The CM Punk Email

Original Title: CM Punk: Wrestling's Messiah
Original Date Sent: August 5th, 2011
Sent to: Various people who have shamefully admitted a passing interest in wrestling to me in the past.
Context: CM Punk was lighting up the WWE and making mainstream headlines. A friend of mine, let's call him "KFC," requested that I do a short recap of how Punk got to be where he is. This was the result.

Hello All,

If you are receiving this, you are probably swearing by now because
the pure volume of this email just crashed your hard drive. For that I
apologize. Once you have managed to load this successfully, I hope
you're ready to enjoy a steamy pile of pro wrestling. The emergence of
CM Punk has brought many a lapsed wrestling fan back into the fold. I
am one of those people. So, by request, here is a really, really long
email about CM Punk.

We've been calling it for years. Like Cheetoh-stained John the
Baptists, internet wrestling fans have long cried out in the cyber
wilderness that this day would come. CM Punk has arrived to die (or at
least be pinned) for our sins.

Many internet phenoms have come and gone in the decade since ECW went
under and the Indies became the domain in which the true fans sought
the next big thing. It was almost as if the territory system, long ago
slain by Vince McMahon, had been resurrected (I promise the Biblical
overtones will let up as this thing goes along). There were the
Philadelphia companies (CZW, JAPW, 3PW), the midwestern companies
(IWA-MS), Southern California (RevPro, PWG), and numerous other "hot
spots." If you could draw 400 fans or sell a few hundred tapes, you
could claim to be the biggest thing going. It wasn't until Ring of
Honor got their shit together, fired their pedophile CEO, and started
booking shows across the country than things began to stabilize.

Each promotion had their own stables of local talent. Like baseball
prospects, it was easy to see a bright future and try to overlook the
flaws. The Amazing Red was supposed to be the next Rey Mysterio until
health issues caught up to him and everybody figured out that he
couldn't actual wrestle a good match on his own. Chris Hero got rave
reviews for his technical prowess and European mat stylings, only his
chubbiness and bad hair were a kiss of death to the casual fan. Paul London
was the spark plug who shot to "Best in the World" status only months
after debuting in Ring of Honor. His height (or lack thereof) and his
blandness only became apart under the bright lights of his fizzled WWE
run. Super Dragon built up a solid fanbase, but his backyard-ish
outfit and lack of size ensured his Indy imprisonment. Samoa Joe
busted out of SoCal and brought a legitimate big match feel to every
show he was a part of. Too bad he was also fat. People also thought
that perhaps the Necrobutcher would become the next Mick Foley and cut
a brief but glorious path of destruction through the big time world of
WWE PPVs. He became a significant character in a Best Picture nominee
instead. Bryan Danielson was the alpha dog through it all, but people
were more realistic with his chances: he wrestled a style not welcome
in WWE, he was too small, and he had to fight against his natural lack
of charisma. In other words, he was destined to be a main eventer on
the Independent scene and a mainstay in Japan.

Then he was signed to a WWE contract, changed his name to Daniel
Bryan, and just won the Smackdown Money in the Bank match,
guaranteeing a future shot at the title. So I guess you never know.

Through it all though, CM Punk stood out. Even as a skinny teenager
wrestling in front of two dozen people in Indiana, he was blowing away
the tape trading community. It's the equivalent of a guy going 25-0
with a 0.85 ERA (not to mention a stellar WHIP and xFIP) playing for
the Auburn Doubledays in the NY Penn League. He had every tool that
you could ask for. His in-ring work was fantastic, he was genuinely
funny on color commentary, he could cut an emotional promo like a
trained actor, he was tall, his Straight Edge gimmick worked
perfectly, and he had a solid frame that could easily be bulked up if
WWE came calling. His only flaw was that he couldn't keep his mouth
shut and play the political games that it takes to succeed. The only
person who could derail CM Punk was CM Punk.

What follows is a road map that CM Punk took from obscure Chicago
product trying to find a place in a company that had made it's name on
ultraviolent death matches to the face of professional wrestling on
the biggest stage possible.

CM Punk vs. Chris Hero

Wrestlers very rarely get buzz all by themselves. This is even more
true when they're just starting out. After all, unless you're Steve
Martin, wrestling is a two man game (minimum). Sure, you'll
occasionally get a guy who pops up out of nowhere, but it's much more
likely to happen in pairs. This one followed the Indie sensation
formula every step of the way. You start with two guys being matched
up in their home company, in this case IWA Mid-South. At the time, IWA
(founded by ECW alum Ian Rotten) was known mostly for it's
envelope-pushing death matches (IWA is also where the aforementioned
Necrobutcher made his name). Much like the newspaper maxim "If it
bleeds, it leads," the best selling tapes from 2000-2001 usually
featured disgusting, blood-soaked death matches. Remember, at the time
you could see great wrestling on TV literally six nights a week. What
you couldn't see were these semi-illegal light tube & barbed wire
orgies of meth-fueled (allegedly) insanity.

