After making his WWE debut around 6 years ago CM Punk has achieved a lot. It’s not all been straight forward and he has had his fair share of ups and downs, but ultimately he has become one of the most popular WWE Superstars of recent time. Not even a year after making his debut he was caught up in a feud with Jonny Nitro (John Morrison) and a few short months later won his first ECW Championship. It wasn’t all plain sailing, but his career from this point spiralled upwards and into the Punk we see today.
Punk is a 7 time World Champion, having won the ROH World Championship and the ECW Championship once, WWE Championship twice, World Heavyweight Championship three times and has also been a Tag Team Champion and Intercontinental Champion. These accolades make him one of few men to become a WWE Triple Crown Champion. And he did it all so fast!
This year has been a significant year for CM Punk and we have seen him grow in popularity and wrestle some of the best matches of his life. After reclaiming the WWE Championship at last years Survivor Series he has seen some awesome action. The feud with Chris Jericho was brilliant. I always love it when Y2J returns, and to have such a worthy opponent in Punk was great TV. Jericho burst back onto our screens and almost immediately had the WWE Championship in his sights, attacking Punk and Bryan during a Champion v Champion match and claiming he was indeed the best in the world and Punk was nothing but a cheap imitation. The rivalry continued through Elimination Chamber and Punk kicked Jericho out of the chamber and he was unable to continue. The following night on Raw, Jericho earned his place at Wrestlemania to fight Punk for the WWE Championship. Y2J being a veteran had lots of cheap and nasty tactics up his sleeve to try and put Punk off his game before the big match. Outing Punk’s father as an alcoholic and claiming his sister was a drug addict to the WWE Universe. He poured been over Punk and smashed a bottle of JD on his head. This was the build up to one of the best matched I have seen in a long time. Their match at Wrestlemania 28 was awesome. Somewhat overshadowed by Cena / Rock and Taker / Triple H but it was a great watch. This match was easily better than the main event. Punk is used to not making the main event, always overshadowed by Super Cena. He still gives his all and puts of a great show! As Punk has proven many times over, you don’t have to be on last to be the main event. Punk retained his title at Wrestlemania and a tweet from Jericho proclaimed that it was over. He vowed to not bother himself with Punk and his attempts at regaining the WWE Championship. But it was nowhere near over… Jericho attacked Punk several more times before their bitter rivalry culminated in a Chicago Street Fight at Extreme Rules. Again this was an awesome match. We had great moves, weapons and Punk’s sister slapping Chris Jericho right in the chops! Punk beat Jericho, retained the title and that was that.
Punk renewed his old feud with Daniel Bryan at Over the Limit. Punk retained his title at this PPV but footage of him tapping out moments after the match ended left a bitter taste in the mouth of old Goat Face. I love this feud! Some of Punk’s best matches have been against Daniel Bryan. Add AJ and Kane into the mix and it’s heading for disaster! The Punk / Bryan / Kane angle would come to a head at No Way Out. A triple threat match where Punk retained his title due to AJ distracting Kane. He again retained the title at MITB against Bryan. All were great matches and I was sorry when this particular feud came to an end. The AJ angle still comes back to haunt Punk from time to time, after all hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. And I’m guessing that getting a proposal knocked back in front of millions of fans would leave a woman pretty scorned to say the least!
The Rock announced at Raw 1000 that he would be at this year’s Royal Rumble and would take on the current WWE Champion at that time in a title match. This did not sit well with Punk. It was this that started the whole ‘respect the champion’ angle we are seeing so much of lately.
And on to John Cena, Jerry Lawler and a lack of respect. Here comes super heel Punk. On Raw 1000 Punk defended his title against John Cena. Cena had given Punk a weeks’ notice of him cashing in his MITB contract. After interference from Big Show Cena lost by DQ. Punk failed to help Cena who was getting the crap beat out of him by Captain Stretchmarks so The Rock ran down to the ring to aid the man he beat in the biggest match of his life at Wrestlemania. After saving Cena from a sweaty Big Show the most electrifying man in sports entertainment found himself on the receiving end of a GTS from the Champion. And so the decent into super heel began…
After disrupting a Cena / Show contender’s match he found himself in a ridiculous triple threat match at SummerSlam. This match was as shocking as I expected it to be! Rightfully so, the Championship did not change hands in such a stupid manner and we can return to the proper feud brewing between Cena and Punk.
