Posted in: Doctor's Orders
Doctor's Orders: The Truth About CM Punk's Promo
By Dr. CMV1
Jun 28, 2011 - 11:01:30 PM

It's been a twelve-hour day and I'm dog tired. I don't have the energy to proofread or check my work. This is raw and uncut, but it needs to be stated...

I love the Truth. Not R-Truth, even though he’s been doing good work for the last few months. I’m talking about pure, unadulterated TRUTH.

You want some truth?

CM Punk laid it out there for us all last night on Raw. In a wrestling world where the storylines can only be so interesting because the material can only push the limit ever so much, rarely do we get to see a cutting edge promo that makes you remember why you spend 52 weeks a year watching WWE programming. Frankly, I think it’s about as rare as once per decade that we get to watch a man deliver so much pent up (truthful) frustration that it instantly resonates with you and has you finding things in your own life (past or present) that can relate to it. From a purely wrestling perspective and regardless of what real life parallels I can draw from the guy that feels underappreciated despite his considerable efforts to show how good he is, Punk addressed – in his multi-minute diatribe - about 90% of what the IWC regularly gripes about. The damn promo was just brilliant in every conceivable way. What more could you want from an interview other than for it to simply be allowed to reach its natural conclusion. I want to hear more of that. I want to hear the story about Vince McMahon being a bully. I can’t quite picture it, Punk. I need the rest of that to complete the puzzle that you’ve created in my mind and make all the remaining pieces fit. In the meantime, I’ll just be sitting back here marveling at your ascension to one of the greatest talkers in the business’s history that will probably be forgotten because you didn’t stick around long enough to gain the longevity part of a lot of the “best of all-time” talk. Don’t worry; at that point when I decide to write a book about the best in the history of the WWE similar to the Bill Simmons masterpiece “The Book of Basketball,” I will make sure to dedicate an entire chapter to your unheralded and underappreciated excellence. I’ll make sure to include a footnote that talks about how I’m hoping that you’ll one day return after however long your hiatus from the WWE may be; you know, just in case you decide to come back.

Seriously…how awesome was that damn promo?

You know how you absolutely KNOW that something is good? It’s when you don’t watch it live and already know how good something is supposed to be and it somehow ends up every bit as good as everyone says it is. It’ll be something that stands the test of time like “Cane Dewey.” I awoke this morning at 6:50 AM and something told me I better go ahead and get up to see what I missed on Raw while watching a chick flick with my wife (pretty damn good one, at that – Love and Other Drugs). One site had the entire promo re-written in print. I knew it must have been good. I read about the controversy that the WWE pretended there was with Raw going off the air mid-sentence – then I read the Raw spoilers and realized what was up. I saw that everyone blanking loved Punk’s mic-work. I figured I had better go ahead and cue up the DVR…

Even the wife commented on the promo while she was getting ready for work. There were a few moments where even her still-being-trained wrestling wits were put to the test, as she muttered “Woah” to some of the things that Punk was saying. She knows who the boss’s daughter is and she knows who the “son-in-law” is, too. To hear a top guy like Punk, on live TV when he’s in the main-event of the upcoming PPV, refer to Vince McMahon’s family using such words as “stupid,” “doofus,” and “idiot” was quite a sight to see. To call out Vince himself on many of the boneheaded idiocies that have drawn the ire of the fans (and clearly the wrestlers) over the years was a nice touch, as well, but all the more utterly fascinating to witness. Talking about the “Yes Men” like John Laurinitis is something usually reserved for scorned ex-employees that left on bad terms or in wrestler biographies of superstars just grasping at straws to keep themselves relevant. It’s been parodied by Vince himself with the “Stooges” during the Attitude era, but no one really ever SAYS that stuff on TV. You can see it’s true by watching the product for twenty-three years; the huge reluctance to change and the repeating patterns from generation to generation/ era to era. Punk flat out stuck out it there for the world to see. Granted, not many people will really have paid that much mind to it in the long run, but the Chicago Made Man basically dropped the IWC Anthem for the next ten years. People will be talking about it a decade from now in some light. I’ll tell you one thing…I doubt anyone who saw it and has spent the last 10 years reading about the McMahons, Triple H, John Cena, Paul Heyman, and mis-or-under-used talent could ever forget that.

It was a promo of this caliber that planted the seeds for the Attitude era. It came at King of the Ring 1996 where, ironically, the guy who’s shirt CM Punk was sporting during his rant last night whipped a few guys and earned the right to bear the crown before uttering, “Austin 3:16 says I just whipped your ass!” Promos of that magnitude can have a significant effect on the wrestling landscape in the years that follow it. Things got real personal, really quickly in 1996 after that famous Stone Cold speech. I’m not suggesting that Punk’s promo will start a new era, but I’m simply stating that even the fact that it has some remote potential to make a long-term difference is hugely significant in putting that promo into perspective.

