Hey Scott,
Ended up down the Youtube rabbit hole the other day re-watching the keypoints from the Summer/Fall of Punk. Still amazed at how something with such an amazing start ended up turning into such a clusterfuck. (The WALKOUT!) But looking back on what we'd all agree was a botched opportunity, I ask: what should they have done?
The angle as I see it had a major structural flaw, which is that we all wanted Punk to be the new babyface megastar, but how does he do that as the guy who is walking out on the company? It was a tricky situation in that Punk needed to stay out longer to maintain his cred/aura, but at the same time it would have portrayed him as a guy who didn't want to fight. And our dream scenario of Punk defending the title in ROH, or creating some kind of ROH invasion, was just never going to happen and would have been a logistical nightmare to pull off on WWE TV anyway.
The other giant problem is that upon his return, Punk didn't have that corporate megaheel to feud with. Alberto was nowhere near over enough to mean anything. Cena (the obvious choice) was not going to turn heel on account of merchandising/sick kids/ The Rock match. And Triple H, who as a full-on actual HEEL could have taken Punk to another level, was not going to forego the Taker "End of an Era" match in order to play the Vince role and put Punk over.
At least they salvaged it to the degree that Punk has obviously become a top star, but in retrospect it seems that there were too many limitations for it to have been the revolutionary angle we had hoped for.
Thoughts?
Thanks,
-Pat
I think for me the main problem was the hotshotting of everything at once on that RAW, ala the Invasion. In only two shows you had Vince declaring the title vacant, announcing a tournament, Rey winning the tournament, and then John Cena beating Rey in the SAME SHOW to win the title back and reset everything. Especially given that the belt was going to end up with ADR at the end of Summerslam anyway, it was all a lot of needless machinations and title changes for no payoff. Why not do the tournament final or semi-finals and finals at Summerslam? Or the Rey-Cena match there? That way Punk can take a few weeks off (not the months people seemed to think he should have taken, but certainly not just the one week he did take either) and return to challenge the champion at the end of Summerslam as the big payoff there. Then you have your champion v. champion match for NIGHT OF CHAMPIONS (what a concept, I know).
Of course, fantasy booking is self-indulgent tripe and we are lesser people for engaging in it.
I always thought it would have been fun for Christian to run around bragging about being the only World Champion left in the WWE. That of course puts a huge target on his back and he has to keep dodging Cena, Orton, Bryan cashing in etc etc. The promos from Christian would have been pretty funny.
ReplyDeleteCena vs. Rey at Summerslam would have been great, it probably would have been Rey's last real chance at having a super-over main event program. Even though some people in our demographic don't really see Rey as being on that caliber he's insanely over with kids and Cena vs. Rey could have been a Hogan/Warrior scenario for them.
ReplyDelete"Of course, fantasy booking is self-indulgent tripe and we are lesser people for engaging in it."
ReplyDeleteVery nice.
I can't believe they didn't put that on PPV. Would still love to seem them get 20 minutes. Even with Rey's injuries, they could still probably hit ****.
ReplyDeleteRupert Everett and Nathan Lane agree.
ReplyDeleteAbout fantasy booking benig tripe, that is.
I'm just chuckling at your "gay celebrity" references being from about 1995 or so.
ReplyDeleteCouldn't agree more on the hot shotting of the title. Rey/Cena should have been Summerslam, with Punk promising to appear on social media the whole time. ADR either shouldn't have been involved, or they should have went full 'JBL title reign' on him and not just given up after a month or two.
ReplyDeleteThey also rushed the whole HHH taking over thing after summerslam. They made a big deal about Vince stepping down, HHH was the new Vince, and a month later he was gone and in came Johnny Ace. I guess this was all dude to Nash being unable to compete? Who cares, they could have done a non-match, or had Nash as Punk's 'outsider' accomplice rather than his nemesis.
The match that we got out of them on RAW wasn't far from that anyways, I remember really enjoying it and being impressed with Cena. Cena deviates from his superman-face formula so rarely that on the occasions he goes to a different style of match, it looks fresh and feels so dramatically different.
ReplyDeleteHoly cannoli, Scott's inbox is legit backed up as I sent this email months ago. Like, back in a time when Russo booked TNA, AJ Lee was in maybe one segment per week, and PEOPLE POWER reigned supreme. The good ol' days.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, what I was trying to get at in this overlong missive was that: A) Punk needed to come out of this a face, because that's what the people wanted, but B) There were no strong heels for him to main event against when he came back.
The only angles I could have seen working to REALLY get over would have been to turn Triple H and/or Cena heel, and align them with Vince. Do you guys think that should have been the move?
Not that I want anyone to engage in any (sexual orientation non-specific) fantasy booking.
I think Scott's response nailed it for the most part.
ReplyDeleteHe's the hottest act in wrestling so you can't keep him out for more than a month or two.
Unless you're willing to turn Cena there's no long term feud for Punk among the normal roster guys to play against and even without turning Cena we got 3 matches out of them which was probably the exact right amount.
