Was CM Punk Good?
He's the voice of the voiceless and the best in the world at what he does, but has the perception of CM Punk changed over the years? Was CM Punk Actually Good? Luke Owen discusses with the help of SP3, MuscleManMalcolm, Louis Dangoor, Steve, and Oli Davis.
SP3 - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0AmFQmsRyQYPKyRm5hDwNg
Steve Here - https://www.youtube.com/user/SteveAndLarson
Louis Dangoor - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCeVW0gxWgdBPsCSUKkjNYA
MuscleManMalcolm - https://www.youtube.com/user/99awesomeone
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#partsfunknown #wrestling #videoessay
He's the voice of the voiceless and the best in the world at what he does, but has the perception of CM Punk changed over the years? Was CM Punk Actually Good? Luke Owen discusses with the help of SP3, MuscleManMalcolm, Louis Dangoor, Steve, and Oli Davis.
SP3 - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0AmFQmsRyQYPKyRm5hDwNg
Steve Here - https://www.youtube.com/user/SteveAndLarson
Louis Dangoor - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCeVW0gxWgdBPsCSUKkjNYA
MuscleManMalcolm - https://www.youtube.com/user/99awesomeone
SUBSCRIBE TO partsFUNknown: https://bit.ly/2J2Hl6q
TWITTER: https://twitter.com/partsfunknown
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/partsfunknown/
#partsfunknown #wrestling #videoessay
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SportsTranscript
00:00 [SPLAT]
00:01 [SIGH]
00:02 [FOOTSTEPS]
00:09 Folklore tells of a man.
00:12 A man who was the voice of the voiceless.
00:14 A man who defied the biggest wrestling promotion in the world.
00:18 A man who didn't bow down to their rules and walk backstage on eggshells.
00:23 A man who walked out of WWE when he was a top star
00:27 and sent the company into complete disarray,
00:30 forcing them to change their bland WrestleMania 30 main event of Batista vs. Randy Orton
00:35 to create one of the most magical moments in wrestling history.
00:39 Don't let Road Dogg and JBL tell you it was the plan all along.
00:42 They're lying.
00:44 A man whose name would be chanted by disgruntled fans during matches and segments they didn't like.
00:49 His name became the calling card of "We don't like this product, Mr. McMahon, and we want you to know that."
00:55 But this man didn't die a hero, and instead did live long enough to see himself become the villain.
01:01 What was once a defiant walkout against bad booking and underappreciation
01:06 became turning his back on the fans.
01:09 This man who once called himself the best in the world at what he does
01:13 lost MMA fights so quickly they were basically gifts.
01:16 The man who once did a podcast that exposed the WWE backstage toxicity and broke the internet
01:23 ruined a long-time friendship with the person who gave him that platform.
01:27 The man who once said on live television that WWE would be better off when Vince McMahon was dead
01:34 declined offers to go to the competition and instead walked back into WWE for a studio show
01:41 that got cancelled a couple of months later.
01:44 That man was CM Punk if you hadn't worked that out earlier from this legit book I'm reading.
01:49 To some he is a hero and one of the greatest of all time, but to others he's an overrated hack.
01:55 To those who watched and adored the 2011 Summer of Punk see him as a saviour
02:00 and want him to return to save us again.
02:03 But to others he turned his back on us fans and should be forgotten about altogether.
02:09 But the question is, is CM Punk actually good?
02:13 And really to answer this question I don't need a book, there's only one man I need to speak to.
02:19 Hello and welcome to my first ever OnlyFans livestream.
02:30 I'm Oli Davis and before the hour is out I will be fully nude.
02:34 Now let's get-oh sorry, I'm getting a call from Luke Owen. WrestleTalk's Luke Owen.
02:40 -Alright mate. -Oli, is CM Punk actually good?
02:44 -Yes. -Hmm, okay.
02:46 Well that settles that then I guess.
02:48 But with such a fine answer the question is,
02:51 why do people like Oli Davis think CM Punk is actually good and love him so much?
