WWE Can Shock Fans With This CM Punk Swerve at Clash at the Castle

Most pro wrestling fans think they know where things are going in the feud between CM Punk and Drew McIntyre as WWE marches to Clash at the Castle: Scotland on June 15.

Which means it's the perfect opportunity for all involved to pull off an unforgettable swerve.

In Glasgow, McIntyre will challenge Damian Priest for the World Heavyweight Championship. For fans, it feels super obvious that Punk will show up and continue the theme of costing his rival everything, helping Priest retain and building that inevitable feeling showdown between the two over the summer.

But....

What if Punk helped McIntyre win the title?

Think about how compelling it would be for WWE to flip this whole thing on its head. After costing McIntyre the title at WrestleMania XL via Priest cash-in just moments after his big win and being a proverbial thorn in his side since, Punk becomes the reason McIntyre gets the belt back at all.

This narrative flip would enrage McIntyre even more because now, the man he hates the most played a role in the championship belt around his waist. Fans won't view his win as "legitimate" and rest assured Punk, one of the greatest of all time on the mic, will exploit that fact at every moment possible.

Once medically cleared, this would make Punk look like a borderline genius, too. He's obviously headed into a major feud with McIntyre over the summer, so his puppeteering a title shot into the feud for himself is just crafty. Plus, it's perfectly within his character to say that when he finally wins a title in WWE again, he wants to be stealing it off someone he hates most—not someone he's indifferent about, such as Priest.

Such an idea works to accomplish plenty of other things, too. Part of the appeal for this moment for McIntyre is he's back in the stomping grounds of his home country of Scotland. He was robbed of a similar moment a few years ago when losing to Roman Reigns.

This, in an interesting twist, would still let McIntrye get that special moment in front of a friendly crowd, yet also surprise and drive a must-see story. The fact he couldn't "enjoy" it more as opposed to if he had won the title clean would be a lot of fun, with everyone from the live audience to the onlookers from home in on the joke.

Priest could benefit from this, too. If he must lose the title, better to do it in a situation filled with shenanigans involving two of the most dominant names in the sport outright so that when the time comes for him to get back in the title scene, he can claim he never lost clean.

Besides, Priest doesn't need a title to keep the must-see happenings of Judgment Day going right now. He's got plenty of other things to worry about as his group falls apart without Rhea Ripley as Liv Morgan does her thing. It's probably better for his story to focus on that than have him drop the title in a momentum-crushing loss to someone a slight step down on the ladder in the men's division right now.

The execution of this idea doesn't have to be anything too wild, either. Keep it simple like at 'Mania, where McIntyre was so caught up in trash-talking Punk that he got blindsided and it cost him everything.

Or, perhaps it would be better to play into that Judgment Day angle. Priest's friends—maybe mix Morgan in, too, to keep driving that point home—come out to help him and Punk intervenes, helping McIntyre pick up the win.

Talk about a table-setter for the summer with some major payoffs at SummerSlam: McIntyre is champ, Priest is free of a devaluing loss and focused on a must-see faction story, Punk is challenging for a top title in perhaps the best one-on-one feud of the past few years.

Plus, of course, it would register as a surprise and the journey to the payoff feud would be more enjoyable. McIntyre being the first guy angry to win a championship as Punk mocks him across the globe while threatening to take it is too good for WWE not to do.

Perhaps there's hope for this to come to fruition, too, given the talent of the Superstars involved and the care for long-term storytelling and character work in the Triple H-led creative.

One has to think all involved at least see the opportunity to swerve fans with a shocker like this. Doing so wouldn't just be memorable—it would take what could be a by-the-books feud between McIntyre and Punk and turn it up to 11 in the sweltering heat of summer.