The real victim here is Juan, he picked Punk for the Pool.

Narc's right, come on CSL, just because you're "going against the grain" doesn't mean you're seeing the big picture, some things are just obvious.

The biggest problem from all of this is the fact that WWE needs more main event guys and fast. The fact that they have to bring in "part timers" really only demonstrates their lack of confidence in the guys they have on the cusp. See Kofi, Ziggler, Barrett, Cesaro.

I think of all those guys, only Ziggler has been in a main event program more than once. Hell this is Cesaro's first ever main event title match is it not?

If he's off the road, I wonder how long it takes for him and AJ to break up and then for him to start dating Ronda Rousey.

I give it 17 days.

that'd be so awesome if he started dating rowdy ronda.

Come on CSL, Ryan Clark has just states on the front page that this is NOT a work. What more proof do we need?

Also this is an amazing thread, blew up over night.

But did it make money? And is the buzz helping it make more money? At the end of the day, I think the PPV was successful because it created such a visceral and emotional reaction.


*Rog, those are fair points, but I still think the comparison is apt. It's not as if I was comparing the return of someone like Maven to the epic(ly disappointing) return of the nWo. Batista was a multiple-time former Champion, had memorable feuds with Cena and Mysterio, had Hollywood exposure that the WWE has ALWAYS been keen on and he still looks like a badass. I imagine a lot of fans were pretty excited about his return and it would make sense for the character to play an important role at both the Rumble and Mania.

I will say that when the nWo returned, I think it was far too late. If not for them running out their contracts it would have been so much easier to capitalize earlier. If not for my love of Scott Hall and my hopes for a nWo return that would recreate the circumstances of the original angle I probably would have panned it altogether. The best thing that came from it, was the return of baby-face Hogan and The Rock's heel turn (their match as well) and I detest Hogan.

So if Batista's initially well-received return isn't as momentous as the return of the nWo I concede the point, but it's sure does bring back memories.

Batista's Hollywood exposure doesn't exist yet. The marketing drive hasn't really started for GotG yet, never mind it's not out until August and it's not like people are anticipating it like The Avengers. At present he's got no Hollywood appeal - are they so desperate to have him there when the time comes that they'll send him to the top spot 7 months in advance to keep him happy when he generates a bit of interest for playing third billing in a summer blockbuster. That also assumes that the audience likes him.

The nWo returning wasn't great, but it was still a once in a lifetime opportunity that people had actively dreamed about at one point. That is not Batista in the WM main event by any stretch of the imagination. Also, nWo was quite a unique thing, and came into a product that was pretty diverse and full of new sights- Chris Jericho was main eventing wrestlemania . This is a shit retread of the Rock's return which happened an exhausting two times in a row. Something not great happens twice and then you follow it up with the same thing for a third time, only even worse?

Now is the time for some revolutionary tweener like stable to come in and shake things up. All the guys who feel held back by the machine waging gorilla warfare. It won't happen but it'd be frigging sweet.

I think so. Yeah, pretty much all of this.

Batista in my view is honestly a hell of a talent, but I don't think anyone was clamoring for his return. If they kept it as more of a surprise it would have been somewhat special, but it was more like "Cool! Batista's back! Anyways, moving on"

CM Punk Quits WWE!!
 

Title explains itself....

Whoa shit dude! Where did you hear this breaking news story? I'm impressed!

I'm with those saying that Punk is justified in his decision to leave the WWE at this juncture. It may not be what I would do if I were him, but then again, I have no idea how much money he has saved up, and it doesn't really seem like he values putting on a match with Triple H at Mania, if that were in fact the actual plan.

Punk, and a handful of WWE superstars, deserve so much better than what they're dished out. WrestleMania is the Superbowl of professional wrestling - it's what every wrestler dreams about. Punk took the backseat to The Rock two years in a row - one of those years he was the WWE Champion, and the year after that he was the hottest thing in the company. The year before those two (Mania 27), he got bumped down for The Miz, of all fucking people. Punk should have been in the main event at Mania 27. He deserved better at Mania 28, but the foresight conclusion was to put Rock versus Cena in the main event spot and Jericho versus Punk in an upper card spot - I would have done the exact same thing. Had I known that Cena versus Rock was going to be so uncompelling, I would have probably changed things up a bit and put the Hell in a Cell on last. But that's just me. Punk deserved a spot in the main event last year. Ending his record setting title run to The Rock made sense, but was done purely to put The Rock over heading into Mania. With all of the heat that Punk had coming out of that feud, a triple threat made more sense than Cena versus Rock 2, and certainly would have been a much better main event than that with which we ended up. Yes, Punk got a match against Undertaker, and yes it was the best match of the night, but the ending was a foregone conclusion, the build wasn't that great, and Punk's skills would have been much better utilized in a main event triple threat match with Cena and Rock. He would've added that extra bit of flair which that main event sorely lacked. He didn't even need to win the thing. They could have made it an elimination triple threat match and still had the "epic show down" between Rock and Cena that the company wanted.

