WWE TV 11/27 - 12/03 Petty Phil Brooks vs Whiny Seth Rollins gonna feed families baybee

[Tenese Sarwieh]

I don't think I've ever heard of a soulless CM Punk promo, but here it is. 

[The Man in Blak]

For all of the teases throughout the show about Punk having a live microphone, this ended up being basically nothing. Like, stunningly nothing - I wouldn't have expected him to hit any of the emotional notes from his AEW returns, but even the substance of what he did say veered more into cheap pops than pipe bombs. They threw him out there without a safety net and I'm not even sure he got one foot on the tightrope.

Which makes this whole thing a test - WWE gets to see how the ratings went for tonight, how many people dropped after the main event and how many people watched all the way through (and suffered for it because, hoo boy, I forgot how bad a three-hour Raw is live). They basically had one freebie with Punk's return and they burned it on day one - let's see if it was worth it. And let's see what's next.

[KawadaSmile]

Punk as the most blatantly insincere, sell-out babyface getting reactions despite so damn clearly not being truthful in his words >>>>>>>

[sek69]

Let's not gloss over the biggest news from Raw, Indus Sher and Veer's fabulous hair are back baby!

[sek69]

Also lol at Xavier Woods sporting his outside-of-WWE name on his Preds jersey against the Creeds no less. 

[sek69]

The SS match was a banger, but why does Miz get another shot? It was a straightforward W for GOONTA it's not like there was some kind of shenanigans involved. 

[sek69]

Punk saying everyone in the back welcomed him with open arms was probably the biggest whopper in a promo full of them. 

Him feuding with Seth will be interesting. Clearly they are playing as Seth upset this hypocrite is back in his company, but at some point it's going to make him the face since he's 100% correct in what he's saying. I get that they (rightly) assumed Punk would be so over there's no way to have him be a heel, but it's kind of weird how it's the guy who remembers history like it was that's the bad guy here. 

[El-P]

Since they love to rename people so much, they really should go for ChatGPTM Punk after *that* promo.

He turned into a good little corporate lapdog after one single appearance. 

I'm actually baffled that anyone would still care about this guy in any way shape or form. I mean, I was tired of him when he did his second "big comeback speech" in two years on the Collision debut, but this (which would be what, his third "big comeback speech" in about two years and a half ? Damn, he's inventing a new pro-wrestling trope, kinda like a reverse Terry Funk of sorts) tired, empty speech about being "home" (holy shit, how can he look himself in the mirror ?) ? Well, at the very least, it's actually hilarious and has totally exposed him as completely shallow. I guess that's actually the only thing that's halfway compelling about him if you made it part of his character, but...

The fans gobbling this shit up is the second really hilarious part of this little thingy. They really have no self-respect either. 

[Embrodak]

It was a fine promo, leaving room for both babyface or heel maneuvering, and I’m pretty sure the disingenuousness is at least partially intentional, especially if they’re gonna have Seth doing the Hangman “I stayed, you left and talked shit, I’m protecting this place from your two-faced opportunism” role. 
 

Gotta say, El-P, that’s a pretty vitriolic and nasty post.

[El-P]

39 minutes ago, Embrodak said:

Gotta say, El-P, that’s a pretty vitriolic and nasty post.

Nah, I'm not even at 30% of what I can dish out, really.  I mean, this is just TOO funny on so many levels. I kinda needed that too on this quite doomy end of year. The jokes are gonna write themselves for ever now about this guy. It's almost too easy. 

[Sweet Brown Koko]

The “I’m not here to make friends, I’m here to make money!” line could also be perceived as a shot a Tony Khan, if one wanted to read into it that way. Tony Khan has money but it always comes across like he REALLY wants the wrestlers to be his friends first when they are actually his employees.

[El-P]

14 minutes ago, Sweet Brown Koko said:

The “I’m not here to make friends, I’m here to make money!” line could also be perceived as a shot a Tony Khan

Didn't he use the exact same line, or something equivalent, during his Collision Big Comeback Speechtm too though ? I think there was something to that effect already back then. 

[DMJ]

Yeah, that was a miss.

But, to be fair to WWE, the fact that the show is 3 hours long means that an episode of Monday Night RAW is almost always going to be boring for 70%-80% of its runtime even when they stack the card.

...which they didn't do tonight. I liked the opening segment with Orton and Rhea, which went at least twice as long than the Punk promo (a remarkable 7 minutes based on my Hulu's timer), but then it led to a Tag Team Gauntlet that went 40 minutes. The action was good, but it still felt like filler. I wouldn't call it "inconsequential" because there were stakes involved, but its not like the teams involved have been on a collision course with Judgment Day. Just felt like the writing of this show was "How do we fill the 130 minutes that aren't the Orton Promo, the Rollins Promo, the Cody Promo, and the CM Punk promo?" And so they said, "Well, 40 of those can be 1 single tag match, 10 can be Bronson, 10 can be a women's match, 15 can be the main, 15 will be recaps and backstage bullshit, and the rest will be make-up ad time from the first hour being 'commercial free' (as long as you don't count our own commercials)." 

On the plus side, laying out the show like that made it super easy to fast-forward through this morning and just see the parts I was interested in.

I think Rollins is defending his title at the Rumble, but not to Punk (I think that'll be Mania). I'm curious if they go with a 4-way involving Jey, Sami, and Drew, which would be a fun match...but you're also kinda burning a bunch of big names for the Rumble match itself (if those 3 weren't going to pull double-duty).  I'd be down for it somehow being just Sami vs. Seth, personally. Sami has no shot of winning the Rumble and probably isn't going to beat Seth either, but I'm a mark for great World Championship matches at the Rumble where its kind of predictable who is going to win but the challenger gets to have a great showing. Seth's performance during the War Games match was incredible; his energy and charisma and facial expressions were perfect and the crowd reacted to him more than anyone else. His "3-minute spotlight" was the best 3 minutes of the whole thing until Orton came in, clear as day, by a couple country miles.

