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The potential of CM Punk


vanhalen2007

CM Punk  

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Well, hes just probably got MITB a huge buyrate, ran up 53 million impressions on twitter, and has dragged people back into the WWE that wouldnt have bought a show or cared for years(myself included), knocked wrestlingobserver.com, pwtorch and others offline for a bit

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Punk can become a big fish in a small pond, Austin was a shark in an ocean.

 

Punk wouldnt transcend to the mainstream like Austin did, its a different time and place

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Wont mention MITB just in case, but he seems to have sparked something with the masses which is great and kinda unheard of these days,

with his fresh and 'real' style of promo's he has gotten a 'Austin 3:16' type of anti-hero following.

 

After the PPV who knows where they'll go but I reckon if given the ball and hopefully by his recent work has put any internal doubters to rest I could see him running strong as a heel that get some cheers/boos, him vs Cena is/could end up being kinda like Austin vs Bret of 97

 

His look is very current with his tattoos, attitude, decent but not ott body etc compared to Cena (or most bodybuilder types) who is harder to relate to, so he could end up being a new type of anti hero but prob not as popular as austin but thats not an easy feat anyway.

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You're having a bubble. In this day and age no one can produce the kind of merchandise and buy rate dollar did that Stone Cold did. It's a different world, and it's certainly a different industry. Steve Austin transforming into a foul-mouthed renegade anti-hero captured the imagination during his (rapid) ascent from upper mid-card heel to babyface main eventer because it was something no one on the big stage had done before, and when he arrived at the top the emotional investment was so strong - with the right antagonists to work with, I should add - that he was able to ride that wave to three years of successful PPV title matches.

 

CM Punk has created a few weeks of great TV and one great PPV match off the back of pseudo-shooting (which has been done before, admittedly it can be argued not with this much finesse) which has a limited shelf-life, and an "is he leaving or not?" storyline which surely is nearing it's end. To be honest, I believe most of the positive reaction to the last few weeks of TV has been backlash to the company hierarchy and the forcefeeding of Cena to us all, and less to do with Punk, other than that his delivery of the material has been first class. He's been in and out of the main event, mostly out, for the last two years and I doubt anyone watching would have actually thought of him as a "main eventer" until the latest turn of events.

 

Just out of curiosity, did you copy this question from Gabe's Twitter??? He's asking the same question. He's the kind of guy I think of that imagines Punk could be as big as Austin was.

 

 

For the record, CM Punk is my favourite WWE wrestler.

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I don't think he or anybody in wrestling today has the potential to be as big as Austin, primarily because I don't see any of them crossing over into the mainstream the way Austin did.

 

I do think he's got the potential to be the biggest star they've created since Cena though, and I think/hope he could finally be the one they have enough faith in to make a concerted push towards that #1 babyface spot so they can finally turn Cena. The last person to have that kind of apparent potential was Orton in early 2009, but Punk has the versatility on the mic that's always eluded Orton and prevented him becoming a real megastar.

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The thing about pro-wrestling's breakout stars is that they've always been vaguely indicative of wider trends in pop culture. So back in the 50s, Gorgeous George tied in to that golden age of Hollywood glitz and camp. In the 80s, Hulk Hogan really did some like one of your larger-than-life cartoon action heroes in the Arnie/Sly/JCVD manner. Stone Cold represented the nu-metal era when violent outsiderdom was mainstream and people could wear jeans shorts in public without being laughed at.

 

I think this is why Cena's never really meant anything outside of wrestling: what does he look/sound/act like that resembles anything outside of wrestling? People say he's like a kids' cartoon, but kids' cartoons today are like "Adventure Time" and are full of weird hipster irony flushes.

 

Does Punk tie into anything in the wider world outside of wrestling right now? Well... he's probably gotten the first piece of real wrestling coverage in the media that wasn't either a) wrestler you liked in the 80s dies b) female wrestler gets baps out in Playboy c) wrestler texts physical location to Chavo Guerrero and William Regal in ages. Fucking GQ Magazine and US sports websites and whatever getting a semi out of his promos and actions. But does it mean anything on a wider scale... at the moment, no. Does Punk have the social skills/personality/charisma to cope on that scale? Possibly. Does WWE want to chase that kind of "reads Onion AV Club/Thinks Community is the best sit-com on TV" audience? Almost certainly not.

 

So, in summary, I don't know.

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