WWE Elimination Chamber 2012: Why CM Punk Will Be Victorious

CM Punk will emerge from the Elimination Chamber pay-per-view with the WWE Championship still around his waist. It's the best way to continue building tension between him and Chris Jericho as the Road to WrestleMania begins to take off.

The extended title reign for Punk has done wonders to make the belt important again. When it was changing hands seemingly every month in recent years, there just wasn't the same feel of prestige involved with holding it.

By letting one person keep it for months, there's a sense that it's an actual struggle to reach the mountain top instead of letting anybody and everybody get their chance before jobbing it back to John Cena at the next PPV.

Punk has done a terrific job setting up his impending feud with Jericho by basically ignoring him, showing he has the same power of silence as Y2J did upon returning to the company.

The WWE Universe has a split opinion about who will walk away from Sunday's main event with the title, but it's simply too soon to give Jericho the belt.

If he were to return from an extended hiatus to take the belt off Punk a month later, it would not only make the company's top worker look weak, but all that previous work to build the belt back up would be wasted in the blink of an eye.

It's been widely assumed Punk and Jericho were entering a WrestleMania storyline once Y2J returned in January. He doesn't need to be holding the title to make it happen.

By the time the year's most important event rolls around, Punk's run will be well over three months long and Jericho will have been around long enough to warrant taking control of the belt.

Simply put, the buildup for Elimination Chamber hasn't been good enough to make a title change smart for business.

Punk needs to retain to keep his awesome momentum alive, which actually seems to be improving with each passing week. Fans aren't getting bored with him like they have with other champions.

That's why he needs to be the face of the WWE at least through early April.