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WWE Judgment Day - May 17 2009

Just because I don't buy into the "Punk buried" talk every time it comes up doesn't mean I "don't care" about Punk.

That's really the problem. It's assumed that you must be concerned for Punk's safety in the company if you like him. Which is, IMO, why the story comes up so often, because a lot of Punk's fans are. I don't doubt that some people in the company don't like him and he's occassionally being knocked down a peg. But it seems like the slightest suggestion of him not being booked strongly and it's in the Observer the next day as "PUNK IN THE DOGHOUSE!" There doesn't seem to be enough rationalising it, it's all or nothing, push or buried as it were, when it comes to Punk.

Let's face it, if he was in trouble and had heat as often as the story comes up the guy wouldn't be in the position he's in.
 
It's possible, and very likely from listening to what Meltzer said, that the reason stuff about Punk crops up so often is that he's someone who generates a strong reaction from everybody who meets him. From what everybody else has said about Punk, he's not someone who blends in and who people hardly notice and talk about.
 
HTQ said:
It's possible, and very likely from listening to what Meltzer said, that the reason stuff about Punk crops up so often is that he's someone who generates a strong reaction from everybody who meets him. From what everybody else has said about Punk, he's not someone who blends in and who people hardly notice and talk about.
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I can buy that. Punk does seem... self confident, shall we say.

I'm not saying Meltzer's lying about Punk and I'm not saying that it's not within reason for whoever his sources are to believe it to be true. But I just don't buy it this time.

It made no rational sense for Punk to win the first match against Umaga. It made no rational sense for Umaga to lose his first match in however many weeks. And it made no real sense for Punk to come out and cash in MITB. Yet because the show was in Chicago, it's suddenly equated as "Punk has heat for something he said in an interview and therefore he had to be taken down a notch."

People lose in their hometown all the time. It's generally accepted that Vince likes to do it for whatever reason. Why is to be half-expected with most of the roster, but a punishment when it happens to CM Punk? It just seems a little too much like piecing stuff together to make a story to me. I could easily be wrong, maybe because some people are so overly sensitive about Punk it's made me the opposite when it comes to these stories, but that's the feeling I got reading it.
 
Vince does like having people lose in their hometown, true. However, it's a bit odd to have someone lose in their hometown by getting pinned clean in the first match.

Especially in these circumstances; the whole point of the feud is that Punk keeps trying to cash in his MITB, and Umaga keeps stopping him. He tried this every week for like a month straight. The first night he didn't try to cash it in was... in his hometown? It didn't make any storyline sense for him to suddenly stop trying this at the PPV when he was attempting it on every other occasion. On TV he'd been feuding with the world champ, and on PPV he goes to jobbing in the opener?

Keep in mind that Punk is one of those guys whose hometown is made a much bigger deal than usual. Of the top of your head, how many people can tell me where Batista, Triple H, Big Show, or Jericho are from? But everyone knows that Punk is from Chicago, because he's one of those guys who gets his hometown made into an integral part of his character. He's a well-known local celebrity there, was even the grand marshal for last year's Thanksgiving parade in that city, which is not an insignificant achievement. So winning or losing in his hometown is a bigger deal than it is for most people.

The funny thing is, I don't even like Punk. I'd be personally happier if he was doing C-show jobber duty rather than being pushed. But I can't deny that he's very over, and nobody should deny that the office is treating this very over wrestler very strangely in some ways.
 
Jingus said:
Especially in these circumstances; the whole point of the feud is that Punk keeps trying to cash in his MITB, and Umaga keeps stopping him. He tried this every week for like a month straight. The first night he didn't try to cash it in was... in his hometown? It didn't make any storyline sense for him to suddenly stop trying this at the PPV when he was attempting it on every other occasion. On TV he'd been feuding with the world champ, and on PPV he goes to jobbing in the opener?
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Because Umaga beat him earlier in the night, and plus Edge won his match fairly convincingly...it wouldn't have been smart for Punk to try it that night, Edge probably had enough gas in the tank to fend off a Punk cash in, if you want to look at it from a kayfabe point of view.

But otherwise, they just didn't want to pull the trigger on it yet, because they'd kind of have to if he came out, unless Umaga interfered yet again, and then it's just the same thing over again. You couldn't end the PPV with that.
 
Jingus said:
Especially in these circumstances; the whole point of the feud is that Punk keeps trying to cash in his MITB, and Umaga keeps stopping him. He tried this every week for like a month straight. The first night he didn't try to cash it in was... in his hometown? It didn't make any storyline sense for him to suddenly stop trying this at the PPV when he was attempting it on every other occasion. On TV he'd been feuding with the world champ, and on PPV he goes to jobbing in the opener?
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To be fair, Grisham brought it up during the match that Punk probably wouldn't cash in if Umaga continued to do damage to him because he wouldn't be at 100%.

And even if storyline wise he should have cashed, they wouldn't have put him over Edge. So if he cashed in he'd have to lose, or they'd have to do the tease with Umaga. And if Punk losing in Chicago was bad, imagine the firestorm that would have created if they teased him winning the World Title and he didn't. So really, him losing to Umaga was the best way to write him out of cashing in.
 
Jingus said:
how many people can tell me where Batista, Triple H, Big Show, or Jericho are from?
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Washington DC, Greenwich CT, Tampa FL and either Manhassets NY or Winnipeg in Canada.
 
And are any of their hometowns made as big a deal of as Punk's is? Notwithstanding Hunter's old Greenwich Snob gimmick? That was my point. For a few people, they make a much bigger deal out of their hometown. Punk is one of those guys.

Sure, it made sense for Punk to get destroyed so that he didn't cash in MITB. (Well, it would've made a lot more sense to just not book this MITB angle leading up to a PPV in which he's jobbing in the opening match, but clearly long-term planning is not their strong suit these days.) However, I still don't see why it made sense for him to get pinned clean in the middle of the ring and not get his heat back. The Chicago crowd saw their hometown boy get decisively beaten, period, with nothing to cheer about. You can't do that often, or you get reactions like the "Not this shit again!" heat that the crowd gives to latter-day burials of Rey in San Diego or JR in Oklahoma. That sort of thing does not motivate your live crowds to come back next time. Especially didn't help that of the two title matches at JD, one ended in a DQ and the other with the heel winning clean.
 
The finish to Punk/Umaga didn't really bother me that much because it was an ultra-competitive match that I thought saw both guys look pretty damn good to me by the end of it......since they both worked hard and put over the effort of each other basically, I felt the finish didn't affect the long terms effects of anything.

That's ideally how most matches should be, when you think of it, and ultimately I think that is what the company hopes for as well, in terms of that a clean finish by a heel doesn't ALWAYS have to be a screwjob (and in most cases, sometimes needs to be clean TO get heels over and programs to continue) and when there are times that a heel wins clean, you don't want to damage the babyface in the process (especially one who is over and is getting pushed) so you protect him, in a sense, by making him look great in there against the heel and coming *just* that close to beating him.

Ultimately, that match on the ppv just makes me want to see the rematch that much more.
 
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