WWE: Why CM Punk Is a Wrestling Legend in the Making

What makes a wrestling legend? A style, a flare, a talk and walk? Maybe the "pack" he runs with or the fact he remains a loner and tries to change the face of the industry.

CM Punk may not be a jet-flying, beer-drinking, aristocratic wresting genius. But for the last eight months, he has basically had wrestling by the balls and has not let go, no matter what kind of angle the creative teams in the WWE have tried to push on him.

Sure, taking the "lone wolf" approach and changing it to a people-friendly, fan-approving star is not what we had in mind, and frankly, a crossroads of the two brands of character would be fine in most people's minds, but Punk is just not that kind of wrestler.

Punk is the epitome of the "Wrestling Breakfast Club." In he we see a Piper, a Savage, an Austin, a Rock, a Cerebral Assassin and a Muta. And all those components fit in some form or fashion and help define him, the wrestler, not the legend. How much he is appreciated for his artistry is not known until he walks away from the business for good, which won't be any time soon.

Legends like a Shawn Michaels, Ric Flair and Sting have the ability to make the fans part of their act. They took an angle or a gimmick and made it their own, and the fans have always respected and loved them for the honesty of it. What makes wrestling masterful is the ability of the man or woman to fall into character and stay in character.

Punk does that as well now as anyone ever has, and when he takes to the microphone, he creates a story, a show, an image, just like a great novelist. And the fact the locker room knows his mastery of it creates an aura that he is "THE BEST IN THE WORLD."

So much has changed in the apocalypse of the wrestling world in the last 15 years with the destruction of Kayfabe and the creation of the Internet and marketing that heroes of the early 1990s and before do not get the respect and admiration of the generation of today because most never saw the mastery of a Nick Bockwinkle, or a Jack Brisco, or a Harley Race before they were characters in the WWF.

Punk is a throwback to a generation before this one, the one I grew up in and respected. He is "Dr. Death" Steve Williams in intensity. He is Roddy Piper in charisma. He is Randy Savage in ability. And he is Steve Austin in star power.

If he isn't already a legend, he is building on his legacy. And the making of his legend has already been complete.