Extra Credit: The Miz is Awesome

After talking with people about how WWE doesn't put enough effort into their hype videos anymore I remembered this one from this year's WrestleMania. It was excellently done and really put The Miz over as someone who deserved to be wrestling at WrestleMania instead of a reality TV star who was riding that to some WWE fame.

CM Punk: How We Got Here

This Sunday CM Punk is going back to his hometown of Chicago to face John Cena for the WWE championship in his last match for the promotion. In case you've missed it, CM Punk has been on fire as of late, even getting time on ESPN thanks to Jim Rome. Like he said on Monday Night Raw a few days ago, wrestling is being talked about mainstream and for once it isn't about somebody dying. The reason behind CM Punk's success is that he has managed to find a way to walk the tight-rope between what is real and what is a show better then any other wrestler since the boom of the internet. Back when Austin and The Rock were ruling the airwaves wrestling fans were far less cynical and much easier to please. And while I am enjoying the ride I can't help but wonder how we managed to get to this point where we'd believe almost anything out of his mouth.

If you haven't watched wrestling in a while you might not realize that except for The Undertaker, there aren't a whole lot of “gimmicks” in the WWE. R-Truth is acting crazy and Santino is a goofball but at the end of the day it doesn't take stretching your imagination to find those guys believable. Most guys are just an extreme version of themselves amped up for our entertainment so CM Punk has certainly found a niche as the tattoo-covered straight edge superstar that is a messiah and is also better then all of us. The Straight Edge Society showed us that CM Punk is a leader who is going to tell us the truth and they hammered that point home even further with the New Nexus. The turning point though? Punk's honest commentary.

I remember hearing that Punk was killing it on commentary. Word was he was injured but because he had so much momentum they didn't want to risk him losing it. What transpired though is what I think led to Punk's believability as a loose cannon the level of the late Brian Pillman. Punk made quiet a few comments about the “real” world outside of WWE's reality and listening to him gave you the impression that you really didn't know what he would say next, but the lines I remember most was about Alex Riley.

At that time Riley was the apprentice to The Miz and had just gotten arrested for driving under the influence. The next time Riley was making his way down the entrance ramp, CM Punk quipped that he was “dressed for court”, along with a few other one liners about Riley's current run-in with the law. From there (and possibly even before that) CM Punk had set the stage that he was more then willing to go outside of the WWE Universe and into the real world for the sake of wrestling. Do I think that he was really shooting? Of course not, but it doesn't matter. We as fans want to believe he was and with how Punk has presented himself, he is the one guy that fans consider just crazy enough to go that far because he's went there (on a lesser scale, obviously) before. We want to believe again like we did when we were younger and Punk lets us do that. And because of that he's right when he tells us he's the best wrestler today.

Hurry Back CM Punk

When you're watching basketball, football, or wrestling, you watch for those “wow” moments. They don't happen often but when they do, you know it when it's happening. And last night on Raw whenever CM Punk sat up on the stage and proceeded to run down the entire WWE company, I got goosebumps. I know that it wasn't a “real” shoot and everyone out there upset about that fact shouldn't bother watching wrestling in the first place. This is a soap opera that walks the thin line between real and fake and a lot of that is the problem that wrestling has in general these days, but that's a story for another day all together. CM Punk right now is the best in the world at walking that line. Even though you know it's scripted (I don't see them letting him go on for 6 minutes without doing something if it isn't planned that he's at least going to semi-shoot) CM Punk has played his character so well that in a setting where we don't believe, he makes us.

That's why if he ends up leaving it'll be one of the worst things to happen to wrestling in a long time. For those that don't watch, CM Punk's contract is up (rather conveniently) on July 17^th, the same day CM Punk challenges John Cena for the WWE Championship in Punk's hometown of Chicago. Punk's running with the storyline of whenever he wins the title he's done with the WWE and he's taking their biggest title with him. It won't happen obviously, but even the idea of it makes for an intriguing event coming up. But with CM Punk taking some time off, I'm not sure who is going to take his place as the guy carrying Monday Night Raw.

Not since Chris Jericho leaving has a talent quite like CM Punk just decided to hang it up for at least a little while. But while we had see Chris Jericho in his prime throughout WCW and the WWE, CM Punk is still in his prime. He's only 32 years old and while in a lot of sports that would be late in a career, it isn't uncommon for a wrestler to keep going past 40 and in some cases, even further then that. I'm sure he isn't going to be gone for long and I'm sure that when he does return it'll be as big of a deal as deserves, but I can't help but just feel deflated knowing that the best thing going right now is hanging up the boots. Who else in the WWE right now is capable of the goosebump moment? No one else popped into my head and that's the saddest part of all. There's no off-season and everyone deserves a break and I hope CM Punk enjoys his. He has more then earned it. But I just hope he hurries back.

Learning to Love Pro Wrestling Again

When I was 9 years old I got my first taste of something my cousin kept talking about; professional wrestling. Watching the street fight between Bret Hart and Steve Austin instantly had me hooked for years to come. Like a lot of wrestling fans, the boom of the 90's didn't keep me going into the 00's and by 2004 or so I had stopped watching nearly completely. I still would watch a little from time to time and bought the games each year and even dabbled in some of the independent promotions, but my heart was out of it. That cousin of mine never lost his love though and in 2008 when Summerslam was going to be just a few hours away he convinced me to buy a ticket and road-trip up for the show.

For the first time in years, I was a big wrestling fan for at least one more night. An indy darling turned WWE superstar (and my favorite wrestler at the time) in CM Punk was defending his World Heavyweight title, the two biggest stars at the time in John Cena and Batista were facing off one-on-one for the first time and in the main event Edge was facing The Undertaker in a Hell In A Cell match. I hadn't been paying enough attention to the product to know the storylines going into the matches but I knew that I was in for a memorable night. My favorite CM Punk kept his title, Batista reversed a top rope leg drop into a Batista Bomb, and Undertaker sent Edge straight to Hell.

I'd love to tell you that I jumped right back in but wrestling had left me wanting more before and I wasn't about to jump right back in, choosing instead to dip my toe in the water and go from there. It wasn't until my birthday in 2009 that I truly got pulled back in. There was a WWE “reality” show called NXT and the first season had just wrapped up with Wade Barrett winning a WWE contract. That next week everyone from NXT ambushed John Cena and CM Punk and proceeded to destroy everyone and everything in their path. It was the first truly shocking and huge angle they had run in a long time and it was awesome. I really thought Daniel Bryan (one of the most technically sound wrestlers on the planet by the way) and company were going to go into the stands Artest style. It was a big enough moment I was going to start paying quite a bit more attention to what was going on from week-to-week.

Wrestling obviously isn't everyone's cup of tea and it isn't without it's huge faults, but if you look close enough there are a lot of good things that even the old fan can come back and truly enjoy. CM Punk is probably the best thing in wrestling right now, being the evil mastermind and playing the role as anyone has in a long, long time. Alberto Del Rio has the kind of cocky smile a grandmother would like to smack off his face and The Miz from MTV fame has put in the time to become one of the brightest young stars in the business. We've also got the previously mentioned Daniel Bryan and a new star from Mexico in Sin Cara learning the ropes while R-Truth is losing his mind much to our delight. If you used to like wrestling but don't anymore the water is fine once again, just dip your toe in and find out for yourself.