Tonight's RAW Preview *Spoilers*

[mdh85]

mdh85, I understand all those points but I don't see how not booking Punk on tv for a couple of weeks for the purpose of an angle and building Summerslam around Cena - Mysterio affects or is relevant to any of that.

 

1) Punk vs. Cena 2 at SummerSlam will draw money. Leaving it any later would have put the angle at risk of simmering down before they could make any more big pay days out of it. Might well have led to a much bigger payday down the road, yes, but it would be a gamble, and a pointless gamble from a purely business standpoint. It would also risk their second biggest PPV of the year being totally shat on if the fans didn't buy into the title tournament/"Punk isn't coming back" idea, which in the post-Kayfabe era is pretty likely to have happened, as evidenced by nobody really getting into the tournament on Raw.

 

2) Trying to sell the whole "Punk leaving the WWE with the Title" angle as legit to the general public would have meant working their share-holders as well. That's not great business practice, and they were never going to do it for any longer than was strictly necissary.

 

I'm with you that the angle would have worked much better if they'd made more of the devastating fall out of Punk leaving, then given Cena a proper chase to earn his version of the title leading into Punk's return at Summerslam. But I think they did a very good job of telling that story in the space of a couple of weeks instead, and I was never really expecting anything else.

[King Pitcos]

1) Punk vs. Cena 2 at SummerSlam will draw money. Leaving it any later would have put the angle at risk of simmering down before they could make any more big pay days out of it. Might well have led to a much bigger payday down the road, yes, but it would be a gamble, and a pointless gamble from a purely business standpoint. It would also risk their second biggest PPV of the year being totally shat on if the fans didn't buy into the title tournament/"Punk isn't coming back" idea, which in the post-Kayfabe era is pretty likely to have happened, as evidenced by nobody really getting into the tournament on Raw.

I think that was largely down to it being the night after the big pay-per-view with Punk, and everyone's mind was still on him. I think if that Raw had not had the tournament but still had the ending with Triple H sacking Vince, we could've then had three weeks of hyping up the tournament. Everyone talking about regaining the title's prestige and what it means to them all and so on.

 

I don't know how exactly to also integrate the CM Punk stuff, because there's a key paradox/problem: How to make the title tournament seem worthwhile (ie making everyone forget about Punk) and simultaneously keep Punk hot for his return.

[Arch Stanton]

I agree with Purplemonkey's ideas, but I can see both sides of the argument. Ultimately, WWE played it safe and put Punk back on TV straight away. I don't blame them for that and can totally understand the logic, but it would have been nice if they had pushed the angle further and taken a risk by keeping Punk off TV until the PPV.

 

I guess the problem was, once Punk won at MitB, it was obvious that he would be staying. Up until he pinned Cena there was an element of uncertainty- lots of people genuinely weren't sure if he was staying or planning a Jericho-style hiatus. Once he won, it was clear he was staying so keeping him off TV seemed unnecessary.

 

All things considered, the angle has been played out well and logically, so I'm not going to complain. It's still the best thing to happen in WWE for ages.

[tiger_rick]

Thought it was a seriously dull show until the outstanding final segment. Everything about it was just brilliant. The rest just doesn't do a thing for me. I couldn't give a fuck about The Miz, Kofi, Misterio, Riley, Ziggler, Del Rio, Swagger, R-Truth or John Morrison at this point. It's all so samey.

[Loki]

Punk and Cena are good mates, aren't they? They certainly have a natural chemistry and are happy to chew chunks out of one another.