02:56 Good job there's a microphone out in my garden.
02:59 Now this might be hard for some of our viewers to hear because you have nostalgic memories for it.
03:04 Kind of like the kids who were young when they saw the Star Wars prequel trilogy
03:07 and then get very defensive when people my age say things like
03:11 "Ah, you know what, it was broadly fine but Attack of the Clones is f***ing garbage."
03:15 You know, they're defending it because they have nostalgic love for it.
03:18 But like Attack of the Clones, WWE in the mid-2000s was f***ing garbage.
03:24 WWE didn't really know what to do with themselves following the shutting down of ECW and WCW in 2001.
03:31 They lost The Rock and Stone Cold Steve Austin in very quick succession
03:34 so they then tried to build Brock Lesnar as the new big star and then he also left.
03:39 They tried to relive some of the Attitude Era glory days by bringing in Scott Steiner and the NWO
03:44 but they didn't work either.
03:46 And then they spent years trying to tell the audience that John Cena is the number one babyface in this group,
03:52 he's the new Stone Cold Steve Austin, even though we as fans told them that he wasn't.
03:58 Raw was awful, Smackdown was a complete afterthought once John Cena went to the flagship show
04:03 and the ECW Revival brand was dead in the water following December to Dismember and the firing of Paul Heyman.
04:10 Personally, I'd all but switched off from WWE and was instead turning my attention to the much better TNA
04:16 despite the best efforts of Vince Russo to turn me off that product as well.
04:21 And actually I'll be honest with you, I don't think I'm going to do an "Is Vince Russo Actually Good?" video
04:26 because the short answer is no and the long answer is noooooooooooooooooooo.
04:35 But in all the darkness of DX painting cocks on Vince McMahon, looking like your mate's dad's tragic stag do for his third marriage,
04:42 there was CM Punk.
04:45 A work-rate wrestler that had already taken Ring of Honor and the indie scene by storm
04:49 and was coming into WWE with all the hype, pyro and ballyhoo that you'd expect from a pre-Twitter world
04:55 which was basically wrestling forums. The smart marks represents.
05:00 But Punk never got the push we all thought he deserved.
05:04 Even when he got cheered over D-Generation X at Survivor Series, he was labelled as WWE as a mid-card guy.
05:11 Even when he won the World Heavyweight Championship, he was never the top champion, he was essentially Jack Swagger.
05:18 He didn't even lose that belt, it was just taken off of him in an angle with Randy Orton and then back to the mid-card he went.
05:24 His straight edge society never got the love it deserved and the new Nexus was as dead in the water as the ECW Revival brand following December to dismember,
05:34 thanks in part to WWE completely burying the group in 2010.
05:39 But in June 2011 that all changed. Because in June 2011, CM Punk cut that promo.
05:46 If you weren't watching wrestling when Punk cut the Pipe Bomb promo on Raw, it's hard to describe the impact it had.
05:52 Diehard fans weren't really interested in the WWE product and the casual fans they'd lost during the awful post-WCW world were fading further away.
06:01 But Punk's promo sparked a genuine new interest in the product.
06:05 I remember sitting in my apartment in the Bronx when the Pipe Bomb happened.
06:10 I was almost falling half asleep watching Monday Night Raw at the time and when CM Punk sat down on that stage
06:17 and started cutting one of the most vicious promos you have ever heard.
06:22 Probably in everyone's opinion, one of the greatest promos of all time is that Pipe Bomb.
06:27 I remember waking up and realizing that I was seeing history.
06:31 But I didn't really realize the impact of what he was saying and what that promo was until the following day when I walked out of my apartment
06:40 and I immediately was stopped by one of my friends in front of the building and they said, "Yo, did you see Monday Night Raw?
06:48 CM Punk broke the froth wall. He was talking about Ring of Honor. He was calling out Vince McMahon, calling out John Cena, calling out The Rock."