Their only real choice was sacrificing HHH to him and it looked like they were maybe getting around to that and then Nash happened and HHH happened and that was the end of that. Even if HHH had done the right thing and laid down to him in that TNA main event style match it wouldn't have changed much, the horse was already out of the barn by that point.
A big problem was they took Vince McMahon off TV and (temporarily) stripped him of his power the night after MITB. I agree with the writer of the email that Punk needed a strong corporate heel to feud with, and though ideally Cena was the man for the job I completely understand why they didn't want to turn him at that point. However bringing in HHH as the COO as a face/firing Vince thus making the fans feel bad for him and cheer for him while he cried in the ring was confusing. Really big mistake; Vince endorsing Del Rio as his corporate champion to feud with Punk would have worked, and been reminiscent of the beginning of Austin's first title reign. Mick Foley was NOT a main eventer at that point, and had just turned heel (he was a face at WM14 where Austin won the title), it was pairing him with Vince that did the trick b/c the real top heel at the time was Vince McMahon. The CM Punk storyline kinda need Vinnie Mac
ReplyDeleteMatt Bomer & Jim Parsons?
ReplyDeleteIt kind of defeats the purpose of having two world titles to begin win when you have that scenario staring you right in the face and you don't take advantage of it.
ReplyDeleteI may be the only one but I still would have liked to see Punk/Nash.
ReplyDeleteSay what you will, but it got me watching again on a semi-regular basis.
ReplyDeleteI think not having Kevin Nash involved would have helped A LOT.
ReplyDeleteHis whole involvement was just a cluster-mess (PG). From his texts to himself, to his motivations, to his getting "What"-ed by the crowds. His smart-ass personality was too similar to Punk's to really click. The only redeeming factor was his "you look like a Waffle House cook" line. HHH could have delivered that one, though.
I would have loved to have seen more Punk social media videos travelling around with the belt to various places before his return. That way he's still away, yet still on TV.
Like Hogan and Bischoff's strategy on taking on the WWE in 2010, I am forever stuck in the 1990s, brother.
ReplyDeleteI thought this was gonna be about Owen.
ReplyDeleteAlso I kind of understand how the whole thing turned into a clusterfuck what with creative not even expecting Punk to be around in the Summer and them having to pull Nash out of the match for whatever reason. But yeah they should have had Rey/Cena for the "new" WWE title at Summerslam then had the unification match with Punk at NoCs.
ReplyDeleteTheir match on Raw was great and totally ppv worthy.
ReplyDeleteFantasy Booking has now been downgraded to "self-indulgent tripe".
ReplyDeleteFolks 22 hours ago, it was at "gay" but now it has been downgraded to "self-indulgent tripe"
Arm-chair weather men figured the comment was gonna cause a shit-storm, but the recent downgrade has taken a turn for the better. Folks, I can assure you, you can rest easy knowing fantasy booking is now "self-indulgent tripe"
Jesse Baker, Back to you!
I give Rey shit for everything but he knows how to work.
ReplyDeleteCena/Mysterio would rock.
Mysterio/Taker rocked at RR 09.
You mean RR 2010. I should know I was there. And yes it was a fantastic match.
ReplyDeleteHaha I just realized the one angle where whoring out Twitter and Facebook would have actually made sense for WWE and they whiffed completely on it.
ReplyDeletePunk tweeting the picture of the title belt in his fridge went viral in about 30 minutes. His "leaked" video of telling off HHH at Comic-Con, same thing. They couldn't have found 4 weeks of material out of that???
Punk should have stayed heel, plain and simple.
ReplyDeleteI'm still dumbfounded by their idiocy of blowing Rey/Cena as an unannounced Raw main event. Instead of building to a huge moment of your two top faces for the younger fans facing off for the first time ever, they piss it away. That's a match that could easily work on any of the big four PPVs if they ever wanted it to.
ReplyDeleteFor a variety of reasons, this would never have happened, but here's how I would've liked to see it work out.
ReplyDeletePunk beats Cena and leaves with the title. The next night, Cena is presented with the WWE Championship as if nothing happened. It's business as usual in the WWE Universe and John Cena attempts to over-come the odds of various meanies who lack hustle, loyalty and respect. Punk shows up from time to time just to show he's still around and considers himself the true WWE Champion. Finally he comes back, faces Cena, Triple H returns to cost Punk the match, Cena is the undisputed champion...then the next night Triple H gives gives Cena one of his classic "respecting this business" talks about how important the WWE title is and how Cena blew it by allowing Punk to leave with it. He doesn't deserve to hold the title, let everyone down, and he (HHH) had to make sure Cena didn't blow it again...so this can lead to various three ways and such, but the gist of it is that HHH eventually takes the title from Cena, Punk stands up to HHH and calls him out on his "this business" non-sense and wins the title from him at WM. Obviously you have to fit Del Rio's title reign in there because God forbid that not happen.
