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That was maybe the most soulless version of the First Dance promo he could have cut. The real funny thing is, I was talking to my friend again about Punk and talking about how long he would last I started talking about how I can't think of another modern wrestler who cares so much about money as CM Punk. Like, this dude still talks about his brother stealing money from their backyard wrestling fed and that was when he was a teen. MOVE. ON. LET IT GO. And I said to my friend, "CM Punk is just constantly all about money money money money money money. And maybe being in WWE and being a cog in the machine and not giving so much of a shit about trying to run it as a business like he did in AEW will make him happier." And then I laughed my ass off when he said into the camera, "I'm not here to make friends, I'm here to make money." Just, everything about that promo felt borderline gross. "I'm home." "It was all kisses on the mouth and hugs in the back." Whatever. He's the one who has to go to sleep at night knowing everything he's said on a podcast, everything he's said in a courtroom, everything he's said in private to his wife, everything he said in AEW, and then contradict all of that with...this fucking garbage from tonight. What a disappointment. Can't wait until he pitches a fit about Susan G. Komen, or not being allowed to wear political t-shirts in Texas, or whatever the fuck. And yeah, you can say to all of that, "well, he's making millions of dollars, I'm sure he'll sleep just fine." IT DOESN'T MATTER HOW MUCH HE MAKES. It's never enough for him. Ever. Everything eats at this dude and if money were the salve for that then he would have been happy as fuck in AEW. Except he wasn't. And he won't be here. I'm curious to see what he looks like in the ring and what booking decisions are made, but my complete and total investment in Punk is just shot and that's a bummer. Something about dying the hero or living long enough to see yourself become the villain.

Punk being aware of FSW will always be my favorite DVDVR lore.

Tony may have had a committee to decide on Punks future because he was directly involved in the incident and didn’t want to leave Punk any room for suing for it being a retaliation firing cause we know CM Punk can be a litigious fucker. This gives AEW security, even if Tony was going to fire him anyway

Honestly though, Disney had some great villains. Captain Hook, Cruella De Vil, Ursula, Scar, Hades, Jafar, etc. I like Punk but he’s no Lady Tremaine. As a face he’s going against a murder’s row of top notch promos of Disney Princesses like Belle, Ariel, Tiana, Jasmine, Moana, etc. He’d get blown up if he had too long of a match with Mulan.

I’ve been enjoying AEW lately. But then I head on over here and it’s all doom and gloom. Last few PPVs have been awesome. There’s a round robin tourney with literally twelve of the best wrestlers in the world going on right now on free (ish) tv. I mean, I get that some stories aren’t really firing right now, but let’s be honest. That’s been AEW all along.

Thank you Dragon!

You can say it's a cold product but the doom and gloom narrative is a bit comical. Ratings have been more or less static for the last year plus. PPV buys are rock solid given how antiquated the model is when WWE is giving away major events for free. People are unhappy with various aspects of AEW and associating it with the business side. It gets exhausting. A lot of it is spin. For example, we have Papa H bragging about attendance figures at Allstate arena. Attendance figures are great and all but these are events that only a few years ago were translating into hundreds of thousands of ppv buys.

Over the top company man Punk and people’s reaction to it may be my new “won’t turn heel” Cody, where I love it and people start collectively losing their minds. Huge potential.

2023 wrestling, where the mic work is 'real' and the matches are 'fake'

How often?

I'll always find it impossible not to like Punk for the secret best bit of meta weirdness in internet history. I just love the idea of him researching the history of Liverpool FC and spending hours posting in the footballsoccer thread just so he can go undercover as an Englishman living in Canada to troll himself on a wrestling forum for months on end. If Tony Khan was a real DVDVR guy he'd pay Rafa Benitez to unveil himself as The Devil and cost himself millions driving away confused fans just for the sake of the world's greatest possible, multi layered in-joke.

feels like there's more potential for the concept of "Model Employee CM Punk" than one realizes

imagining an early 90s WWF wrestler who is a mix of Repo Man and IRS whose gimmick involves issuing fines on babyfaces while letting the heels get away with murder.. "I've fined you $100 for excessive doubleteaming" "But our opponents did it too" "Didn't see that"

What percentage of people use Twitter/X so casually that AEW was outta sight/outta mind? I’d think the Twitter population not watching AEW pretty much made that choice awhile ago.

I feel about a Punk/Rollins feud the way some would feel about a Davey Richards / Ospreay feud, or how Natural would feel about a Hogan/Penta feud. Just…nope. Fifth circle of hell stuff. Zero chance. I’m good over here watching NXT. Elsewhere though, as somehow who has always been the high man on Orton I absolutely adore this “beloved legend” run. It’s awesome. Give that man his flowers.

Yes

If they had just asked the real Chris Tabar - yours truly, with the name spelled correctly - instead of the special teams guy they just promoted, they would have drafted Stroud. HIRE ME. I AM READY TO BE AN NFL GM OR COACH. I LED MOFFAT COUNTY HIGH SCHOOL FRESHMEN TO THREE WINS IN 1996. I AM QUALIFIED.

"WWF President Gorilla Monsoon fell behind on his taxes and i've taken his job until then"

I just think it’s funny that some people are taking his departure as a sign of how far AEW’s gotten from its original spirit or whatever, when for all we know it’s people with philosophies like his giving us all the brochachos and Neck-Strong stuff and the devil mask deal.

