Reaction to: The CM Punk AOW Podcast

Hello! I wasn't planning on doing a blog on this topic, I listened to the Podcast at roughly 1-3pm UK Time, and I've started writing this at exactly 4:38pm- but in that hour and a half I couldn't stop thinking about it, so here we are. I'm probably in the unique (ish) situation where I understand where Punks coming from, I had to drop out of school because of health issues which I'll go into another time- and although I wasn't getting paid to go to school I understand that sometimes enough is enough, and when you're getting dicked around by the people in charge on top of your own health issues sometimes its best to get off the train. This podcast was interesting, and it'll be especially interesting when Austin has Vince on his Podcast next week and if they touch on this (which I highly doubt) and when they do the for want of a better term Q&A with Punk next week (I think they said Next Week). I've linked the full podcast below so feel free to listen to it as you read through this or just listen to it on your own time. I'm only going to touch on what I perceive to be the main points from this interview, at the end of the day I'm a British Based Mark I can't speak for how hard "the grind" is, or Punks psyche- but what I can do is talk about some of the points Punks raised in this Podcast and how that fits in the jigsaw puzzle the Internet has assembled since the day after the Rumble.

Triple H

This is the thing I took from this interview predominantly, in my opinion it was clear HHH never liked Punk- the fact he didn't put Punk over when he was white hot was Exhibit A and at the time it didn't make sense, and it still doesn't to this day. It was interesting he raised the Movie Pitch story, On the Internet in the last year there has been numerous people saying how Vince should retire and HHH should take over, firstly I wasn't in agreement with that in the first place because writing 1 Hour Episodes of NXT for a huge block of tapings once every three months is completely different to having final say on a 3 Hour RAW, 2 Hour Smackdown, 1 Hour Main Event and a 3 Hour PPV once a month- and after this interview I wonder if the reason HHH hasn't taken on yet more responsibility is Vince wants HHH to be Vince, or at least Vince-lite. I've had a similar scenario where I've been told I've been doing something and then not gotten it because of a variety of circumstances, however its not even close to the scale of getting offered a Film Role and getting time off (to an extent) which would've enabled him to heal up (to an extent), and that just isn't how you should do business in my opinion- but as I said I'm not a fly on the wall this is purely from my opinion. Thats the story that sticks in my head, but there are so many others he spoke about, and I'll let you either read it on the Dirtsheets or Listen to the Podcast to find those out. 

Ryback

This was one of the more interesting stories in my opinion, firstly I'm a Ryback fan- and I still am, and I'm not going to turn on him just because of whats been said. Firstly, Ryback was a very sloppy worker when he got his huge babyface push around Hell in a Cell- it doesn't surprise me that Punk got injured working with him, but I don't wholly blame Ryback for that, he wasn't ready. The "I'll owe you one" line was brought up numerous times during this interview and this was one of the times it was, however this feud didn't do either guys any favours- in fact the only people who did benefit from the Ryback v CM Punk 2012 Feud was The Shield (more later). So in doing this feud they not only pissed off Punk because he was in the ring with someone quite green, but it also halted Rybacks momentum to a point I'm not sure he'll ever get to the level he was at in the Autumn of 2012 again- and now he's a better worker, and can actually cut a half-decent promo he's more tooled up to actually grab the ball and run with it were the same scenario to come around now. Its not my place to say whether Ryback is juicing or not, and I'm not going to touch too much on this- all I'll say is after that story a few weeks ago about ways to get around the WWE Drug Testing policy there isn't smoke without fire. 

Vince McMahon

This is going to branch off into a number of different smaller topics, and it may be a bit disjointed- but there isn't a science to my blogging; I've got no plan on what I'm going to type I just kinda do. Firstly the Sponsors on the Fight Shorts; WWE is almost famous for its hypocrisy, however I think with this topic I do kind of understand it. Punk is a "wrestler" he's a "vanilla midget" he's "too small" so its understandable they'd have wanted him to stay in traditional trunks, and then when Lesnar came in he was a "UFC Guy" so I understand them wanting him to come in with Fight Shorts and Sponsors on his shorts to put over the "UFC" "Shoot Fighter" persona they wanted with Brock, and the way his match with Cena wasn't a "match" as much of a shoot with selling. Again with the Mayweather-HHH, Punk-Chael thing I do understand to an extent. HHH was off of TV (albeit with a "broken arm") whereas Punk was on TV and the Champion so they wouldn't have wanted him to be highly visible on a UFC Show. Also the UFC is the UFC and is the mecca for MMA, whereas there isn't a really an accepted Boxing "company" as much as different promoters so the associations will be looked at differently. The "someone will die in there" line was unintentionally hilarious in my opinion, and I think Vince honestly does think UFC is some kind of fight to death, and once they've thrown the Chicken Foot down they have to fight to death in Sona (Prison Break reference for you guys!). The HHH-Mayweather thing annoyed me more when Serena was fired for breaking kayfabe around the same time, but once again thats a story for another day. The Vince-Punk dynamic has been intriguing to me for a long time now, dating back to his "Pipebomb" Promo, which I've tried to avoid because I hate it when people throw that word about as often as they do/did. The fact Vince hugged him and was in tears when he announced he was leaving can be interpreted in a number of ways, I'd like to think it was genuine- however with the stories you've heard about Vince over the years you never know. This is an issue he brought up numerous times, and its interesting he made a point of not talking to people like Jericho who he thought had a hidden agenda- but as I've said I don't know Jericho I don't know what his personality is like, and its not my place to comment on it, I just thought it was an interesting point raised. The "fired on my wedding day" story is the reason I have doubts over whether Vince was genuinely upset or whether they were Crocodile Tears, because it showed how harsh Vince is, because that was a calculated, cold-hearted move in an attempt to get in his head and destroy what should have been a happy day. 

