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SHOOTING FOR HEAT: LOOKING AT THE PAST AND FUTURE OF ECW'S CM PUNK

Welcome to Shooting for Heat. Ok, enough with the niceties. How’s that for brief and to the point?

This week I will be taking a look at someone who I believe is the next big thing (no pun intended). He’s someone most people are already pretty high on, and in some circles people are already comparing him to some of the greats in this business.  I’d like to say that he’s the next Bret Hart, except for the fact that I hate it when people use that term. But outside of the wording, I actually stand by that statement for the most part.

Who am I talking about? CM Punk.  

Obviously there is a lot to like about CM Punk. He’s a great-to-excellent in-ring wrestler. He’s more than an efficient talker, and most of all he has the one thing you can’t teach; The one thing that takes people like Steve Austin and The Rock to heights higher than people like Chris Benoit and Dean Malenko, and that’s “it”. There is a reason, after all, why the ECWWE fans have taken such a quick liking to him, and it’s not the lip piercing.

When you see CM Punk you’re seeing an extension of who Phillip Brooks is as a person. It’s been said a hundred times by a hundred different people, but it still remains true; The most successful wrestlers, at least in terms of popularity, tend to be those who are just playing a version of themselves with the volume turned way up. CM Punk isn’t playing a straightedge character, he is straightedge. CM Punk isn’t playing someone who loves wrestling and tries to put on the best match he can, he actually is someone loyal to the tradition of wrestling.

A lot of what I’ve said thus far is true and also common knowledge. You need only look at the man and his tattoos to see that he’s pretty serious about his lifestyle and what it means to him. What you may not be fully aware of (unless if you’re a loyal ROH fan) is that CM Punk, while already popular as a face, makes a much, much better heel.

“I’m better than you”. A phrase that if someone walked up to you and told you with any amount of sincerity would make you dislike them in a heartbeat. Sometimes the simplest things make the most sense. In Ring of Honor, CM Punk played the straightedge, wrestling purest that he’s playing right now in ECW, with the one twist that he played it as a heel. For the money, I think CM Punk can be one of (if not the most) viable heels in wrestling today. It’s one thing to have someone like Edge act cocky and pretend to be better than you (which he does very well, I might add), but it means more coming from someone who has logic and some degree of truth backing it up.

The vast majority of us have some type of vice, many of us are proud of it in fact, but the notion that CM Punk doesn’t need drugs, alcohol, or cigarettes to get by can rub people the wrong way, especially if he flaunts it and rubs it in your face. CM Punk was one of the best pure wrestling heels ROH has ever produced. When all is said and done, I think he might be one of the best in this industry.

CM Punk had a very memorable and passionate feud in ROH with Raven. What made it work well was, besides the fact that both men have a lot of heart and talent is that they were able to play off of real-life parallels between the two. Raven obviously has quite the history of drug abuse and sexual depravity, and CM Punk…well, CM Punk doesn’t. CM Punk legitimately had an alcoholic for a father, and he’s straightedge in spite of it. Sounds like the story of a face, but with CM Punk, he can take that vain of reality and spin it around to help ensure you despise him.

Taking a look at ECW today I see CM Punk, obviously a face, working his way through the undercard, while feuding with Mike Knox (who isn’t exactly going to put on a great match). Once they move him away from Knox, who else is there for him to work with? Matt Striker? That’s the next logical progression. Sure, I think they can and will have better matches than he and Knox, but that’s not a very compelling feud. Test? I wouldn’t advise having CM Punk being thrown around by someone like Test, who can’t really carry a segment very well, but having Punk decisively beat someone in Test’s position certainly could and would help him along. After that though, there isn’t much left outside of the Big Show, which frankly isn’t a feud I want to see. Even if they went that route, the fact remains that there aren’t a lot of quality heels in ECW. In fact, the only one positioned very strongly is the current champion, the Big Show.

The time will come to turn CM Punk heel, and I sincerely hope they do it when he’s on a strong upswing, which I think is coming. I’m a firm believer in turning someone when they’re hot; Turning someone when they’re cold or just for the sake of turning them often has little effect, especially long term. Clearly, they see something special in him like many of us have, and they’ve done an excellent job thus far in projecting him to be better than everyone he’s been in the ring with.

He’s undefeated, he beats everyone pretty decisively, and he does it time and time again I might add. “Any given night…” doesn’t seem to apply as to who might win with CM Punk. Justin Credible, Shannon Moore, Renee Dupree, Danny Doring, etc. have all not only fallen, but fallen multiple times, cleanly. That’s how you slowly build someone up. When the time comes that they’re ready to push CM Punk into the semi-main event status in ECW (which has to be somewhat soon given the roster), they should take advantage of the situation and push him hard as a heel, against the most over face in the brand, Rob Van Dam.

The 420 friendly Van Dam makes a natural nemesis for Punk, and while they won’t go into the detail that Raven and Punk did in ROH in terms of story, they frankly don’t need to. People know who RVD is and by that point they’ll be very clear on who CM Punk is. Little needs to be said. A few simple comments & insults and you have yourself a natural made feud that people could sink their teeth into, both from a story standpoint as well as athletically.

I strongly believe that a heel CM Punk could and will make an excellent main eventer in ECW, and eventually on RAW one day if need be. It may sound as if I’m getting ahead of myself, and of course I am, but it’s logical to think that CM Punk will go quite far barring any serious injury, which sadly is more common than it should be in this business.

Looking back, I acknowledge I made the comparison between Punk and Bret Hart. I don’t honestly think writing here today that he’ll be as big or mean as much to wrestling as Bret Hart did/does, but I’m confident in saying that he certainly has the chance to be.

Both pride themselves on having great wrestling matches. CM Punk has had legitimate five star matches with the likes of Samoa Joe (not bad company to be around). Both play off of who they are in real life, both as face and heel, and both are sympathetic as such. When Hart played the heel in the Canada/USA feud, you could honestly argue his point and see where he was coming from, which like any great villain, makes the story more compelling. The same can and will be said for Punk when he eventually turns. It’s hard to fault someone who chooses a clean and drug-free path, it just so happens that he doesn’t care much for those who aren’t like him. Lastly, both personally and character-wise profess inner-strength, to believe in yourself no matter what anyone else says. In this day and age, it’s hard to find a role model you can believe in. While it’s hard to say for sure just how far Punk would be willing to go with that, it’s at least safe to say that WWE won’t be embarrassed by him and be forced to strip him of the ECW championship anytime in the future (ala Rob Van Dam).

At 28 years old, CM Punk has a wealth of experience under his belt already, with most of his career still ahead of him. It would be impossible to say exactly where he will go, because so much depends not just on him, but on factors outside of his or anyone’s control. But even if his career ended tomorrow, he could be credited with not only having excellent wrestling matches, but also with helping many Indy promotions (namely Ring of Honor) stay alive, which is noble and rare when today’s mentality is always to take the money and run.

If you’d like to familiarize yourself with CM Punk, I would recommend picking up any ROH DVD releases, including the “Best of CM Punk” series. Death Before Dishonor III is another excellent choice, where CM Punk goes on to win his first and only ROH Championship. He enters the match as a strong face, and leaves with the title as a full-fledged heel. Great stuff.  For more details, visit www.ROHWrestling.com

Ryan Rosenthal can be reached at Shooting4Heat@gmail.com