They have such a hard on for Twitter and social media and trending and it was RIGHT THERE with Punk leaving with the title. You had the Youtube video of him at Comicon, they could've done TONS of these. And I don't see any reason Punk couldn't have done a title defense on a ROH show. ROH woulda killed to have Punk back for a night, even if one of their guys had to take a loss.
ReplyDeleteMake it so that people would WANT to go online to find out about Punk's exploits.
Also, HHH should have turned heel and they should have realized what they had and abandoned the Del Rio push instead of shoehorning it in. Either that or have Cena vs Rey for the "new" title at Summerslam, ADR beats the winner and then Punks ADR for the new belt and drives Vince even crazier.
Punk should have been held out until Summerslam, where Cena could have won back the title from whoever. Then do a best of 3/5/7 series over the three shitty pay-per-views no one watches (Night of Champions, Hell in the Cell, Vengeance?) to settle the dispute over who the real champion is.
ReplyDeleteThen once Punk is crowned as true champion after that grueling series, Del Rio cashes in his briefcase. Punk is a more sympathic face and Del Rio is a bigger heel. Then Punk can chase him to Mania.
Well, there's no doubt that fall could have been prevented.
ReplyDeleteWell the first promo between the two of them was certainly something. I don't know how good of a match it would have been, but it would have been interesting.
ReplyDeleteNo shit.
ReplyDeleteWhat I would have liked to see wouldn't have been feasible since Punk was so hot last year but anyway, let the self-indulgent tripe begin!
ReplyDeletePunk goes away, takes the time off he was talking about wanting. He can do the barnstorming tour with the real title around ROH, Japan, Cubs games, wherever. Eventually, the videos just stop and WWE just acts as if Cena's title (or whoever had it at that time) was the real title.
The WWE Title match goes on last at Mania (not feasible unless The Rock or Cena had it, I know but bear with me since this is all fantasy anyway). They have the match and someone wins and is standing in the ring celebrating. Then, Punk comes out with the new video, the new song, and with the real WWE title and does the same as he did when he came back on RAW last year, holding up the title and facing off with the interim Champion in the ring.
This way, Punk gets the time off he wanted and can heal up any nagging injuries he may have had as well. Also, since more people buy WrestleMania than any other PPV, you bring Punk back in front of the biggest audience of the year and expose him to the casual fans who only buy Mania and maybe entice them to tune in to RAW the next night to find out what happens next.
Yeah, I know there's no way they would have kept Punk out that long but I figured I may as well get this out of my brain as it's been up there for awhile and I'd rather delete it to make room for something more important.
/Sherlock
I think the big-picture problem with the Punk angle was that beyond just the wrestling angle stuff, the CM Punk character was essentially proposing that the company should change the way it does business. So his return or reign as champ would, theoretically, herald those changes. Of course, that didn't happen since WWE doesn't recognize that it needs changing, and thus overall Punk's promise of a new era fell flat.
ReplyDeleteTo everyone who says they couldn't have kept Punk off TV for long - think how long WCW kept Sting off when he was chasing Hogan in 1997. The business hasn't changed that much since then that it wouldn't work. Arguably its easier now since there is YouTube and Twitter so Punk can be kept visible without him even needing to be on live TV.
ReplyDeleteA properly booked Cena vs Rey fued plus (say) HHH vs ADR could have carried Raw through to Summerslam while Punk went walk about through RoH and Japan.
Then you do belt vs belt unification match at the next PPV against either Cena or Rey (as a kid friendly face champion against Punk (acting as a dickish heel). You blow the first match off withloads of interference. The loser cries foul and demands a re-match under street fight rules which ends in an even bigger CF. So it HAS to be settled in Hell in a Cell with no outside interference.
If you really want to mix things up you take a month out for Survivor Series have Punk's team and the face team do a five on five traditional Survivor Series match and save the blow off for the December PPV. At the end of the series Punk settles in for a nice run as heel champ through to Wrestlemania.
If you want to keep Punk away from actually wrestling at Royal Rumble and Eliminartion Chamber (to avoid over expsosure) there is no problem as those PPVs sell themselves without a titel defence and he is diskish heel anyway so he pulls some stunt to avoid wrestling at them. Thus just makes the fans want to see him getting his ass kicked even more.
Whichever of Rey or Cena wasn't in the Autumn fued against Punk wins the Rumble and sets up a Wrestlemania match where the face goes over Punk to send the crowd home happy.
Cena vs Rey, Rey vs Punk, then Cena vs Punk could have carried the Fed through most of a year and what's best is that none those combinations had been seen by the fans before.
Rey/Cena for the title at Summerslam after Rey won the tournament would have been money. It was a hug match that hadn't been seen in the main event, and would have given Rey at least a one month reign rather than a one day reign. And you end Summerslam with Punk coming out with the real title.
ReplyDeleteInstead, Cena beats an already weakened Rey for the title, no one calls him out on it, despite a month later he's freaking out on Del Rio for basically doing the same thing.