06:57 Like, they were just amazed by what he was saying and the impact really hit me.
07:03 CM Punk was always like the hardcore fans guy but that Pipe Bomb promo like tipped it over the edge
07:10 and it led to a really great match between him and John Cena at Money in the Bank 2011.
07:14 Now I know what you're thinking and probably already typing Big Rock 42316 because I do see you there.
07:20 There are some people who think that the Dave Meltzer 5-star rated Money in the Bank 2011 match is a bit overrated.
07:28 And it's true that the match does have some botched and missed time spots and it is true that the crowd do play a huge part in the overall presentation and feel.
07:36 But here's the thing. It wasn't just the crowd in Chicago that were madly invested in that match.
07:43 It was everyone watching it. It wasn't just CM Punk fans. It wasn't just John Cena fans. It wasn't just hardcore fans.
07:50 Every single person watching Money in the Bank 2011 was invested in CM Punk vs John Cena for the WWE Championship and invested in the outcome of that match.
08:03 Was CM Punk going to win the title and walk out as the champion? Was John Cena going to lose his job?
08:09 What was going to happen on Raw the following night regardless of the outcome?
08:14 It was magical and it's something that doesn't happen very often in wrestling.
08:20 And sadly it should have led to something better because WWE hot shotted the booking and brought Punk back early,
08:27 had the unification match just one month later and then Punk lost the belt to Alberto Del Rio and got into a feud with Kevin Nash of all people.
08:36 "Thought he was dead lol"
08:38 But that didn't derail the voice of the voiceless. If anything it actually made him bigger.
08:42 Because you see CM Punk is so good that even when WWE weren't pushing him as the top guy in the company during his record setting title run, he felt like he was the top guy.
08:53 In the eyes of WWE, John Cena vs John Laurinaitis was the main event of Over The Limit 2012.
08:59 But to us fans, it was CM Punk vs Daniel Bryan for the WWE Championship. He was our guy.
09:06 But he was also having great matches with Randy Orton, Rey Mysterio, even Ryback. Hell he had The Undertaker's last good WrestleMania match.
09:15 But am I wrong on this one? I now like the kids who saw the Star Wars prequel trilogy when they were younger and therefore now seethe with the nostalgia glasses and can't accept the reality that Attack of the Clones was f***ing garbage.
09:29 Was CM Punk actually good?
09:32 CM Punk in my opinion is objectively a very good wrestler. He is one of the best performers I've seen in my lifetime as far as in the ring, on the mic. He is probably a great, he is an all time great. Top 10.
09:50 You have to consider what he was and he was that star that connected with the fans that kept them watching.
09:56 For a lot of people, CM Punk is the reason they still watch wrestling today and didn't turn off during that dark period of WWE.
10:03 He seemed to be like the one guy in the company that was presented to me as the guy who cared, actually cared about the two things that I care about in wrestling and that's the actual wrestling and that's the stories being told.
10:15 He has something that's so rare in professional wrestling, a sport based on make-believe and kayfabe. He feels legitimate. He feels real and that authenticity pulls you through the screen, something pulls me through the screen.
10:29 Punk didn't just usher in a fast paced style of wrestling in WWE that hasn't been seen in such a very long time on that main event level, but he also broke barriers in that little glass ceiling being a top star in the company next to John Cena.
10:42 Because back in 2011, the only guys that were on top were guys that were already established like Orton and Rey, Undertaker.
10:49 I always felt like whenever I'd see a CM Punk wrestling match, this guy's wrestling this match like it's the last time he's wrestling or like it could be the last time he's wrestling.
10:57 So he's putting everything out there. That's why I'm pretty sure he ran his body ragged.
11:02 Would he be the best in the world in the ring right now? We're not sure because we haven't seen him in six years, but I still think he'd be able to hang and have great matches and be the character that WWE needs, that big star.
11:15 So I think you can undoubtedly say that CM Punk is good.
