the WWE Universe experiencing déjà vu? Could CM Punk possible destroy or damage The Rock’s WWE Title? Is the challenger just playing mind games with the champion? Or does Punk truly just want possession of “his” title at any cost? ( VOTE)

Tune-in Sunday, Feb. 17 when WWE Champion The Rock and CM Punk sort out their title troubles! ( HOW TO ORDER)