WWE: Follow-Up Critical to Success of CM Punk Work-Shoot

CM Punk’s work-shoot promo to close Monday night Raw had every member of the WWE audience eating out of his hand.

PWTorch’s Wade Keller summarized it best in his post on the PWTorch iPhone app, and I don’t know how I would like to repeat that, so to quickly summarize: Punk hit every possible audience. Little kid’s still think he’s a jerk because he cursed and insulted their hero John Cena. Adult fans that may not be dirt sheet diehards know he hit some sore subjects but are questioning if he went too far with the work-shoot. Then there are people like us that understood every reference made and think it was brilliant.

The feeling each of us felt was likely similar to our bursting optimism and excitement upon the arrival of the soon-to-be Nexus. The complete domination of John Cena (Punk, verbally. Nexus, physically). The feeling of unscripted mayhem (Punk, shooting. Nexus, attacking production team members). The abrupt end of the show.

Coming to BR the day after the Nexus attack felt the same. Every block was filled with a different image of Wade Barrett, the NXT cast, Cena battered in the ring, Justin Roberts being choked with a tie.

The wrestling world is buzzing right now and it’s going to make WWE a lot of money. It’s poor timing with the Fourth of July coming up next Monday, leaving WWE stuck taping the show a week in advance, which will lead to spoilers being released and a standard drop in ratings of a holiday.

Nonetheless, I’m willing to bet ratings actually increase next week, leading us to wonder what the figure could have been without many having family obligations and fireworks to attend.

Ultimately, this is going to drive a major buyrate for WWE in comparison to other PPVs outside of the Big Four. That’s the short-term perk in business, though.

Last summer, the Nexus storyline was going to set the world on fire, but by the time SummerSlam rolled around, it was already slowly dying. Call me a blind optimist, but Punk’s association with storyline gives me hope that the follow-up will not fall flat and truly provide a breath of fresh air for a stale product.

A vocal minority is especially loud and proud on this site in spite of Randy Orton. Absurd columns such as “why the majority hates Randy Orton” are out of touch with the reality of the professional wrestling audience, as the pops for Orton are monstrous, and the night he beat Christian for the belt on Smackdown drew a huge ovation.

That being said, Orton has long been perceived as the anti-Cena babyface. Unfortunately, he is trending more in the direction of Cena-fication by the week.

If WWE wants to rejuvenate its product with a fresh top babyface, it’s not Orton – it’s Punk. As backwards as it may seem, Punk’s massive heel heat and antagonistic promo are what may have just created the long walk to top face.

Remember, the Money in the Bank PPV is going to be in Chicago, Punk’s hometown, where he will draw massive crowd support, enough to completely drown out any little kids. While the adult fans chant "Cena Sucks" at live events, those in Chicago will have an added motivation to truly overpower the young women and children in favor of Cena.

I don’t believe Punk wanting time off is work. He’s a smart guy that knows he wants to be in the business for a long time, and regular time off is important, especially after he suffered an injury late in 2010 that kept him sidelined and was asked to keep touring as a commentator instead of going home to rest.

Due to these circumstances, I expect Punk to lose at MitB, but not clean. With deafening cheers for Punk, look for him to be damn close to winning the match before Vince McMahon makes an appearance to cost Punk the match and subsequently fire him. Cena will claim to not have had a role in McMahon’s decision to interfere and remain a babyface, moving on to face his next opponent, likely Alberto del Rio at SummerSlam.

This allows Punk to take a few months off and return with a fury to a huge ovation to take aim at Vince McMahon, who is intent on keeping him down, keeping his Indy-loving, outspoken self in his place. This can run all the way to Wrestlemania, pushing Punk into the conversation as one of the biggest fan favorites in the company, which may also allow John Cena to turn heel as a corporate champion with Orton still there to soak up the kids as a superhero babyface.

Whether it plays out this ideally or not, it comes down to execution, long-term commitment to a storyline and follow-up. The Nexus storyline was dead by SummerSlam and subsequently dragged out for far too long without establishing a single new main event star. If WWE plays their cards right, we may be on to something big here.

We can only hope.