Punk Walks Out of WWE

[kjh]

I was half expecting Paul Heyman to bring Ricky Ortiz out.

[kjh]

No Punk tonight, I guess the opening was to tease it so the crowd wouldn't turn on the whole show.

[Strummer]

I guess he really is gone

[goodhelmet]

It kind of makes all of the "selfish bastard who gets a free pass into the main event" posts seem silly.

[cm funk]

I'm glad he didn't come back

 

That show was pretty surreal to watch. It was very well booked by WWE. They gave that crowd the best show they possibly could. Probably the best booked RAW in a while. A tag title change.....another great Shield-Wyatts match with a huge angle involving Rollins and great performaces from all of the Shield guys.....Daniel Bryan vs. Batista on free tv with a great angle.....what more can the crowd want? They are completely on top of and aware of the crowd reactions right now. Hopefully the audience will stop chanting for Punk now.

 

I thought Bryan and HHH and Cena all played off of the crowd really well

 

Now, if they held Punk off of the Chicago show to troll the audience further, I will give them even bigger props, because that would be an epic level of trolling the audience

[Mini Bennett]

As the great Twitter Punk once said:

 

https://twitter.com/iamlordbennett/status/259775717632520192

[goodhelmet]

I'm glad he didn't come back

 

That show was pretty surreal to watch. It was very well booked by WWE. They gave that crowd the best show they possibly could. Probably the best booked RAW in a while. A tag title change.....another great Shield-Wyatts match with a huge angle involving Rollins and great performaces from all of the Shield guys.....Daniel Bryan vs. Batista on free tv with a great angle.....what more can the crowd want? They are completely on top of and aware of the crowd reactions right now. Hopefully the audience will stop chanting for Punk now.

 

I thought Bryan and HHH and Cena all played off of the crowd really well

 

Now, if they held Punk off of the Chicago show to troll the audience further, I will give them even bigger props, because that would be an epic level of trolling the audience

 

The biggest concern for WWE is turning these rabid crowds into apathetic crowds.

[Bix]

As the great Twitter Punk once said:https://twitter.com/iamlordbennett/status/259775717632520192

Ok then?

[KrisZ]

Some notes from Chico

 

 

 

-- And yes, it was pitched at some point to have Barrett come out and say he had some BAD NEWS -- CM Punk is not here tonight.

 

 

 

-- If you listened to yesterday's Figure Four Daily call-in show, I was surprised that there was so much negativity directed at Punk and his potential return. As it turns out, on the WWE side, despite the crowd reactions in Chicago on Raw, the vast majority of Punk tweets coming in last night to the company's social media department were also negative, mostly fans upset that he "walked out".

[Loss]

Last night will hopefully put the chants to bed. I think WWE got across the message that they'd love to have him back, but he won't come back, so get off our asses about it.

[flyonthewall2983]

I'm not surprised that the tide is turning against him on this. His radio silence on Twitter isn't helping either. He probably just doesn't care, and when it comes to this whole thing neither do I. My one surprise is that he lasted as long as he did after the infamous shoot in 2011. Not only that, but that he burned out rather than fade away which is what I'm assuming WWE's next move is, to whitewash him from the Universe as much as possible.

[Timbo Slice]

I love that people still think the pipe bomb promo was a shoot.

[Sidebottom]

My one surprise is that he lasted as long as he did after the infamous shoot in 2011.

 

Why? He was highly consistent on the mic and in the ring and over with the crowds in an era where very few were...

[Jimmy Redman]

I think he meant more in terms of Punk being burnt out in 2011 and wanting to leave in the first place, and then staying on another 2 1/2 years.

 

Helps when you get to be a top guy though.

[anarchistxx]

If WWE does enter into a boom period shortly, how will CM Punk be looked back upon? Like Bret Hart i.e. a solid guy who was on top for long periods when business was poor?

[Loss]

Bret Hart was a table setter for a huge era where he sadly didn't get to reap the benefits because of outside circumstances. I'm not sure if that same truth applies to Punk or not.

[Russellmania]

I think the idea of a "boom period", as most wrestling fans think of it, is kind of obsolete anyway.

[anarchistxx]

 

Bret Hart was a table setter for a huge era where he sadly didn't get to reap the benefits because of outside circumstances. I'm not sure if that same truth applies to Punk or not.

