WWE: Why CM Punk Is the Modern Day Roddy Piper

As most know, WWE legend Roddy Piper returned to Raw last week for a special edition of Piper’s Pit, with John Cena, bringing some much needed spark to WWE’s increasingly stale product. While the skit, which opened Raw, was long-winded and muddled in places and made it clearer than ever that WWE creative have no clue what to do with Cena’s character, Piper gave a stand-out performance.

Playing the grizzled veteran, he berated Cena for passively putting up with the fans’ jeers for so long, blasted him for being unprepared for his upcoming showdown with The Rock at next year’s WrestleMania and ended by urging the star to stand up for himself.

The segment itself may not have been a huge success, but the Hall of Famer reminded everyone of his dazzling and unrivalled talent as a promo man. Inevitably, though, Piper’s cameo on WWE television brought up comparisons with another skilled promo man—CM Punk, the current WWE Champion.

Certainly, it’s an appropriate comparison. Like Piper, Punk can be considered a terrific promo man who can elicit lively reactions from arenas everywhere. Indeed, over the past year, the “Voice of the Voiceless” has established himself as one of the finest talkers the promotion has ever had.

Over the summer of 2011, a defiant Punk railed against Vince McMahon, John Laurinaitis and the rigid corporate structure to the delight of long-frustrated fans and critics, who were happy to hear someone finally pointing out the flaws of modern-day WWE to those in charge, even if it was just a storyline.

Regrettably, a sloppy WWE creative team quickly dropped the ball on the CM Punk angle. It is difficult to pinpoint when exactly the whole thing fell apart, but many point to Punk returning to WWE only a week after he walked out with the WWE title at WWE’s Money in the Bank pay-per-view as the beginning of the end for the once-gripping storyline.

While this was deeply disappointing, considering the mess WWE have made of every other major angle in recent times (the “Walkout” debacle, the atrocious build-up to The Rock’s return at Survivor Series) it should not have come to any surprise to long-tern fans. You’d think we’d be used to being disappointment by now, after all.

Not that Punk was to blame for any of this. Indeed, over the autumn months he performed admirably regardless of the inconsistent and erratic booking, putting his full effort into his promos and the increasingly inane storyline developments. Hey, he even made up believe he is desperate to bring those WWE ice cream bars back.

Like Piper, who has also had to work with some lame and awkward material over the years (Zach Gowen, anyone?), the hard-working Punk knows how to make the best of a bad situation.

Another similarity that Punk shares with Piper is his habit of speaking his mind and coming off as controversial and rebellious to the audience watching at home. While WWE is filled with good talkers like Cena, Wade Barrett and The Miz, it is only with Punk’s promos that we get a real danger, a sense of someone boldly speaking out against the stifling status quo crossing the line (not the TNA one). Even if we secretly know that everything Punk says on WWE television has been pre-approved by McMahon.

Examining him closely, Punk is certainly as close to a modern-day Roddy Piper as anyone in wrestling is. And who knows? Maybe one day the loudmouth rebel will even surpass Piper as an entertainer. With Punk, we wouldn’t put it past him.