I've been thinking about this since the title match last night. I'm sorry if this has been said already.
Much has been made about CM Punk. Great in the ring, great on the mic, enough charisma to... yada yada yada. We've heard it a million times. Still, we on the Internet treat him differently than we do someone else in his position. Everything has to be perfect. In a bizarre way, we are the fan equivalent of an overprotective mother - we don't want anything bad to ever happen to him, and when it does, we make excuses. He loses? Oh... that's because of bad writing. He's not over? That's because he isn't given enough microphone time. He only makes a "cameo" on TV? That's because of the "nuclear heatz" he's getting from Tony Atlas or Triple H or whatever. Honestly, it comes down to one reason: he's "our guy."
Now, there are have been several upper crust World Wrestling Entertainment wrestlers in the past ten years that can fit that description, from Bret Hart to Steve Austin to Chris Jericho. Ah... but Punk is different. We didn't just "grow up" watching him on TV. He's not just a "hero." He's us. We cheer for him because he truly represents us.
When I say "us," I don't mean "Ring of Honor" fans. For years, CM Punk was one of the multitude of wrestlers that would inhabit a high school or a community rec center or some barn in the middle of nowhere every Friday or Saturday night. Yes, everyone knew that he was something special, but again, many are. At the end of the day, however, he was just that guy you happen to meet at the Waffle House or the local bar and grill after the match. Then he was signed by the WWE... and that's when things got interesting.
At first, no one thought it would last. After all, we've been "burned" before. Not many of our "favorites" really make it far in the WWE, if they even get the chance at all. Think about it. Christopher Daniels is seemingly stuck in TNA's mid-card as Curry Man. (Please... no comments.) Stevie Richards was a glorified jobber for years before he got fired. Al Snow was Lief Cassidy, then he was Mick Foley's "best friend." Even Reckless Youth, a man known for years as the "King of the Indies," never got past developmental. Others disappeared due to their personal dependencies (Chris Candido), their mouth (Shane Douglas), or because their personalities clashed with the boss' (Raven). Yeah, there was Foley, but he was before our time. Most of us first remember him from ECW or as Mankind, not as that fat guy who used to routinely wrestle a man called "Beef Stew." Punk was going to get that treatment as far as we were concerned. At best, he was going to be an Intercontinental champion.
But he didn't. He became world champ. And he stayed world champ for more than two seconds somehow. Suddenly, we don't know what to do. He - and when I say "he," I actually mean "we" - did it. Our favorite, the guy that we helped build, is finally near the top of the heap. Now what? So again, we nitpick. This is wrong, that is wrong. We get upset when his SummerSlam title match isn't on par with his sixty-minute epics against the likes of Chris Hero or Samoa Joe. We complain when that promo on Raw isn't a scathing, ten-minute diatribe ending with "...because I'm better than you." "If only he did these things," we say to our friends or on message boards like this one, "then everyone would know how great he is."
And there it is again. "Then everyone would know what we know already." When Punk wins, we win. He's us. And quite frankly, we are "better than you."
Much has been made about CM Punk. Great in the ring, great on the mic, enough charisma to... yada yada yada. We've heard it a million times. Still, we on the Internet treat him differently than we do someone else in his position. Everything has to be perfect. In a bizarre way, we are the fan equivalent of an overprotective mother - we don't want anything bad to ever happen to him, and when it does, we make excuses. He loses? Oh... that's because of bad writing. He's not over? That's because he isn't given enough microphone time. He only makes a "cameo" on TV? That's because of the "nuclear heatz" he's getting from Tony Atlas or Triple H or whatever. Honestly, it comes down to one reason: he's "our guy."
Now, there are have been several upper crust World Wrestling Entertainment wrestlers in the past ten years that can fit that description, from Bret Hart to Steve Austin to Chris Jericho. Ah... but Punk is different. We didn't just "grow up" watching him on TV. He's not just a "hero." He's us. We cheer for him because he truly represents us.
When I say "us," I don't mean "Ring of Honor" fans. For years, CM Punk was one of the multitude of wrestlers that would inhabit a high school or a community rec center or some barn in the middle of nowhere every Friday or Saturday night. Yes, everyone knew that he was something special, but again, many are. At the end of the day, however, he was just that guy you happen to meet at the Waffle House or the local bar and grill after the match. Then he was signed by the WWE... and that's when things got interesting.
At first, no one thought it would last. After all, we've been "burned" before. Not many of our "favorites" really make it far in the WWE, if they even get the chance at all. Think about it. Christopher Daniels is seemingly stuck in TNA's mid-card as Curry Man. (Please... no comments.) Stevie Richards was a glorified jobber for years before he got fired. Al Snow was Lief Cassidy, then he was Mick Foley's "best friend." Even Reckless Youth, a man known for years as the "King of the Indies," never got past developmental. Others disappeared due to their personal dependencies (Chris Candido), their mouth (Shane Douglas), or because their personalities clashed with the boss' (Raven). Yeah, there was Foley, but he was before our time. Most of us first remember him from ECW or as Mankind, not as that fat guy who used to routinely wrestle a man called "Beef Stew." Punk was going to get that treatment as far as we were concerned. At best, he was going to be an Intercontinental champion.
But he didn't. He became world champ. And he stayed world champ for more than two seconds somehow. Suddenly, we don't know what to do. He - and when I say "he," I actually mean "we" - did it. Our favorite, the guy that we helped build, is finally near the top of the heap. Now what? So again, we nitpick. This is wrong, that is wrong. We get upset when his SummerSlam title match isn't on par with his sixty-minute epics against the likes of Chris Hero or Samoa Joe. We complain when that promo on Raw isn't a scathing, ten-minute diatribe ending with "...because I'm better than you." "If only he did these things," we say to our friends or on message boards like this one, "then everyone would know how great he is."
And there it is again. "Then everyone would know what we know already." When Punk wins, we win. He's us. And quite frankly, we are "better than you."
