[Schlomey]

Originally Posted by Tom Guycott I know it's some time after this, but I forgot what page it was on when I was playing catch up. Would have helped if it had its own thread, and all the Parsons/OCW mess wasn't consistently merged into this after the original thread(s) and merged threads get closed. Let people have their fun, and have it elsewhere! Anyway, I don't think the point was to have Punk "work a shitload of indy shows" with the emphasis being on having matches 5 nights a week vs Johnny Kickpads and Flippy McFlipperton and risking injury... it was more to the point of legitimizing his statements of "threatening" to defend the WWE title in New Japan or ROH or elsewhere. They already tested the waters with "firing" Bryan Danielson over his modified necktie camel clutch, so they could have blurred that line further. He shows up at some indy shows and has a WWE cameraman with a non-production camera (think high end camcorder), and maybe a couple more sleepers with (decent quality) recorded phone vids to send "fan cam" uploads onto the web. The "lawsuit" angle would have actually been genius... had they actually played it up. Publicize that they caught wind that Punk would defend his title at some indy show, so THEN they resolve that issue with doing that WWE championship tournament. Put out there that they are doing it because they are backed into a corner instead of just half-assed announcing it as if they're sweeping Punk under the rug and not being able to say his name on TV for a week. As it stands, he hasn't even held up his promise to trade in the Cena Championship for a belt that looks better. Even that could have been a bigger deal, unless they're gearing up for a re-christening after he breaks the last feisably attainable milestone on days holding the championship. I think Douglas would have had an eye for self-interest there, but the idea of what he was saying was far greater than the notion of him potentially making any money off of it. Instead of the angle getting the most attention, emphasis, money, and hints of kayfabe it could, Punk just had a vacation for a couple weeks, then got to use one of his indy entrance themes when he came back to unify the "new" title into his.

Lol @ johnny kickpads & Flippy McFlipperton