WWE: Why CM Punk Must Not Appear on Monday Night RAW

Forget Money in the Bank, now all that matters is whether or not the WWE has the stones it takes to make it all count.

The platitudes for the performance of CM Punk and John Cena have been delivered over and over. Their match was epic and the outcome was unforgettable. CM Punk in the crowd at the All State Arena in Chicago, arms raised with the World title and a contract on the brink of expiration as he ducks out the back to avoid the wrath of WWE Chairman, Vince McMahon.

Credit goes to the WWE creative team for seizing the opportunity to go against convention and, for at least one night, embrace the chaos theory that makes wrestling so special when pulled off so flawlessly. We were outwitted time and time again, just in the span of five minutes. From the Montreal Screwjob that didn’t happen, to the Cena grandstand that didn’t pay off, to the Alberto Del Rio angle that never took, the WWE fans were given something to talk about as the apex of what was the years most compelling pay-per-view.

But none of what happened last night means a thing unless the WWE makes good on Monday Night Raw. The storyline, as scintillating as it was, means very little if the WWE botches the next step in its evolution.

As we, the viewing public, understand it, CM Punk is no longer an employee and he now holds the WWE belt. John Cena, the WWE poster boy for PG children everywhere, was entrusted to keep the belt in the WWE but failed to do so. This is what we know. The reality, as it exists in the dirt sheets and in the personnel offices of the WWE doesn’t matter. We are willing to ignore the idea that CM Punk may have signed an extension or even a brand new contract. We are willing to believe he’s leaving, but the WWE must delight us from this angle.

Plain and simple, the worst thing that could happen tonight is for CM Punk to show up on RAW. Doing so would give away the secret we realize the WWE is likely keeping: CM Punk is still a member of the WWE.

Don’t think there isn’t reason to worry. The venue for RAW tonight is advertising CM Punk on the show. Yes, the result of a CM Punk sighting would be horrifically bad for the product they have spent the last three weeks building into something that has blurred the lines of pop culture and mainstream media. It’s not every day fake wrestling can be built into something that people are talking about. This kind of momentum happens once a decade if the WWE is lucky and it would be a waste to blow it all in the first 24 hours.

The WWE must do what is right for the story and for the overall arc of both their new champion and their defeated hero. RAW must be about dealing with the consequences of CM Punk having won the WWE title. Punk must stay off TV and make the public wonder when he’s coming back, if he’s coming back. Certainly he’ll show up at some point, but to have him come back so soon would negate everything CM Punk’s character has stood for and everything that last night’s epic match was about.

This isn’t the time for the WWE to think about SummerSlam, the next big PPV. This is time for the WWE to think beyond that. With CM Punk, they have a burgeoning anti-hero, someone the country is embracing. The crowd in Chicago was electric and while CM Punk is a native of the Windy City, it was about the spirit of the match more than it was about the roots CM Punk has laid there. The crowd was embracing the momentum CM Punk has been generating and they were pushing back against the persona John Cena has crammed down the collective throat of a WWE audience for years.

If ever there was a time, an angle and a reason for John Cena to go heel, it’s now. John Cena continues his schtick as the hardest working man in the WWE, but is constantly marginalized by the audience. He’s booed and hated and now, in the face of his greatest defeat, a city cheering for him to fail and the WWE title to be stripped of its dignity, Cena can use this as the leverage for him to be a heel. That is what the WWE needs. That is the chaos that will keep the viewing public coming back.

The WWE has made promises and laid eggs before. They have taken great angles, endless possibilities and they have flushed them down the proverbial toilet. Now is the time they play their cards right and know that they don’t need to see their big PPV, like SummerSlam, because it sells itself. All the WWE has to do find a compelling way to continue this arc and the selling of PPV’s will take care of itself.

RAW must be epic tonight and CM Punk better be nowhere in sight.