Punk claimed he was sick of people overshadowing him, and that he, the WWE Champion should be the main focus of every Monday night Raw. He is right to an extent. Rarely are his matches the main event. Cena takes that spot, and with him never having time off, he’s always there to fill it. After making a comment about Punk turning his back on the WWE Universe, Jerry Lawler found himself on the receiving end of Punk’s rage. To me there is nothing more boring than a wrestler / commentator rivalry, that being said, The King is no ordinary commentator. After being kicked in the head and constantly ridiculed Lawler agreed to fight Punk in a steel cage match. As expected Lawler was beaten. Surprisingly this wasn’t a bad match; I quite enjoyed it to be honest. After the match Punk went on to lock Lawler in the cage and continued to beat the living crap out of him. Cena ran down to ringside and intervened. Punk was now almost at super heel status!
His reign of terror continued this week on Raw, attacking Lawler again back stage, walking out of a fight with Sheamus in his hometown of Chicago and making an unnerving alliance with Paul Heyman. My son now hates CM Punk, once one of his favourites; he won’t even play with the action figure anymore. The boos from the crowd and all the criticism from the small minded percentage of the WWE Universe only go to show that CM Punk is one of the biggest heels we have seen in recent time, and he is doing a damn fine job of it! What people sometimes fail to realise is, if you hate him, he’s doing exactly what he should be doing, and he’s doing it well. Punk has never really been ‘face’ so to see him turn into absolute heel shouldn’t come as a massive shock to the system. He has always been arrogant, rude, self centred and king of the pipe bomb. He has just stepped it up a notch.
I cannot wait for night of Champions. As a Cena fan I always hope to see my man prevail, however, I NEED to see Punk Vs Rock, because that would be main event and then some!
As always you can follow me on Twitter @helenrobinson82
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A disappointing read. More of a neutral history lesson than an article based on opinion. Looking at the title, I was hoping for more of an edgy article based on the evolution of ‘sports-entertainment’ since Punk has emerged as a prominent face in WWE, as well as the reasons why. The information read here could have simply been found on his Wikipedia page.
I also find it extremely odd that Punk’s period as a commentator whilst injured has not been mentioned here. This period as well as his feud with Jeff Hardy and stints as leader of Nexus and The Straight Edge Society are the REAL moments in his WWE career which got him noticed as not only a great wrestler, but a charismatic mic-worker who could work brilliantly as both face, heel and anti-heel. These moments are truly what prepared him for long-term stardom.
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Thank you for taking the time to leave your feedback 🙂
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Well, Punk is a Paul Heyman guy.
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Reblogged this on MMA, Wrestling, Comic and Gaming News.
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I just find it sad how far Punk fans are willing to go to defend him and say he’s the face. My dad doesn’t watch wrestling much aty all caught RAW last week and talked to me about it. I mentioned the backstory, how many smarks were still cheering for him and he couldn’t believe it. Even he, a guy that just happened to turn it on, was able to tell who was the bad guy and who was the good guy.
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The thing is as I mentioned below, times have drastically changed. 20 years ago there would have been a clear banding behind the face and true hatred for the heel. That just isnt the case anymore, fans are more particular and when they see something they prefer to hang on to it.
Fans stick to Punk because they are sick of Cena’s shit, Fans back the likes of Lesnar because they are intrigued by his return and enjoy the swerve of the natural wrestling match he has to off and again, he’s different as opposed to say the usual triple h drivel.
Wrestling has hit that block, young new fans and older fans will still follow the heel/face formula but many will feel they need to choose their own following.
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That’s why I can see the face/heel dynamic going away over time. It’s meaning less and les. What’s the point of turning heel when a certain amount of fans are going to defend you no matter what you do?
They are in Canada for RAW this week and Bret is supposed to be there. Punk could beat Bret up, causing a legit stroke and he would still get cheered by a fairly large amount of fans.
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I see Dave’s point, perhaps you change the name of the column, slightly? I’m not complaining BTW because you wrote it well and highlighted just how important Punk is to WWE.
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A good breakdown of Punks accomplishments over the years, where he’s excelled and made his more recent breakthroughs.
To me Punk just carries this Aura that he is the best ‘Wrestler’ of today. Had this been 20 years ago Punk would be the number guy. I find him more appealing than JC and know that he can always draw the fans for some form of suprise. A champion that finally carries himself as a Champion.
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I’m waiting for him to come out to “Respect” by Aretha Franklin.
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i dont see any other good sports enetneainmtrt company like nfl, nhl, mlb, ect give this much to the people who give their lives and family for our safety, and i don\’t know any company who has given as much to grant wishes for the poor, needy, and desabledand for that we thank you WWE
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