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It's probably best to wait to see what it looks like on air, but I read it more as giving Cena extra motivation to make sure Punk doesn't leave with the belt since it was Cena going to bat for him to Vince. That wouldn't necessarily mean the focus was off of Punk.

The interesting thing about Punk's promo compared to the other two famous worked shoots is how personal this one is. The other two were more or less "sports entertainment sucks, wrestling 4 life", while Punk was calling the head of talent relations a douchebag and referring to Vince's idiot daughter and doofus son in law. Not to mention you have an actual wrestler doing the promo instead of an announcer or in Heyman's case an announcer/former promoter. All three of course were designed to perk the interest of the longtime fans who feel the current product no longer speaks to them, but there was something about Punk more or less calmly stating that he knows that WWE is all bullshit that seemed more genuine than Styles or Heyman screaming over stuff. The spoilers for the second show weren't too bad. I mean, if we're going to go on the assumption that the angle is that Punk's promo was a shoot, then of course Vince/WWE would suspend him since that's what you'd expect the "real" reaction to be. I don't like the addition of the extra stipulation on Cena, but considering I don't expect it to come into play it shouldn't be that big of a deal.

The best part of that promo may have been him wearing a Stone Cold shirt while doing it.

Giving someone the Benoit treatment as part of an angle is fucking fantastic (not being sarcastic here). They should start showing clips from previous RAWs and have the audio mute when anyone says "CM Punk".

I guess getting blamed for the Sin Cara match put Chavo over the edge, which is understandable since their reasoning seemed to be little more than "hey, he's a Mexican guy, he should be able to work lucha style" without seeming to realize/remember he's spent his entire career in US feds. I wonder what kind of terms came with his release, since as stated he knows where a lot of bodies are buried. I also wonder if the humiliation stuff with Vickie will get worse now.

Back to more twitter fun: Retweeting re: NY state voting to legalize gay marriage: (from reading his tweets I'm not surprised he's in favor, but he's also been in pro wrestling a long time and we all know it's not the most progressive industry in the world) In reply to a fan not sad to see him leaving WWE (and indeed has a profile pic showing off her fat triceps) Re: the Hulk vs Warrior shoot video fight, and getting a zing in on Hulkster:

I'd be fine with that as long as "casual" didn't end up being used like the n-word like it tends to in some gaming circles.

I think people are getting hung up on the word "community". When most people use the term "IWC" it usually is a blanket term for people on the internet who follow behind the scenes stuff and maybe (but not always) have a WON or Torch sub. Someone who only visits WWE.com or likes them on Facebook certainly wouldn't be in that group. If anything, perhaps there needs to be a revamp of terminology to come up with a term for that type, like how gaming has "hardcore" and "casual" groups.

I can't look at him without thinking of the quote someone (Loss?) here came up with where his "angry" face looks like he always has to poop.

Alvarez has been beating the drum for a while now that WWE is largely getting a pass for everything because TNA is there to set the bar for terrible wrestling impossibly high. His argument is that people would be ripping Vince/WWE left and right if they were the only game in town. I don't completely disagree, but WWF was doing some awful stuff at times in 1999-2001 while WCW was at its very worst and was still getting called on it.

The story at the time was that Shane left because he saw the writing on the wall that Steph and Hunter were the new Heirs Apparent and he was going to get squeezed out. Didn't he want to re-enact Vince's WM3 intro at WM 23 only to have Steph veto it? Seemed like he wasn't as enthusiastic towards the company after that.

What was the deal with that show, I remember watching it when it happened thinking this company is just pulling some bizarre Andy Kaufman type shit on everyone.

I lol'd: Punk and Austin take their little exchange from Raw to Twitter:

I think the foodstamp story is a little overblown because Jesse Neal was hurt and out for a while, and in TNA if you don't work you don't get paid. Now that still is scummy for a company trying to make itself the better option to WWE for fans and wrestlers alike, but people are making it sound like his base pay qualified them for welfare.

