CM Punk: How Punk Broke the 4th Wall and Revived the WWE

What CM Punk did last night on RAW was everything the WWE needed.

It was epic. It was groundbreaking. It was whatever adjective is best suited to describe a performer who knows his character so well that even fake wrestling seems very real.

Don’t mistake what Punk did as a “shoot” as they call it. CM Punk is a pro, through and through. He’s a performer's performer, and he’s far too smart to burn any bridges by going off the beaten path to air his dirty laundry—that’s what blogs, Twitter and dirt sheet interviews are for.

Everything Punk did last night (save the five percent that may have been in the heat of the moment) was with the full blessing of the WWE.

What the WWE and CM Punk have done in the last two weeks is something that the sports entertainment empire has needed for a long time. Ever since the WWE admitted to the world that everything we saw was scripted, the WWE has been begging for a wake-up call, something to jolt the system and pique our interest.

When the WWE went to a PG rating, there went the Attitude ERA. With the prospect of sex, chair shots and Hell in a Cell gone, the WWE needed to set itself apart and create interest again. Couple the PG rating with the departure of the sport's two biggest stars (Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock) and healthy intrigue was all but gone.

The wrestling world had been successfully divided into two camps.

There were the adults that hung on because of some adolescent attachment to the sport, and the kids who were too young to know the difference between what was real and what was just plain uninteresting.

Last night CM Punk did something that the WWE has been begging for: He broke the fourth wall.

No, it’s certainly not the first time that it’s been done. Triple H and Shawn Michaels, as members of Degeneration X, did it regularly. The Stone Cold/Vince McMahon feud was predicated on revealing that VKM was, in fact, the owner. To be clear, stripping away that fourth wall was done when needed, and for dramatic effect.

Nothing the WWE has ever done was as good as it was in the six minutes that CM Punk talked.

Perhaps it’s because it was real. It felt real. As any writer (or any deep thinker) will tell you, truth sells. Dirty secrets and impulsive thoughts that reveal the true nature of something kept hidden tantalizes the masses.

Hearing Punk spout his true feelings about the supposed “ass-kissing” that has gone on amongst top stars, the “yes men” that advise Mr. McMahon, or McMahon’s “doofus son-in-law” Triple H made our ears perk up.

Whether it was approved or not, we still believed for just a moment that CM Punk had gone off of the script. We believed that for a moment he was not sanctioned to do anything we were seeing. We believed, and I think there was good reason to, that Punk was speaking from the heart.

It’s that kind of honesty from a performer that sells it as well as anyone, that makes us want to watch. It’s the kind of honesty that makes us want to buy the Money In the Bank pay-per-view.

So how can the WWE let CM Punk go? His contract situation, at last pass, was very real and he’s set to leave after Money in the Bank. Their main dispute in negotiations has been over the use of his name.

CM Punk, who came from Ring of Honor and was allowed to use the same performing name, is interested in keeping his name. The WWE, who prefers to keep the marketing rights of their performers, wants to own his ring name.

In the grand scheme of things, it seems foolish to lose a top-level talent over a name that won’t hurt WWE’s bottom line, even if he did use it with a rival promotion.

Punk wasn’t lying last night when he said that he was one of the best on the mic—and one of the best in the ring. Both statements are true, and in an age where stars are over-scripted and looks far outweigh talent, losing CM Punk would be a great injustice. It would be like letting a free agent go in the prime of his career.

That’s what the world saw last night: a performer at the peak of his powers. His moment was so good, so compelling, that he not only set out a blueprint for the type of drama that the WWE should be hell-bent on creating from here on out, but he also made even the smartest of wrestling fans wonder for a second if wrestling was real.