It's a credit to Ian Rotten that he brought in young talent from all
over the midwest to, ya know, wrestle. So on quite a few of these
Death Match tapes, fans got the Easter Egg of Hero/Punk matches. Then
as buzz for the matches grew, the two took the next step down the dual
breakout star path: they took their show on the road. They went to
different promotions all across the country wrestling basically the
same match every time, only with the occasional change of the
finishing stretch. That was fine for awhile, but then they had to up
the ante.

In January 2003, Hero and Punk wrestled a 93 minute match. No, that's
not a typo. They wrestled a match that was longer than some mainstream
movies. They wrestled for longer than it takes to drive from Rochester
to Syracuse. They wrestled for longer than it takes to read this email
(well, maybe not quite that long...). And what's even better, they did
it in front of two dozen people in Indiana. That's the kind of thing
that Chuck Klosterman could write a whole book about. People like me
and famed Philosopher Roland Barthes like to look at professional
wrestling as performance art in its purest form. This match is an even
more pure distillation of that. It's not about the usual "I hate you"
or "I want your title." It is two wrestlers fighting against the
patience of the audience.

That's all well and good, but not every match was about honor and
respect and art and all that. These two could also tell a story. At a
tournament about a year later, Hero and Punk met in the semifinals.
Hero had just emerged from a hard fought match with an "injured" arm.
In their match, Punk purposely avoided going after the arm in question
as an unspoken sign of respect for his longtime rival. As the match
went along, the scales began to tilt in Hero's favor. And when they
did, Punk went right for the arm, winning the match shortly
thereafter. This speaks to Punk as a character: the sociopath who
preaches about integrity but does anything to gain an advantage. Sure
it's not their most epic match, but it's a perfect example of Punk's
savvy view of how to tell a story in the ring and not just on the
microphone.

CM Punk vs. Raven

This is where Punk really got to flex his might as a character. He'd
always had the "I'm better than you" straight edge thing going, but
like a surfboard in Oklahoma he'd never really gotten to use it. The
virtuous and nerdy Chris Hero wasn't exactly the ideal target for
Punk's pious wrath. Meanwhile, Punk had just joined up with Ring of
Honor but had not yet been given much to do.

Enter Raven. Raven is one of those guys that CM Punk likely looked at
as a massive influence growing up. His literate backstage promos and
iconic status in ECW made him royalty on the independent circuit after
the end of his brief WWE tenure (during which the only memorable part
was being nicknamed "Raisin" by Chris Jericho and playing a character
who whined and complained all the time). Raven also had well
documented personal demons, namely his alcohol and drug abuse
(shocking, I know).

Raven was the perfect target for Punk: a washed-up fan favorite with
serious real life issues that Punk could play upon. The in-ring
chemistry between these guys was practically nonexistent. Raven was,
after all, washed-up at this point in his career. But outside the ring
it was pure gold and one of the things that pushed Ring of Honor to
another level. ROH, at its inception, was billed as a company free of
storylines and talking. It was all about the athletic prowess of the
guys in the ring. That's all well and good, but it led to emotionless
technical exercises. When it's Bryan Danielson and Low Ki in
emotionless technical exercises, you can get away with that idea. But
you can't run a whole show, let alone a company, on technical
exhibitions alone. And you're certainly wasting your money on Raven's
bloated paycheck if you're not going to let him talk.

The feud came to a head when another ECW icon, Tommy Dreamer (on loan
from WWE), interfered on behalf of Raven. Together, they tied up Punk
and dumped beer all over him. After the show, Punk recorded what is
still to this day his best monologue. It was an emotional treatise
about why he chose to live a straight edge lifestyle and why Raven
disgusts him. If you could pinpoint a moment when we knew CM Punk
would be a big time player in the business, it was right here.

Exemplary Video Evidence: Punk's incredible monologue on why he hates
Raven so much: http://www.gamespot.com/users/sephy37/video_player?id=dXMxlmD-5bkEszfb

Second City Saints vs. The Briscoe Brothers

Okay, so this isn't that memorable, but it does provide some more Punk
backstory. During his various sit-in protests, Punk has given
shoutouts to Colt Cabana. Colt Cabana is Punk's former tag team
partner (and current best friend. In fact, when Punk won the title
there were photos on TMZ the next day of Punk running around Chicago
with Colt and the other member of the Second City Saints, Ace Steele).
As you can probably tell by his name, Colt isn't the most serious
wrestler in the world. His entrance music is "Copa Cabana." He dances
on his way to the ring. There were comedy spots in just about all of
his matches. But the odd couple thing worked. They were an
entertaining team and it was always fun seeing the dour Punk walk out
next to the smiling goofball. Oh, and Cabana could hold his own in the
ring as well. That's kind of important.

