I wasn’t watching back when Punk was in WWE the first time. I heard about him when I got back into it. A friend who was a huge fan got me to watch the pipe bomb. I understood he was a big deal to a lot of people. He wasn’t really what I expected once he returned to wrestling. It’s been an odd experience.
This is me 100% I got back into wrestling with aew, I viewed it as an easy jumping back in point and it was great fun for a while.
The fans after Punk were the worst though, I will die on the hill that on average crowds were filling with more assholes and people trying to get 4 seconds of clout on Twitter rather than actually enjoying what they paid for.
Yeah there are definitely 2 distinct contingents to me that he hit.
I stopped watching because it was boring and so samey probably around 2010. The pipebomb makes way more sense if you were around for the dead period in the preceding years because he truly did feel like the voice of the voiceless. Of course they didn't really listen and tried repeatedly to ignore Daniel Bryan years later
More recently, AEW got early success because it was different from WWE and from what I can see now. Some people actually do like a different product/feel and some people really just wanted WWE to be better which it has been since Hhh took over
As another lapsed fan, this kinda sums up my thoughts:
Everyone hyped up Bryan Danielson and they were absolutely right.
Everyone hyped up Jon Moxley and they were absolutely right.
Everyone hyped up Kenny Omega and they were absolutely right.
Everyone hyped up CM Punk and they were absolutely wrong.
He's great on the mic, I'll give him that, but wrestling-wise and even story-wise (that dumbass bit with Ace Steel he did in Chicago was rough) just don't hit the mark for me.
IMHO, you have to divide Punk’s AEW run in two: pre-Hangman and post-Hangman. Pre-Hangman, he was having great matches and great angles (the feud with MJF alone was worth every penny he made). Post-Hangman, he was a mess in the ring and constantly trying to piece together his shattered ego outside of it.
It’s amazing how Hangman managed to completely ruin that man with just one promo. It speaks to just how utterly fragile he really is.
Yeah, I felt some of his matches against the more athletic similarly sized people werent it for me. It felt like they had to slow down to let him style on them specifically because he's "Best in the World"
He was always a Hogan rather than an Okada if you judging his in ring work vs. his mic work at his absolute peak.
Hogan was only ever so so in the ring when adjusted for the time in US wrestling but his mic work was something else. To deny Hogan as a draw is madness, shit on his ring work or him as a person but not as a draw.
Punk’s contemporaries such as Joe, Bryan, etc. were all better in the ring, but the other way around when on the mic in WWE.
His anti-establishment schtick that was perfect for then in WWE doesn’t work on AEW when AEWs selling point is that it’s anti establishment.
True. If he never came back, then he’d be one of the biggest what ifs in wrestling history. The one who got away. The one everyone wants to see in dream matches.
He came back, and now he’s just another carny bastard.
Add comment