If he had said nothing else, you could not discredit the fact that he just exposed the WWE’s poster boy as what amounts to a VKM-created juggernaut like Hulk Hogan that really wasn’t even close to being that good but was given all the opportunities and could not have possibly failed. He even went as far as to say that he liked Cena; sort of like that son of a bitch in high school that is two years older than you and pretends to be nice to your face while secretly knowing that he could be screwing your hot dancer girlfriend if he just got the right opportunity. “I like you, but I’m a lot better than you. Deal with it!” I think even Punk knows that Cena is good – but to suggest that he’s better than Punk and not just a guy who has gotten far more chances to show what he can do is blasphemous. Right on, brother…

The Rock, earlier in the year, showed us what it was like for Cena to get bashed for his goofy behavior and his white meat babyface persona, but that was okay because Cena knows that it’s true. Does Cena know that CM Punk is better than him? Does he really understand that it’s not just the annoying internet geeks who sit around criticizing him and that we are not the only ones that don’t believe all the hype and that feel someone else should be at the top of the food chain not because they are bigger or fresher, but because they work just as hard as he does and are simply better than him? That one of his fellow wrestlers, who surely has a strong voice in the locker room, believes it, too? Punk’s thoughts about Cena have been echoed by fans from the IWC for years, seemingly going unheard by anyone that matters since we’ve seen nothing but more of the same stuff from Cena on repeat for the last half a decade.

As for the comment about Paul Heyman…well, it was if Punk was trying to piss off as many people as possible in what could’ve been his last promo on Raw for the foreseeable future. Heyman has long since been a name that you rarely hear mentioned on WWE TV; in large part due to his refusal to play the role of another rear-end smooching backstage glad hander. I will forever and always remain one of the biggest Heyman supporters of any mostly-WWE fan, as he was the head writer for the most excellent run of WWE TV shows that I have personally ever witnessed (the Smackdown Six era of 2002-2003). Heyman has been well known to have had an eye for talent and finding ways to allow their personalities to reach their most marketable forefront. Austin was unleashed in Heyman’s ECW. Heyman molded Lesnar into the greatest 2-year career in the history of pro-wrestling. He also, as Punk noted, discovered an untapped potential in Punk before CM got called up to the main WWE roster...then found a way to put him in position to be the diamond in the rough of the ECW reboot. Punk is perfectly reasonable in his vague assertion that – because Heyman was the one that saw something in – he was immediately vilified and looked down upon by association.

I think my favorite thing about what Punk had to say was the bit about the brass rings that Vince has created being really just a myth because he’s been able to yank every one of them down. Punk’s ability to see through the bullshit is perhaps his greatest asset and his greatest downfall in the WWE. It’s that knowledge and level of understanding that few others have that allows him to reach such heights as two-time winner of the Money in the Bank ladder match at Wrestlemania and the rare combination of title runs as both a heel and a babyface; it’s what has given him the ability to overcome the odds to face two of the top superstars of this current era (Rey Mysterio and Randy Orton) at consecutive Wrestlemanias. However, it is also that heightened sense of reality and awareness that has created for a man who goes against the grain and chooses not to play the game that often earns men the greatest heights in the sports entertainment industry, thus costing him the chance to achieve more. While that energy fuels him to be the best in the world right now on the microphone, in the ring, and even at commentary – he’s right, no one can touch his all-around versatility – it also costs him the opportunity to showcase that vast array of skills on the highest of levels for any length of time. His first run in the main-event was not really noteworthy; his second was phenomenal and he should’ve been given the chance to run with the title long past the feud with Undertaker (who should’ve put him over for business reasons – Punk was money waiting to be made); and this third and most recent stint has been as good as the second but it doesn’t look like it’ll ever reach the heights it could have. Without his mindset, he never could’ve achieved the heights he reached, but because of that mindset he never reached the apex of a man who possesses his skill set. A shame to be sure…

Truth and reality have always created some of the most memorable moments in wrestling, for yours truly. I thought it was Edge’s promos on Matt Hardy that were bathed in realism that finally gave him that extra nudge to put him en route to an 11-World Championship career. I thought it was Rock and Austin’s personal reactions to things, woven into accurate portrayals of sides of their personalities that make a lot of Attitude era TV moments special. Bret “finding the real” was what took him from being an average at best stick man and made him into the type that could perform a wildly engaging interview. Last night, Punk threw more reality our way in his promo than we may say for multiple years combined. The truth is that the only guy we know is capable of being that genuine and forthcoming is about to be gone.

In all truthfulness, that was a helluva way to start a farewell tour…