11:18 Now I didn't really want to dive into the science asking if CM Punk is actually good because as it turns out, maths is not my strong suit, but also I didn't really know who to compare him to.
11:28 But what I did do is I put a poll up on Twitter.
11:31 He won the poll quite comfortably with 85% voting for yes over no, but there did seem to be a couple of common themes running through the replies.
11:41 No, he had a terrible MMA run.
11:44 Slightly overrated in the ring, but he was a great promo.
11:47 He was good in an era where people didn't wrestle in WWE. I'm not sure he'd rank that highly. Now wrestling has moved on.
11:55 As a person, I don't know. I don't know him personally, but I'm not impressed after the lawsuits and how him and Colt went at it.
12:02 As an in-ring performer, he was just as lazy as the likes of Randy Orton.
12:07 He was good, but it's his ego that gets the better of him.
12:11 For the time he was. Put him in there now and he's bang average.
12:15 He was great for the time, but his ego made him betray the fans that made him the star he was.
12:20 There's this common argument that CM Punk wouldn't hold up in today's wrestling landscape when compared to the likes of Kenny Omega, Aleister Black, Buddy Murphy, Adam Cole, Hangman Pays, The Young Bucks, Ricochet, etc.
12:32 But it's not something I personally subscribe to. Punk wasn't just good for 2012. He was good period.
12:38 He was one of the best wrestlers in the company at the time, and he'd still be one of the best if he was there.
12:44 People like Rey Mysterio, Samoa Joe, AJ Styles, Chris Jericho and Cody are still going strong and they were around at that time.
12:51 In fact, Cody's doing some of his best work now.
12:54 And of course, the other argument is that CM Punk turned his back on the fans.
12:58 Even those that loved and adored him during that 2011 Summer of Punk were burned by the MMA run WWE backstage turning down AEW offers.
13:07 He didn't change the culture when he went back to WWE like he promised. He just became part of their furniture.
13:14 What could have been the biggest return pop probably of all time was actually just polite applause from Adam Cole and Page.
13:22 And you couple that with the Colt Cabana ordeal and people are now rewriting history that CM Punk was never that good to begin with.
13:29 But I come back to that Money in the Bank match, the roar of the crowd, the electricity in the air.
13:35 That wasn't just a storyline and good character work. That was raw emotion for a wrestler.
13:40 I wasn't just a fan of CM Punk. I loved CM Punk. And there hasn't been a wrestler since him that's got that same emotional reaction.
13:48 Daniel Bryan at WrestleMania 30 maybe, but that was a different kind of emotional response.
13:54 And WWE burned that emotion out of the crowd. Despite their best efforts, the flame still burned for CM Punk.
14:02 So maybe yeah, in the cold hard light of 2020, CM Punk may not be considered the best in the world.
14:08 But you know what? Neither would Hulk Hogan and The Ultimate Warrior.
14:12 And they got an emotional response from the crowd and Punk's way better in ring than Hogan and Warrior.
14:17 The last six years have been rough on the perception of CM Punk the man. But as a wrestler, yeah, I do think CM Punk is actually good.
14:26 Even if I have to wear nostalgia goggles to see it. But Attack of the Clones is still f***ing garbage.
14:35 Best CM Punk match, Punk vs. Bryan, Over the Limit 2012. That was like my gateway drug.
14:42 Defining ring of honor in PWG and Chikara and all kinds of independent wrestling. Watch it, please.
14:48 Clearly it's his Money in the Bank 2011 match with John Cena. Like I know that's like super obvious, but I'd be lying if I said it was anything else.
14:56 Joe vs. Punk 2, one of the greatest 60 minute matches that I've ever seen in my life.
15:02 Something as small as a headlock became a key move in that match.
15:06 Money in the Bank 2011 against John Cena, from that opening Chicago pop that still just sends shivers up my arm and down my spine.
15:14 Just the overbooked, the suplex over the top rope to the outside, the blowing of the kiss. Everything was perfect in that match.