On the heels of A24's Iron Claw movie... Pixar has optioned Jim Ross's life story

See my thing with AEW right now is that if the passion is gone from the viewer, it’s because a large chunk of the soul is missing from the show. Yeah this G1 is going to produce a dozen matches that slap, but to me it’s like The Owen. I just really, really have no reason to care and it feels inorganic. I think this is one big one where myself and DVDVR brethren Coach TK disagree as fans - tournaments for the sake of tournaments absolutely sucks as a pro wrestling construct. Tony can’t get enough of it, but I’m out. It just sucks. AEW at its best is Best Friends having wacky blowoff matches, Orange Cassidy doing character stuff moreso than five star classics, Danhausen cursing dudes, HoB being spooky, all the good shit. AEW’s trajectory with my buy in kind of follows Kris Statlander’s character arc, actually. Late 2023 AEW needs less generic hoss, more alien. Embrace your alien, Tony.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=T2E3wsXu0G4 Rey Mysterio vs. Jushin Thunder Liger at WCW Starrcade 1996. The two best Jr Heavyweights/Cruiserweights of all time.

100% THIS. The promo had echoes of his 'pipebomb' when he announced was leaving too. CM Punk basically realized he can't beat the WWE so why not join them again? He's turned into the very thing he was against. How will Punk do when WWE goes back to Saudi Arabia next year? What about his wearing his trans rights shirts in places like Texas, Georgia, or Florida? His opinions about abortion and his shirts for those as well? CM Punk will be foregoing all of that just to make money in WWE. He had everything he ever wanted in AEW too; he just couldn't get out of the way of himself to get it. When the whole time - the problem has been CM Punk. He goes to AEW and causes himself problems but with a younger group (Jack Perry / Young Bucks / Kenny Omega / Adam Page) so if he has the same problems but with people closer to his age (Seth Rollins / Kingston / Cody Rhodes / etc) then it's over. Hopefully, when Punk gets whatever he wanted out of his time in WWE, he'll be officially done with wrestling. I don't really want to see a over 50 year old CM Punk still trying to do another comeback (AEW again? Impact / TNA? NJPW? NWA if Billy Corgan hasn't gone out of business? CZW if they're around? GCW if they're around?) after this.

let me introduce you to Viperess!

I was thinking that while watching.

the whole "says nothing but makes it feel important" thing makes me wonder what great micworkers we won't get to experience because they're not doing a ton of local promos to spend 30 seconds on what they're gonna do when they compete in Fort Wayne on the 29th.

As a Vikings fan, I'd just like to say that you brought this upon yourself. In the words of the immortal Eric Stratton: "You fucked up. You trusted us."

He’s running out of available real estate, might as well. Cody’s the guy with no excuse.

Please give me Bronson Reed vs. Ivar every Raw from here until the end of time, thx. That ruled.

Triple H gets Jelly Roll... a huge step up from Vince who wanted Conway Twitty.

I hope he just keeps getting fired from places until he's in the middle of a Coliseo Coacalco ring talking about how he's "en casa".

That promo sucked ass. Let's hurry up and get to the Punk and Rollins pissing contest. Maybe one of them will go too far.

considering the pacing of this angle, maybe he's training the Devil at his wrestling school

Oh man... Have I got some unfortunate news about women's prisons for you...

Not enough

You make sound like Reacher wasn't damn fine television James

I was watching Lockup a while ago and the pod boss was a chola in her 60s named Daddy; I think about this often.

When I worked in news I made quite a few trips into prisons and can confirm this.

Better to have two people you don't like feuding with each other, and one match to skip, than tying them up with people you do like.

To be fair I'd much rather watch Conway Twitty than Jelly Roll as well...

I think "Company Man" Punk could be the best heel they could get. He should totally go full Vince Apologist.

Tag Team Turmoil was fun and a good showcase for the Creeds and DIY. Was nice to see the backstage segment with Gunther and Miz. I don't want Miz to win, but I am more than ok with them running the match back as a Raw main event before the end of the year. Bronson/Ivar was a good battle of big men. Dug the post match brawl. We need to see big guys chuck security at each other like lawn darts more often. Cody's segment with the Rumble announcement was fine and then became good when Nakamura came in with his promo and subsequent mist attack. There is no way Nakamura wins this feud, but I can't help but love the idea of it. Nia/Zoey was solid and a nice showcase for Stark. Chelsea/Piper vs. Nattie/Tegan was fun. Dug Seth's segment with Drew and Jey. That headbutt and subsequent bleeding from Drew when Seth named Jey the next challenger was perfect. The backstage segment with Sami confronting Drew over it was nice as well. Really digging the bits of nuance people are being allowed. Even Orton and Jey reconciliation while arguably quick was nice to see. Orton/Dom was an extended squash to show off Orton. It was fun with nice energy from all involved. The Punk promo was nothing special, just ok. It felt like something done because a lack of real planning beyond bringing him back. It didn't really warrant a main event spot though I guess they wanted to keep people watching as long as possible knowing he was there. The matches and segments were generally fun. Bronson/Ivar and the Seth/Drew/Jey/Sami segments were probably the standouts for tonight. Was nice to see Truth back to his general hijinks and craziness. The Punk promo was probably the most disappointing thing on Raw, but I never had much interest or expectations from it in the first place. I get they were in Chicago, but they probably should have waited until a plan was in place before having him return.

Ah yes, Roman Reigns’ on-screen Wise Man, Vince McMahon.

Enough top guys get injured and they'll have to push RUSH dammit.

must've been one of those Vince McMahon things where the correct answer is actually to fight back against his dumb idea to show your initiative or whatever

ECW lost top stars for years and kept their core fanbase till the end. TK won't have Heyman's check-cashing problems. AEW can survive this, and should. They just need to stay the course, keep their fanbase, which is still pretty good, and slowly try to draw new folks with a mixture of continued quality and occasional surprises.

@TheVileOne was right. This really is the beginning of the end.

And anything other than Cody vs Roman at WM would be monumentally bad.