Hindsight is 20/20 and all, but to be fair there was absolutely no reason to believe things wouldn't work out the way people expected at the time. Hell, it was amazing Umaga was able to make the Umaga character work as well as he did. I'm not sure Joe could have pulled off the "savage" gimmick as well. Also you could play Devil's Advocate and argue that leading a stable of nobodies and having your wins overshadowed by R-Truth and his Little Jimmy of the week isn't that far from being a JTTS.

South Park said it best, You're Getting Older. *plays Landslide*

TNA doesn't even call itself TNA anymore, it's IMPACT! Wrestling.

Considering the amount of women wrestlers he's gone through, I wonder what the Straight Edge stand is on penicillin.

Nothing takes me out of something WWE is trying to do faster than a guy who's obviously concentrating extremely hard to make sure they remember every word of their promo correctly. It's funny sometimes, seeing someone who's supposed to be upset/enraged and they are yelling at someone with that over enunciated diction one tends to have when reciting a large piece of memorized speech. No one would talk like that in a real life situation, if you're pissed you stumble over words sometimes. A related issue would be after said promo (whether if it was done convincingly or not), there's always that awkward Telanovela-esque long stare into space while the camera holds on the scene well past the point of a normal end of a conversation. Nothing conveys SERIOUS PRO WRES WRITING like an idiot staring into space like my dog wondering where the ball went that I faked throwing to her. I guess my biggest thing is that everyone involved with the creative side at some point seems to forget the Keep It Simple, Stupid principle. While WWE gets singled out for this a lot (and they do it a lot), pretty much every wrestling company seems to have a period where they forget the best wrestling draws from the same root it always does: two (or more) people have an issue to settle and fight until that conflict is solved. Obviously a lot of real life issues have been turned into major angles through the years, and for good reason. Storylines drawn from someone's real background or from something anyone can relate to are the ones who garner the most interest.

Yeah, Punk's hardly being ungrateful to the fans to point out that sitting in the dentist chair isn't the proper time for a meet and greet. Back to the topic at hand: If anyone is wondering, he is Twitter friends with Jim Ross so that may have been a rib on Punk's part. His ongoing Twitter feud with Maryse: The tweet mentioned before about tassels:

Also this:

For those who don't follow CM Punk on twitter, here's a sample of some of what you're missing He went to the dentist and hilarity ensued: Haley Williams, lead singer of the group Paramore and an apparent IRL friend of his replies:

I don't know if that was directed at my comments on blown lucha spots, but even if it wasn't I feel the need to clarify. High flying lucha is what I tend to have issue with. Heavyweight style lucha is one of my favorite styles to watch, but the high flyer guys just kill me with how they tend to turn every match into a "can you top this" contest. Dives are cool, flippy spots are cool, but like I said before I prefer wrestling of any style or origin to at least have the pretense of two guys engaging in an athletic contest rather than an Olympic floor exercise.

Art Barr's obit talked about his statutory rape issue and his issues. Curt Hennig's had some stuff that was unflattering, though perhaps Dave thought they were "wrestling stories" that he could run with. The Pillman piece was pretty brutal. That Savage didn't go back was a topic Dave covered. He's talked about it on his boards, and on his radio show. But he's unwilling to put it in the WON. John He's said some unflattering things about Flair (in a story that was as much an obit on his career as he's done on guys who've actually died), and that's one of his friends and heroes, so him being so unwilling to answer the one question his readers have to be asking him the most makes no sense. It's one thing if he doesn't know (and it's impossible to think someone in his position wouldn't know), it's another that he hints that he does know but won't tell out of some strange sense of decency.

To me, blown spots aren't always a bad thing. I mean, things don't always go according to plan all the time so the occasional screw up is understandable. It's when a botch reveals way too much co-operation that takes me out of a match. I like lucha a lot, but there's a lot of those kind of blown spots going on in those matches. Hell, even a lot of spots that go according to plan reveal too much co-operation. Wrestling at least should look like two guys trying to win a match, not a tryout for "So You Think You Can Dance".