 

Really? I'm not sure Hart contributed too much to the style and presentation that was fashionable during the boom. If anything, he was sort of the antithesis to all that, except for the shooty stuff with the Foundation in 1997. You could argue for HBK as someone who really influenced the Attitude Era stuff without getting to reap the financial and other benefits of being around when the product as at its hottest.

 

 

 

I think the idea of a "boom period", as most wrestling fans think of it, is kind of obsolete anyway.

 

Maybe. They could definitely reach a Game Of Thrones type of scenario for a while though, where everyone is talking about what happened on Raw the last night and writing about it on social media. Things still 'boom', especially amongst the younger demographic that ate up the wrestling craze in the late 90s, although these days they often tend to be some video or dance thing that goes wild for a couple of weeks and then dies.

[Loss]

 

Bret Hart was a table setter for a huge era where he sadly didn't get to reap the benefits because of outside circumstances. I'm not sure if that same truth applies to Punk or not.

 

Really? I'm not sure Hart contributed too much to the style and presentation that was fashionable during the boom. If anything, he was sort of the antithesis to all that, except for the shooty stuff with the Foundation in 1997. You could argue for HBK as someone who really influenced the Attitude Era stuff without getting to reap the financial and other benefits of being around when the product as at its hottest.

 

The 20-minute promos, profanity-laced tirades, "shades of grey" stuff (heel in the US, babyface everywhere else), helping Austin become a star, shifting television to a more episodic format with stuff like the ambulance episode of RAW, and his real-life situation being what spawned Mr. McMahon? Yeah, I'd say he contributed quite a bit to it.

 

I've always seen the WWF's turnaround as something that was slow coming and happened over the course of a year. Bret turning heel coincided with a rebranding of RAW, Austin becoming a babyface and Vince Russo becoming the head writer.

[Russellmania]

yeah seriously if you can't see that without Bret Hart's contribution the Attitude Era maybe doesn't even happen, then I don't know what to tell you.

[anarchistxx]

Yeah, I suppose, not seen 1997 is years so can't really argue. He definitely deserves some credit for helping make Austin, although he was really over already by that point. You can't really use the screwjob as credit - it was critically important in the developement of Mr McMahon, of course, but Bret himself was completely oblivious to the actual events. It's like giving Roy Trafford the credit for the drumming on Strawberry Fields Forever. Without him it wouldn't have happened, but he didn't actually have any input or influence ultimately.

 

 

 

without Bret Hart's contribution the Attitude Era maybe doesn't even happen,

 

That is just ridiculous hyperbole, though. There are dozens of people more responsible for the Attitude Era than Bret Hart.

[Childs]

Bret was instrumental in "making" Stone Cold. I'm not a big Bret fan, but that's just undeniable if you go back and watch the 1997 TV. Given that, I think it's hyperbole to say dozens of people were more important to launching the attitude era.

 

I also think Bret is more than a solid guy to the WWE fan base. Seems he's retrospectively viewed as one of the company's seminal stars, even if that wasn't the case in real time. If Punk is done, I can't see him carrying equivalent stature in a few years.

[FedEx227]

Not to mention that Bret Hart's gripes with McMahon in early 97 and obviously the screwjob set the stage for the Mr. McMahon character.

 

He very, very obviously had an influence on the Attitude Era and how it progressed.

[anarchistxx]

 

 

Bret was instrumental in "making" Stone Cold.

 

The Austin character along with the catchphrases were in place before he feuded with Bret. The feud did take him to the next level as a legitimate star, though.

 

 

 

I also think Bret is more than a solid guy to the WWE fan base. Seems he's retrospectively viewed as one of the company's seminal stars,

 

Really? Casual fans seem to view him as a solid worker, but nowhere near a 'seminal star'. His reactions today are way below those of The Rock, Hulk Hogan and even people like Shawn Michaels and Ric Flair. Maybe in Canada he is a huge star, but elsewhere he is just remembered as a great worker but not somewhere amongst the upper echelons of WWE 'greats'.

 

 

 

Not to mention that Bret Hart's gripes with McMahon in early 97 and obviously the screwjob set the stage for the Mr. McMahon character.

 

Not sure about this, either. Bret was portrayed as a whiner and complainer, more than an anti-authority figure railing against the evil boss.

[Loss]

I don't really know how to respond to that. Were you watching in 1997? I'm not saying that to say you're not entitled to an opinion if you weren't, but more that I don't know that you understand the landscape at that point.