Neil's Highlight Reel: CM Punk Wins the Title

Good ol’ JR made his way to the ring to open up the most recent edition of RAW. He got on the mic and said how much, over his years on RAW, he had enjoyed his time. He said he hoped the RAW fans would follow him over to Smackdown on Friday nights and enjoy listening to him and his new partner, Mick Foley. Edge’s music then interrupted JR mid-sentence, and out he came along with the Edge-Heads.
Edge grabbed a mic and told JR that his arrogance never failed to amaze him, as he believed that nobody cared about JR leaving RAW. Edge said that JR could truly validate his Hall-of-Fame career by coming to Smackdown and calling a future Hall-of-Famer’s (his own) matches. He said that, instead of the usual “Stone Cold! Stone Cold! Stone Cold!” phrase JR used to utter, he’d now be yelling “Edge Wins! Edge Wins! Edge Wins!” instead. He then asked JR to try it out right then, but JR refused and threw his mic down. Edge told his two sidekicks, Hawkins and Ryder, to escort JR out of the ring, and they did just that.
Once those three had left, Edge began speaking directly to the fans. He said that, now that JR was out of there, he had no reason to remain there. He poked fun at RAW by pointing out they had no General Manager, let alone a champion. This went on for just a little while longer, and he exited the ring.
As he exited holding up his Smackdown Heavyweight Championship Belt, Batista‘s music hit and out came the Animal, who was obviously angry the way Edge cheated him out of the title the night before at Night of Champions. He chased Edge and eventually caught him. The fans went crazy as Batista really layed into Edge with haymakers left and right. Batista then got Edge in the ring and Batista-bombed him.
Batista was making his exit up the ramp, and I was thinking that the segment was over, since it was already 9:20pm and we had hit no commercial break… how wrong I was.
CM Punk’s music then blared out the speakers, and he immediately made a bee-line for Edge with his MITB briefcase in hand, who was laying in the ring because of Batista’s beat down. The crowd obviously sensed what was going on, and the crowd got even louder than before. Punk got in the ring, told a referee that he was cashing in his briefcase, and proceeded to give Edge his trademark finisher, the ‘Go To Sleep’. Moments later, to the surprise of WWE fans across the world, there was CM Punk, holding the Smackdown championship up in the air as he stood on the turnbuckle. The crowd was in a frenzy, and at that moment, I realized the WWE was back.
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The WWE is now obviously pushing their younger, prominent talent. CM Punk, Ted Dibiase Jr., Cody Rhodes, and Kofi Kingston all hold the RAW titles, and surely the WWE intends on keeping these guys around for a looooong time. The creative team must have finally realized “Hey, let’s stop pushing the guys who have gotten us nowhere, and start pushing guys that may give us a chance to succeed.” Bout time they came to their senses.
I’ve been pushing for guys like this to win a title or two for the longest time… and guess what? The ratings are now in for RAW, and the last quarter of the show, the part where CM Punk defended his title against JBL, drew a jaw-dropping 4.12 for the segment. The 4.12 itself is astounding on a few levels: One, because that rating is practically an entire point higher than the ratings that came in for Triple H vs. John Cena matches. Two, because one half of that title match last RAW included the droopy-booby JBL, hardly a ratings machine. WWE creative, if you’re listening, just IMAGINE what ratings you’d get if you put Punk against Batista, Cena, Jeff Hardy, or Mr. Kennedy (I know those latter two are on Smackdown, but just play along).
Hopefully guys like Jeff Hardy, Mr. Kennedy, and a few others get a significant title run in the coming months. They are JUST as popular, if not more popular than CM Punk, and giving them a push will surely bring in more viewers… just look what CM Punk did!
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