CM Punk: Are WWE Fans Intrigued by the Man or the Situation?

Professional wrestling fans are prisoners of the moment by nature. We have been held captive by WWE and CM Punk over the past month, but what is it that really captured our attention?

Is CM Punk that great of an entertainer or are we simply intrigued by his current situation with the WWE?

Punk has been wrestling for years and bounced around from promotion to promotion before finding a new home in the WWE Universe.

Everybody always knew he had the image, in-ring skills and charisma to dominate the industry. Always. This past month didn’t all of a sudden open any eyes.

The reason fans declared Money in the Bank one of the most anticipated events in the history of the promotion is because of the unknown. More than anything else in this world, wrestling fans can never get enough of the unknown.

For well over a decade, fans have scoured the Internet in order to get the most up-to-the-second news and rumors surrounding WWE. We all want the inside scoop to be one step ahead of the creative team and WWE programming.

Yet the Punk storyline prevented anybody from being one step ahead. Nobody knew for sure if he was leaving and everybody knew even less if he would actually defeat John Cena for the WWE Championship.

Here we are less than one week removed from the blockbuster pay-per-view and we have a renegade outcast prowling the streets of Chicago carrying the coveted WWE Championship. How many people already forgot that?

As expected, he didn’t show up on RAW and was barely mentioned by the WWE Universe. The day after RAW, all anyone could talk about was Triple H firing Vince McMahon. We went from one goodbye with Punk to another in Vince McMahon in less than 24 hours.

How many Punk chants did you hear throughout RAW? It wasn’t because we were no longer in Chicago.

Less than 24 hours after Punk fulfilled his mission, WWE already diverted our attention. It was no longer about Punk and the WWE Championship, it was about Vinny Mac and what his removal as on-air CEO means to the WWE Universe.

Therein is the problem with the entire storyline and devotion to CM Punk.

Once Punk said he was leaving WWE as a free agent with the WWE Championship, WWE had us hooked until the very end. We watched in awe during his RAW shoot promo and were left stunned in the aftermath.

That promo may have been a defining moment in Punk’s career, but this storyline was solidified the moment he announced his contract was expiring.

Punk was never the one that kept the fans coming back. It wasn’t the fact that he is the complete Main Event package. It’s not the in-ring skills, image or charisma.

It’s the fact that he was leaving.

WWE has seen superstars come and go. Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair, Bret Hart The Rock, Steve Austin, Brock Lesnar, Kurt Angle, Chris Jericho, Shawn Michaels, Edge and now Punk.

It never mattered in the end. WWE fans will simply move on to the next star presented to them and salivate at the mouth.

WWE fans have seen their superstars play with their emotions for years. When the smoke clears, WWE fans prove every time to be the most resilient fans in the history of fandom.

We’ve seen our favorite performers desert us due to a myriad of reasons, but rarely ever because their contract is up. This is simply unheard of, which is why we couldn’t get enough of it.

Despite pillaging the Internet for every tidbit of news, we couldn’t for the life of us find out what was going to happen after Money in the Bank.

Here was a man with all the talent in the world working for years with the company. We knew when he first came to the WWE that he had the talent to main event, and he had opportunities to convince us all.

He was featured in multiple storylines and main event programs, yet it wasn’t until he announced he was leaving did he truly grab the fans by the throat and reel them in.

Despite having our attention diverted by Vinny Mac, we’re still in Punk’s control because we are dying to find out what will happen.

Once Punk comes back to our television screens, we will no longer be as intrigued by the storyline. Even worse, we won’t be as intrigued by CM Punk.

He will be here to stay and will no longer have us drooling from every word that escapes his mouth. As prisoner of the moments and seeing our favorites desert us time and time again, we were on the edge of our seats because of the sense of loss.

Without that internal anxiety, fans will no longer have the same reaction to Punk.

We need to keep guessing what will happen next, and when Punk returns, we won’t be left guessing. We will no longer be as intrigued as we were because we won’t have that sense of anxiety that another man is leaving us behind.

We’ll eat it up the very next time we see him, but after that, Punk is back to the middle of the WWE pack like he was before still trying to break through the glass ceiling.

Does Punk have transcendent characteristics to carry WWE? He does.

Unfortunately, the reason we care so much about Punk right now is not because of anything he did.

It was because his situation created a sense of loss and anxiety that we have not felt in years.