WWE Doctor/Health Issues

This was another interesting point raised, I'm not sure which Doctor he was referring to- but from what I can gather it was Doctor Amann who Jericho had on his Podcast a few weeks ago, Full circle eh? I'm not sure how to approach this, as with people like Dolph clearly being good friends with him and the injury issues he's had I'm not sure everything Punk said he did was necessarily his own medical opinion shall we say. I'd like to think WWE wouldn't jeopardise their workers, but we all know they would- as Punk said the only reason they've done what they have concussion prevention wise is because they don't want a Lawsuit in at least 9 Figures from Former/Current employees like the NFL have had to deal with. As I've said I've had health issues, and been misdiagnosed so you know what sometimes it happens, thankfully I've never had a Staph Infection- but again I understand how sometimes you can get incredibly frustrated when you know whats wrong with you, and you know you've been misdiagnosed. I don't believe any Doctor with any form of integrity would deliberately put anybody in potential mortal danger. The concussion or not during the Rumble was weird, and it showed they're still not entirely in favour of the concussion awareness with regard to accepting how a Wrestler is feeling as opposed to what a test says (again something I know quite a bit about), and "borderline" concussions can go untreated and I'm praying a load of borderline ones don't go unnoticed and we get another Benoit situation. 

The Shield

This was particularly interesting to me, because in the space of 24 Hours we had a Podcast with Rollins on Jericho's Podcast and then Punk on Cabanas, and they told different (to an extent) stories over the formation of The Shield- however because Rollins is under contract its hard to say whether he was treading the company line. If you were to believe Rollins, it was just sort of put together and they were brought in to be Punks Security Force one thing lead to another they were their own entity- which was probably better because if they were associated with Punk they'd have been fed to Punk around Wrestlemania 29 season most likely. If you take Punks version of events, the original idea was to have Rollins, Big Show & Bryan and then turned into Rollins, Ambrose and Ohno, and then that turned into Rollins, Ambrose and Reigns. The thing he said with regard to looking ahead and working with The Shield once he was done with Ryback/The Rock I'm not in agreement with just because- it'd have meant Punk going over on them because they needed him to look good enough for Undertaker (more after this section) so The Shield will have ended up losing a lot sooner than they did, and its hard to say how they'd have dealt with losing that early on in their career, and 3 Main Eventers may have gotten lost along the way. 

"Main Eventing" Wrestlemania

This is where I'm in Full agreement with Punk. Hindsight being 20/20 Miz shouldn't have been in the Main Event of Wrestlemania ever, but as Punk said they can never take that away from him. If my memory hasn't been completely done over by all these late nights and sleep deprivation the year Miz Main Evented was when Punk was the hottest heel in the company during the Straightedge Society run- and he could have arguably main evented it that year against Cena, then he went and became arguably the most relevant (mainstream) full-time wrestler since the Attitude Era, and he had his match with Jericho- which wasn't close to one of the main shows on the card despite the fact it was for the WWE Title. The next year was probably when Punk realised it simply wasn't meant to be. Rock v Cena 1 was pretty bad, despite the build to it, what is was simply wasn't enough to make up for what it wasn't. I'd have been in favour of a Triple Threat with Punk, just because he could have been the workhorse of the match with Cena and Rock could have had his flourishes and the match wouldn't have gone flat, something Rollins discusses on the Jericho Podcast about 6-Man tags. He also confirmed he'd have been wrestling Triple H, and that by association means the rumour about Bryan wrestling Sheamus was 99% going to happen. "You can't make a change sitting on your couch in Chicago" was somewhat of a creed for Punk since he re-signed in 2011, that was the quote his DVD opened with- however what Punk did in January was do just that.

This made me quite sad if I'm honest. Punk is a guy who DID love Pro Wrestling. He's always spoken about his love for the business, and in the numerous Q&A Panels he's done its clear in those he WAS a fan. However the fact his life in WWE has soured him this much to the sport of Pro Wrestling which pretty much everybody who reads this blog does, and we understand what its like to love Pro Wrestling its hard to imagine the level of disenchantment Punk underwent for him to completely hate Wrestling, and I just think its an incredibly sad story, and Punk will go down in history as the "what if" guy because of his exit from business, and he won't be remembered for his 400+ day Title reign as much as how he left and that just isn't right in my opinion. 

I also think this Podcast means the end of A.J. in the WWE- at least for the foreseeable future. Punk basically spent close to 2 Hours saying how petty and hypocritical the WWE is, so he wouldn't have done this Podcast knowing his wife is still with the company and of course wanting her to succeed he wouldn't have done this (or at least I wouldn't if I were Punk) knowing this would have gotten his wife completely buried, and I think seeing A.J. in a WWE Ring at the very latest past Wrestlemania 31 is incredibly unlikely.

Thanks for reading, as I said at the start I wasn't even planning on doing this- but as you can see by its length there was more than enough to talk about. As always any feedback is appreciated, this is more of an opinion based blog- and interpretations of whats been said so I'm more than open to have my opinion changed and I'm happy to hear others peoples opinions on either what Punks said, or what I've said. Thanks again for reading.