The Briscoes, Mark and Jay, broke out initially around the same time
as Punk. CZW booked them against each other as part of a tournament.
At the time, Jay was 18 and Mark was 16. And somehow they pulled off
one of the better matches to ever take place on American soil. And
probably the best match ever where neither participant was legally
allowed to drink, even in Canada. So of course they wrestled each
other another dozen times in several other companies over the next
year.

So essentially, you have the deep Delaware redneck Briscoes babbling
about manning up versus the mismatched tandem of CM Punk and "Classic"
Colt Cabana. How can you go wrong?

CM Punk vs. Samoa Joe

Somewhere along the line, people decided that CM Punk wasn't that good
a wrestler. Nevermind that he broke out solely on the strength of his
in-ring work in IWA-MS. Punk, they said, was little more than a sloppy
kid with a lot of tattoos who had the gift of gab. Then Punk and Samoa
Joe wrestled to a 60 minute draw out of nowhere for ROH in Dayton, OH.
Then they wrestled another 60 minute draw. This one received the first
coveted Five Star rating from the Wrestling Observer in America since
the mid-90s. This was the kind of match Ric Flair and Ricky Steamboat
used to wrestle. This was on the same level as the Misawa vs. Kawada
classics.

Exemplary Video Evidence: It wouldn't feel right to not include a
poorly made match tribute video with stupid music. This is all from
their second 60 minute draw:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8_EWuRIfbk

The feud took off and took both guys to yet another level. At the
middle of it all was Samoa Joe's ROH Title. A title that Punk had
never held despite being one of the top attractions in the company for
many years. The two draws seemed to point to Punk winning the third
match and finally staking his claim to being the acknowledged top dog
in Independent wrestling.

Well, Punk lost that third match. And it didn't go close to an hour.

In the months after that, Punk began negotiating with WWE. Word
emerged that at the end of that spring, Punk would be hitting the big
time. Punk was given another title shot. This time against the man who
had ended the reign of Samoa Joe in shocking fashion a few months
before, Austin Aries. Knowing that it would be his final match in ROH,
the fans cheered for Punk and were firmly behind him the whole match.
A match that Punk won.

And then...

CM Punk vs. Ring of Honor

Punk turned. He turned in glorious fashion. Punk got on the mic and
proceeded to trash the company and its fans while bragging about how
he had been signed by WWE. He declared himself a snake. That summer
turned into Punk holding ROH hostage and entering the ring to his new
entrance music: Living Colour's "Cult of Personality" (sound
familiar?). ROH sent their best after Punk to try to reclaim the
title, but Punk kept winning.

This was Punk at his absolute best: A charismatic shit talker with a
disdain for authority who wrestled great matches to boot. Punk wasn't
on his way to being the best in the world; he was already there.

Punk's run ended at the hands of James Gibson (aka Jamie Knoble aka
Jamie Noble) who, ironically enough, had also just signed a WWE
contract.

Exemplary Video Evidence: CM Punk breaks the collective heart of the
dorky, chant-happy ROH fans:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xaitqh_cm-punks-wins-title-turns-heel_sport

CM Punk vs. Jeff Hardy

This was Punk's first bigtime feud on the grandest stage of them all.
Unfortunately, I wasn't around to see it. This was during my
self-imposed exile from wrestling after shit got a little too real in
the Benoit household (If you don't know, Chris Benoit killed his his
wife and young son in a concussion fueled rage. Rumor has it he used
his finishing hold, the Crippler Crossface, to end his son's life.
Benoit was subsequently written out of wrestling history. The
wrestling police (most likely The Big Bossman and The Mountie) will be
knocking at my door any minute now). In any case, I heard it was great
and very similar to Punk's previous feud with Raven. Except, of
course, for the fact that Hardy was even more of a babbling
pill-popper who had long since seen his peak.

Exemplary Video Evidence: CM Punk pisses off the fans by dressing up
as Jeff Hardy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhzwhAYy5hA

CM Punk vs. WWE

The present day. Punk's contract was about to run its course. His WWE
run, to that point, had been somewhat successful. He had won various
titles, had good matches, and developed a memorable, though often
watered down, character. The thought was that Punk would have one more
month where he would be on the business end of a Loser Leaves Town
match in order to elevate one of the Cookie-Cutter up-and-comers.

