Lessons Learned from Summer of CM Punk If Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn Are 'Fired'

On Clash of Champions Sunday, Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn will be fighting for their jobs.

They will face Randy Orton and Shinsuke Nakamura in a tag team match. Both SmackDown Live Commissioner Shane McMahon and general manager Daniel Bryan will be refereeing the bout. And should Owens and Zayn lose this match, they will be "fired" from WWE. No demotion to NXT. No re-signing with the red brand.

It seems none of the participants are particularly enthused by this angle. Not one of them has treated the career-threatening stipulation with the gravity it deserves.

There is a precedent for serious treatment. Compare this angle to the buildup to No Mercy in 2016. Dolph Ziggler nearly cried at the prospect of losing his career to The Miz. Compare this angle to the build-up to No Way Out in 2000. The title vs. career match between Triple H and Cactus Jack was contested in Hell in a Cell—a stipulation reserved for the most personal feuds.

And consider the buildup to Money in the Bank in 2011, when CM Punk cut his legendary pipe-bomb promo and threatened to leave WWE, with the WWE Championship, if he beat John Cena. When he won the title, he grabbed the belt and escaped through the crowd. WWE sold this angle so seriously fans still speculate how much of it was a shoot and how much of it was a work.

Meanwhile, during the SmackDown preceding Sunday's Clash of Champions, Daniel Bryan spent the the majority of his commentary time roasting Byron Saxton. Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens parodied Daniel Bryan's Occupy Raw angle by wearing "Yep" t-shirts and circulating a petition. If those two can't bother to care about their prospective professional demise, why should the audience?

WWE Creative booked the entire angle strangely from the jump. Owens and Zayn, in both word and action, are heels. Yet Shane McMahon, who has a vendetta against both men, is acting like a heel as well by rigging the match. Daniel Bryan is the only one in this setup whom the fans could conceivably get behind.

Perhaps that's the point. If Owens and Zayn win on Sunday, it could signal a turn for Bryan, who can then feud with Shane McMahon until WrestleMania. Whether Bryan gets cleared to wrestle is a moot point; the fans love him so much that he will draw eyeballs, even if he's just by ringside and someone else is fighting on his behalf.

But what if the more interesting development happens, and Owens and Zayn lose? Can WWE pull off a convincing aftermath? How long should the duo be kept off TV? And can WWE make the fans care about an angle that had such a rough start?

Fortunately, the build to a bout, the fight itself and the post-match aftermath do not always match in terms of quality. And one can look at the Summer of Punk for proof of this. WWE began that angle with great promise—one of the greatest promos all the time was followed by one of the best matches of 2011—and ended it on a low note with tired, overly cautious booking.

Hopefully, this Owens-Zayn storyline can be the inverse of its CM Punk predecessor. Here are some mistakes WWE made in the past and some pitfalls they must avoid today.

Credit: WWE.com

3. If Owens and Zayn Lose, Keep Them Off TV Until Fastlane

Punk "quit" WWE after Money in the Bank in 2011. But he was back on TV two weeks later, and he was fighting at SummerSlam less than a month later. It was much too short a time to build suspense. He never felt gone; fans wanted the opportunity to miss him.

If Owens and Zayn are "fired," fans shouldn't see them again until Fastlane in March. That's probably too much to ask; the Royal Rumble is in January, and neither man will want to miss such such a marquee event. But an extended break would build to a much bigger blow-off at WrestleMania were the company to exercise restraint.

2. Put Them in a Direct Feud with Shane When They Do Return

At SummerSlam in 2011, Punk beat Cena to become the undisputed WWE champion, but he was then decimated by a returning Kevin Nash. What followed was an awkward feud between Nash and Punk and, by proxy, between Triple H and Punk. Nash vs. Punk was booked for Night of Champions until the last minute, when Triple H fired Nash and took his spot.

The feud everyone wanted to see was Triple H vs. CM Punk. Everything else was a needless song and dance to get to that match. When Owens and Zayn return, hopefully after a long layoff, they should be fighting Shane directly rather than some wrestler he places in front of him. The storyline does not need to be artificially extended past its expiration date.

Credit: WWE.com

1. Let Them Win

When Punk returned at SummerSlam in 2011, he lost the WWE title to Alberto Del Rio. Then he lost to Triple H at Night of Champions. Then he lost a Triple Threat at Hell in a Cell. Then he lost a tag match at Vengeance. It wasn't until Survivor Series, three months after SummerSlam, that Punk finally won back the WWE title. And the buzz was never the same.

Owens and Zayn need to rack up some victories when they return. They will lose eventually and be embarrassed or humiliated in some fashion. But that comeuppance needs to come slowly and at expense of their rediscovered friendship. In the meantime, they need to be dominant instead of serving as sacrificial affirmations of The Authority's power.