WWE Opinion: 7 Ways CM Punk Can Help Alberto Del Rio

CM Punk beat Alberto Del Rio at Sunday's Survivor Series pay-per-view to win the WWE Championship from the same man who took it from him way back at SummerSlam. 

But this feud is still far from over.

In all likelihood, Del Rio is going to use his automatic rematch clause against Punk at next month's WWE TLC pay-per-view, which means we've still got about a month of feuding left for these two.

And that's good news for ADR. 

Not because he's going to win back the WWE Championship—because he likely won't—but because he can certainly benefit from feuding with a guy like Punk.

Here are seven ways Punk can help Del Rio.

7. Taking the Focus off of Him

Alberto Del Rio is a fine heel, one who's undoubtedly a huge asset to Monday Night Raw.

But if either of his runs as WWE Champion have proved anything, it's that he is basically a major flop when holding the title and being the focus of the WWE's top show.

The combination of the bad booking of Del Rio's character and his inability to get over as a legitimately hated heel like The Miz or Mark Henry has turned Raw into a disaster when Del Rio is in the spotlight.

Maybe the man just needs to get out of it for a while.

There should be no shame in not being able to carry the WWE's flagship show—not many men can do it—but the WWE has to realize that Del Rio cannot and should not be the face of its No. 1 brand.

The only Raw stars who can do that at the moment are John Cena and CM Punk, so perhaps it would be a good idea to have Punk as the WWE Champ for a while in order to remove Del Rio from the focus of the show.

There will be less pressure for Del Rio in that scenario, and maybe not carrying so much weight on his shoulders will be better for his WWE career in the long run.

6. Get Him More Heat

There are only a few WWE superstars who can help elevate other wrestlers, and off the top of my head, Randy Orton immediately comes to mind.

Just this year alone, Orton helped Christian become one of the WWE's most hated heels, he lost clean to Mark Henry on two consecutive pay-per-views, he helped Cody Rhodes get over and he lost to Wade Barrett on Smackdown and at Survivor Series.

Orton has been a reliable veteran who's helped four fellow stars creep up the card, and I could see CM Punk doing the same.

Much like Orton, Punk is a big enough baby face to be able to get his heel opponent more heat just by being involved in a feud with him. He can certainly do that with Alberto Del Rio.

Though I don't expect to see ADR pick up any more wins against Punk, he doesn't need to.

Christian almost never beat Orton, and neither did Rhodes. But you and I both know that they're in a much better position now than they were before their feuds with Orton.

Why? Because Orton helped them generate heat.

Punk absolutely has to make sure that he does exactly that for Del Rio.

5. Getting Him Back to His Roots

When Alberto Del Rio first debuted in the WWE, we could almost instantly tell that he was going to be a huge star.

Why? Because he kept reminding us that it was his "destiny" for that to happen.

It was his destiny to win the Royal Rumble, it was his destiny to win a world title and it was his destiny to win Raw's Money in the Bank match. But the second he became World Champion, he had fulfilled all of his destinies and thus, essentially lost the basis of his character.

After all, if Del Rio's achieved everything he's set out to do, then what is there left for him to accomplish?

I think that's been a big problem with Del Rio, who seems lost when he is the World Champion rather than the one who's chasing the World Champion.

Maybe Del Rio's feud with CM Punk will get him back to his roots as that cocky heel who feels like he's guaranteed to be a World Champion sooner rather than later. This doesn't necessarily mean that he has to start preaching about his destiny again—he just needs to be more like the character that got him over in the first place.

If he's going after Punk and the WWE title, that could very well happen.

4. Adding Memorable Matches to His Resume

Most of Alberto Del Rio's World title matches have been pretty forgettable.

Aside from his cash-in on CM Punk at SummerSlam and his match this Sunday at Survivor Series, his title matches have been marred by cowardly showings, losses and interference from Ricardo Rodriguez. Heck, even his World Heavyweight Championship match against Edge at WrestleMania 27 seemed more like an undercard bout.

But at least Del Rio's Survivor Series match will be remembered because it took place at a big PPV in front of an amazing crowd and had the potentially to be really good if it had gotten more time. I think his likely TLC bout with Punk will only further add to his already impressive resume, however.

If it's a ladder match, it could be a dark-horse match-of-the-year contender. Del Rio's ladder match against Christian way back at Extreme Rules was great, and Punk delivers just about every main event match he participates in.

Thus, facing Punk on numerous occasions is only going to help build Del Rio's resume.

If ADR wants to truly be remembered as one of the greatest WWE stars of all time, then he's going to have to make sure he's got a number of Hall of Fame worthy matches under his belt.

And his feud with Punk is a good way to ensure that.

3. By Making Him a Less-Cowardly Heel

Most heels are cowards, but Alberto Del Rio takes cowardice to a whole new level.

He cashed in his Money in the Bank briefcase on a defenseless CM Punk at SummerSlam, he won the WWE Championship at Hell in a Cell only after blasting Punk with a steel pipe and he beat John Cena at Vengeance only because of outside interference from The Miz and R-Truth.

I'm actually having a hard time remembering a World title match in which Del Rio didn't do something dirty or have Ricardo Rodriguez interfere on his behalf.

This needs to stop.

It's fine to have heels be a coward on some level, but it's a whole different story when being a coward is the basis of your character. That's what is going on with Del Rio.

We can't take him seriously as a WWE Champion or No. 1 contender because all he does is cheat to hold onto that title or try to win it.

Maybe things will be a little different in his feud with Punk, because even though Rodriguez interfered at Survivor Series, it wasn't as bad as it usually was.

It will do a lot more for Del Rio to lose to Punk in honorable ways than it will for him to beat him in dishonorable ones.

2. Mic Work

There is a boatload of superstars just on the WWE roster who Alberto Del Rio is better than on the microphone.

But no one in the WWE comes even remotely close to CM Punk.

Punk is in a league of his own when it comes to cutting promos, and Del Rio could certainly stand to learn a thing or two from the "Voice of the Voiceless." Though Del Rio's an above-average talker, he can get outrageously boring at times and often is redundant with what he says.

Punk, on the other hand, is more creative and quick to the punch when he delivers his lines.

This may have something to do with the fact that Del Rio's accent makes him a little harder to understand, but there's still just something missing with him in his promos. I can't pinpoint exactly what that is, yet I know that it's there.

Perhaps if Punk and Del Rio extend this feud out for the foreseeable future, then Del Rio can step his game up in the promo department and be taken more seriously as a main event talker. 

1. A Reality Check

Let's just come right out and say it: Alberto Del Rio's WWE career has been like a fairytale.

No superstar in WWE history has entered the company and immediately received the monster push that Del Rio has. He debuted by attacking Rey Mysterio, he won the Royal Rumble six months after that debut, he wrestled for the World Heavyweight Championship at WrestleMania 27 and then he won Raw's Money in the Bank match another six months after that.

Most wrestlers have to wait years upon years to accomplish any of those things, but Del Rio did all of them within a year of his main roster debut.

The man needs a reality check.

Del Rio needs to be brought back down to Earth and realize that he's not always going to be getting guaranteed title shots or holding a World title. Sometimes he's going to actually have to be in the mid-card.

His feud with CM Punk—and the fact that he tapped out to the Anaconda Vise—should be painful reminders that he's not going to be a full-time main-eventer throughout his career.

And believe it or not, that'll be a good way of humbling Del Rio and perhaps make him step up his game the next time he's given a main event run.