The internet is a funny place. Last night on WWE’s flagship program Monday Night RAW, WWE star CM Punk performed a great worked shoot at the closing of the RAW broadcast. Complete with backstage name dropping(John Laurinaitis), mentioning other promotions(Ring of Honor, New Japan), and wrestlers in other promotions (including TNA Impact Wrestling’s Hulk Hogan).
The same internet dirt sheet brigade that for the past two years has bashed TNA and Vince Russo for using “insider” terms, mentioning other promotions, backstage name dropping where all a flutter in two different camps. The so called smarts and Ring of Honor marks believed CM Punk was actually shooting, and the WWE dirt sheet marks thought the WWE just invented sliced bread.
Don’t get me wrong CM Punk was perfect. He is and always has been one of the strongest technical and mic wrestlers. The fact that the dirt sheets are now singing the praises of the worked shoot is hilarious.
Personally I’ve never been a fan of using insider terms, the other aspects of the worked shoot are great. At one time we all believed this to be real and anytime you can make someone doubt what is real and what is script for a second is a great thing.
My only question though is WWE now considered bush league for mentioning other wrestlers and promotions, or is Vince Russo vindicated(as well as Eric Bischoff who has also championed this style of wrestling)? Of course we are talking internet dirt sheets here, what they post one day does not have to have any relation to the story posted tomorrow.
When I heard CM Punk did this promo, my jaw dropped to the floor. I didn’t know whether it was real or scripted at the time (still hope its real) and I was watching the video and I was just waiting for him to drop the TNA bomb, lol.
The great thing about worked shoots is it takes you back to when it all seemed to be a shoot.
Couldn’t agree more about a worked shoot taking us back, William. In fact, on the TNAStars.com Twitter earlier today, I tweeted the following: “It’s a sad day in the professional wrestling business when everyone goes bonkers because @CMPunk simply spoke the truth. #realitycheck #wwe”
And I mean it. I listened to CM Punk’s promo last night (albeit on YouTube) and I certainly wasn’t bowled over like all of the kids out there who have since populated the internet wrestling scene since it began nearly two decades ago. Instead, I was sad that those same kids will never know when this type of promo could happen – for real – on any show at any time. Those were the days.
Professional wrestling’s spontaneity has declined – and it’s a shame.
Let me start out by stating, that it obviously was a worked shoot, no doubt about it. The producers would’ve cut him off, if it wasn’t.
But I think, that it is very refreshing to finally have actual heels back in the WWE(both Truth and Punk). Since Jericho, there hasn’t been a convincing heel in the company in my opinion.
The fact that Punk got to namedrop some of the smaller promotions actually gave me chills. Instantly I started fantasizing about WWE finally realizing, that they need some competition in order to bring pro wrestling back in the mainstream. As i recollect, the last time WWE named another company, was when they copromoted with ECW? (correct me if i’m wrong) I would love to see WWE copromoting with either RoH or TNA. That would be awesome, but still… very farfetched. Imagine Jim Cornette back in the WWE… Gives me goosebumps…
The reason why this was not criticised was because:
1. This was WWE and compared to WWE, there’s always a bit more negativity surrounding TNA among internet and WWE fans.
2. TNA overdoes the shoot-style promo, so much so that it doesn’t come across as surprising anymore when they do it. WWE on the other hand has really simple storylines and when they do such a promo, and they only rarely do it, it comes across as really shocking. TNA has only themselves to blame for overdoing it. TNA fans like to point out to WWE and say “Hey, when they do it, you cheer them and when we do it you say it sucks!”, but often it’s TNA’s fault for either doing a storyline that WWE has done before for overdoing the storyline.
You don’t need to be a mark or a newbie to understand why this was some of the best mic’ use ever…On his Twitter, “Stone Cold” Steve Austin wrote, “CMPunk just melted my 52 inch TV with a scorching hot promo…delivery, content, and attitude…one of the best promos I’ve ever seen.”
Quite plainly, he said it, he meant it, everyone is talking about it and no one can legitimately dispute a single thing he said.