But then they gave him the mic. And he unleashed his now legendary
evisceration of WWE as a company. It was a thing of beauty. This has
been written about more eloquently elsewhere, but, in short, Punk was
voicing the concerns of the so-called "smart" fans toward the WWE. And
from there Punk took off. In the subsequent weeks, Punk ripped apart
WWE as a company, Vince as a person, and Cena as the top guy in the
company (And this past week, Punk's showdown with internet wrestling's
Satan, HHH, was positively sublime (Here's an example of how hated HHH
is by the fans in question. Jimmy Rave was a middling independent
wrestler who occasionally wrestled a good match but never really left
an impression. He started to use HHH's finisher, the Pedigree, and
instantly got massive heat everywhere he went). Punk's impression of
HHH's pillow talk literally made my jaw drop into my $20 room service
hamburger).

Exemplary Video Evidence: CM Punk makes wrestling relevant again in
just five minutes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Is9SdaC-X8

For Punk to truly seize the reigns as the Best in the World, there was
one more step: Put on a world-shaking match. At the Money in the Bank
PPV, Punk got his chance. His opponent was John Cena, a human cartoon
clad in jorts and wrist bands who had become inexplicably popular
despite regularly drawing boos from half of the live crowd on any
given night. Cena, though annoying as a character, is actually a
pretty damn good wrestler in the right circumstances. Cena had carried
multiple monster types (Umaga, Great Khali, Mark Henry) to passable
matches in the past. He also had a knack for delivering in "epic"
matches. If nothing else, Cena made you feel like you were watching
something big go down.

Money in the Bank was to take place in Chicago. There were several
scenarios in play:
1. Punk loses clean and gets a heartfelt goodbye from his hometown crowd.
2. Cena turns heel and cheats to win. Punk still gets a heartfelt
goodbye and Cena as villain carries WWE through the summer.
3. Vince interferes in Montreal Screwjob fashion to cheat Punk out of
the title ala Bret Hart.
4. Punk wins but immediately loses the title to one of the Money in
the Bank winners from earlier in the night.
5. Punk wins and walks out with the title.

Given WWE's track record, the final scenario looked like the least
likely going in.

The match played out better than anyone could have hoped. It wasn't
the "best" match either guy has ever had, but it certainly felt like
the most important. Punk, being a consummate student of the craft,
lifted the structure from the Misawa/Kawada All Japan matches that are
legendary among the internet nerds who care about these things. Misawa
was the biggest name in Japanese wrestling at the time and could well
be considered the best ever. Unfortunately, he is now more famous for
dying in the ring (well, technically he died on the way to the
hospital. But still.) Kawada was his stoic, mulleted counterpart; a
Japanese Terminator. One could also make a compelling case that Kawada
was the best to ever live. The story of their matches was that Kawada
could not beat Misawa. No matter how much punishment he laid on,
Kawada could never manage to get the three count. The Japanese crowds
ate this up. Every time Misawa kicked out at two, the normally quiet,
patient Japanese fans would lose their shit (Kawada would finally beat
Misawa in a tag match after five years of trying. That match, by the
way, is my personal pick for best match ever wrestled).

Bonus Video: The last ten minutes of the Misawa/Kawada match in 1994
that other folks say is the best match of all time. Misawa is in the
Green, Kawada is in the black:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VV5KZZIM1g&feature=related
(By the way, no one has ever been more emotionally invested in
anything than the announcer is in this match. It's like he's watching
his two kids beat the shit out of each other and he can't decide which
one he loves more)

Punk and Cena implemented this template, but with a twist. Cena,
normally the unbeatable crowd favorite, was playing the Kawada role
while Punk was Chicago's tattooed Misawa. Cena used every move in his
arsenal multiple times but just couldn't finish off Punk. At one
point, Cena even looked at the referee in disbelief as if to say,
"There's nothing more I can do to beat this guy."

Then out came Vince. At this point, the crowd's collective asshole
tightened in anticipation of the Chicago screwjob. Vince sent his VP,
Johnny Ace, to the scorer's table to ring the bell and end the match.
But the virtuous Cena used all of his trademark qualities (Hustle,
Loyalty, Respect; or so it says on his merchandise) to stop the
miscarriage of justice. When Cena hopped back in the ring, Punk hit
the Go 2 Sleep and won the title.

Before he could celebrate, Vince ordered Albert Del Rio to cash in his
Money in the Bank title shot that he had won earlier on the show. Del
Rio rushed the ring but was knocked out with a kick by Punk upon
entering. Punk then took the title, blew Vince a kiss, and exited
through the adoring crowd.

Thus, Punk delivered on all the promise we saw in him ten years ago.
"Someday he'll be the biggest wrestler in the world." That day is now.

Mike Coast

PS - Feel free to forward this to anyone you feel might not hate it.