But back to Punk...yeah, a snoozer of a promo and, for anyone sporting tin foil, I could see the argument that, in his first night back, he was given the old Roman Reigns "political hit job" (as was once proposed on this very board years ago). I mean, he still got a massive pop, but the last 10 minutes of a 3-hour RAW is not exactly the best spot on the show in terms of crowd enthusiasm. Then, you give the guy 7 minutes and the bullet points are basically just to say "I'm back" and tease a match with Rollins and not to pay any lip service to AEW. Cool. 

I expect that this show did pop a number, but I doubt they match it going forward. I know, personally, I won't be tuning in again (even with the convenience of being able to record it and fast forward). Its faster to just find the clips on YouTube. Say what one may about AEW, when they had CM Punk and promoted CM Punk, you got CM Punk. On RAW, the guy who I tuned in to see was given 7 minutes of 180 (I know, I know, its not 180 minutes with ads, but you get the point). That's 4% of the show. I don't need him on every minute or for 30 minutes a night, but it was disappointing before you even got to the nothingness of the promo itself.

[Sweet Brown Koko]

53 minutes ago, El-P said:

Didn't he use the exact same line, or something equivalent, during his Collision Big Comeback Speechtm too though ? I think there was something to that effect already back then. 

I just listened to that Collision speech but I didn’t hear that line. With his paint by the numbers promo last night I am sure that he said it at some point.

[El-P]

12 minutes ago, Sweet Brown Koko said:

I just listened to that Collision speech but I didn’t hear that line. With his paint by the numbers promo last night I am sure that he said it at some point.

Maybe it was on a later Collision then, all his promos then kinda blend. He sure said it on RAW, although that was right at the cam after the promo and not on the house mic (which is why I guess one could think it was a jab).

[Big Pete]

5 minutes ago, Sweet Brown Koko said:

I just listened to that Collision speech but I didn’t hear that line. With his paint by the numbers promo last night I am sure that he said it at some point.

"As long as I'm here this is still the Professional Wrestling BUSINESS".

Not word for word, but you can make the connection.

And yeah kind of a blasse episode of RAW. Weaker than the go home edition and I couldn't help but be reminded of Daniel Bryan's return back in 2018. The WWE could have used that moment to book a really strong show and try to hook some on the fence viewers, instead it was a paint by numbers show.

My take on seven minutes is that they're really leaning into just how impromptu the signing was. Even if they had this in the pipeline for months, if you're going to play it off as a surprise he's not going to have a whole routine down pat and instead they'll let things play out organically.

[Sweet Brown Koko]

I thought the promo was definitely his “greatest hits” but I give WWE a pass on this. They probably figured people were going to tune in anyway so no need to do anything special. Punk showing up was special enough in the moment.

The NEXT Punk showing needs to have some meat on the bones. If you really want to milk it then have Seth go in on Punk next week and ask the questions that we, as fans, want answered. Punk isn’t there but towards the end of RAW we get word that he will show up next week to address what Seth said. Hell, Seth can be so riled up that after his initial promo on Punk he can threaten him and the WWE brass can ban him from being in the ring with Punk for 30 days (For Punk’s wellbeing, of course, and to protect their investment).

They can pretty much talk about each other without being in the ring with one another so that when they DO get in the ring face to face it’s a big deal.

[Jmare007]

They'll probably fill time with Punk until he can have a real feud with Seth. It's basically gonna play out very similarly to what happened in AEW. It took a couple of months before the Kingston feud.

[TheDuke]

I felt like I had heard that "make money, not friends" line before. A quick Google search shows it comes from  a story Scott Hall told about what Jay Strongbow said " in this business you can make money or you can make friends."

[El-P]

That being said, it's not like Jay Strongbow would have made any friends anyway, considering what was said about him on pretty much every shoot interview by everyone ever.

[Sweet Brown Koko]

LOL

[KawadaSmile]

45 minutes ago, Jmare007 said:

They'll probably fill time with Punk until he can have a real feud with Seth. It's basically gonna play out very similarly to what happened in AEW. It took a couple of months before the Kingston feud.

I think it won't take long. Seth called that man a hypocrite and Punk said "not everyone was happy". The direction seems clear.

 

Can they reach the heights of that Ace Steel segment? Like, there is money on feuds with Owens, AJ and Roman, but will we get that fire?

[strobogo]

The Ace Steel segment but it's with QT Marshall 

[C.S.]

8 hours ago, Embrodak said:

It was a fine promo, leaving room for both babyface or heel maneuvering, and I’m pretty sure the disingenuousness is at least partially intentional, especially if they’re gonna have Seth doing the Hangman “I stayed, you left and talked shit, I’m protecting this place from your two-faced opportunism” role. 

My thoughts exactly. The promo didn't knock my socks off, but it was clear he was going the Cody babyface route, just with less sincerity (don't @ me about Cody's "fake crying" - I don't care). The important part of this promo was the seemingly "throwaway" line at the end about being there to make money and not friends. That is the real CM Punk. I think he knows exactly what he's doing and he's playing the long game with his character.

[Embrodak]

I think they’re probably going to have Seth say the shooty stuff as a twist. “You went somewhere else, talked shit about *this company* for years, and even *they* don’t want your sorry ass anymore!”

Idk, I thought the promo was fine. Not standout, but did what it had to do. I think of it like a minor work from a major artist, still better than most people’s best output but not especially notable in their oeuvre. I think Punk has earned every one of his haters, but I’ll be damned if I let some Kenny-brained frog sit in judgment of the fact I think he’s still a very talented and skilled performer.