Fast forward a year and Punk has been pretty much underutilized. He feuded with Curtis Axel and Ryback, both of which went absolutely nowhere and served very little purpose at all. He jobbed to Lesnar at Summerslam (another part-timer) and never got any retribution for his loss. He was downgraded to a tag team feud against the Wyatts and the Shield with Daniel Bryan, and now he was being set up to wrestle Triple H at Mania while another part-timer, Batista, shows up and gets the top spot at Mania after being gone for four years. I would be a little pissed off, too.

Punk probably doesn't need the big pay-off that a Mania match would give him. He seems to be a guy who lives below his means and he's had enough main events, enough big matches, enough merchandise sales, and enough appearances to make him a significant nest egg for the forseeable future. He has no wife or kids to look after, and from the sound of things, he doesn't even have an immediate family that needs his support. It's not about the money for Punk anymore. It's about the principle.

And the principle of the thing is that CM Punk and Daniel Bryan and the rest of them deserve more than to be pushed down the card for part-timers like Brock Lesnar, The Rock, Batista and to a lesser extent, the Undertaker. They're working all year around for the company, bleeding and killing themselves for fans that will never be truly satiated, and all they want is the spotlight on the biggest night of the year, but that is taken away from them over and over again.

CM Punk in a main event match against anyone, be it someone who can "go" like Daniel Bryan or Chris Jericho or John Cena or Randy Orton, is always going to be a better main event than Batista vs anyone or Randy Orton vs anyone. It's just the way of it. The guy can put on a show with anyone. The guy can talk and sell any angle. To keep him from the main event for a fourth year in a row is disgusting.

The WWE is just continuing to make the same mistakes they've always made. They've learned absolutely nothing. The voice of the voiceless let his opinions ring out, and for awhile it looked like things were changing, but the fact is that after three years, very little has actually really truly changed. Guys like Daniel Bryan and CM Punk are consistently given the short end of the stick, while part-timers and guys who look like Roman Reigns and Randy Orton get the pushes.

I don't hate on Punk for leaving. I equate it to Mick Foley walking out after the Montreal screwjob. He's standing up for what he believes is right, and if nobody takes a stand, then the WWE will believe they can continue to do whatever they please and they'll get away with it because the fans will keep shilling out their hard earned cash and the superstars will continue to take whatever shit hand is dealt out to them.

Gonna stick this.

in all fairness Batista is back as a full timer.

right up your bum.

:naughty:

:naughty: ........ :o

Just for the record:

I don't really dislike the New Age Outlaws winning the tag belts. The Brotherhood had ran out of steam - despite having a thriving tag team division, a lot of the attention had turned to hybrid dynamic three man tag matches. The bizarro novelty of the NAO allows them to lose the belts without having to break up the team or make them seem too weak. Still, clean loss, man. Not entirely relevant, just saying that bringing old people back isn't necessarily evil. 30 is just another number, I mean the factor of 5 wrestlemanias are more bad than good, but... Batista? He comes back for (supposedly) two years, and you give him nowhere to go but down, and risk exposing him straight away?

Anyway, the Rumble wasn't just the Rumble, it was the culmination of the last 6 months. My faith in the product was wavering, and CM Punk hasn't sunk in yet but it feels like the coup de grace. When you come back to wrestling, as I did with nearly 10 years away, you need to find your way back in and CM Punk was the guy that I could connect with, that guy I had never seen before and could belive in. I think he's had a pretty bad year, except when he's had the best matches of the year, but with him gone, it's that original tether that's gone.

I'm not threatening to stop watching, but I lived without wrestling for 10 years, it could easily happen again. Never mind that it was Cena, Orton, Batista, HHH standing at the top when I started to switch off, and unbelievably they're filling up 25 minutes of leaden talking at the start of every show.

and I ALWAYS get what I want.

Emmott, you geek.

Didn't think that a thread about not being at live events constitutes it as a thread about quitting WWE..... my bad.

http://www.tpww.net/2014/01/major-up...m-punk-to-lie/

Front page stuff... not sure what this is supposed to mean, this seems to be indicating that WWE wanted to take a cautious road with a possible concussion and he flipped out over that?

FROM THE FRONT FUCKING PAGE.

Bye. Go be a baby in the indies.

He'll be held up as the Messiah in the indies and every promo will be about how WWE sucks. The two are related.

There's no way Punk thinks there are better options for him out there, unless he's really just done with wrestling.

I think Punk is in the wrong here. However..

I can respect the fact that he walked out . That's much more respectable then just complaining about not liking the direction of the company in interviews and on twitter., which he has probably done enough of already.

CM Punk will return as a commentator.

Way to merge and ruein the other thread ABT.