OldStingberg

The thing is, he doesn't have to do worked shoots every week. He doesn't have to keep reciting the huge list of the WWE's problems to remain edgy and interesting. For example, I think he should have brought back the old winged eagle belt when he returned after MitB. He could have said that any belt good enough for Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels, the two greatest wrestlers ever, is good enough for him. Then when him and Cena wrestled at SS (or NoC, if they wanted a good build), they could have the match determine which belt would be used, with Punk winning. That's a simple way for Punk to remain edgy and appeal to relapsed WWE fans without hurting the promotion at all and it'd get rid of the current horrid belt design. They could have even built on that, having Punk restore some prestige to the tag team and IC championships by bringing back the old belts. That'd also give a bit of a rub to Air Boom (and the tag team division) and Cody Rhodes. If bringing back some old belts isn't feasible, and I'm not sure why not because I doubt there's many people with disposable income still itching to buy Cena's belt, there's other stuff that can be done. What about during that 12-man match, instead of Mason Ryan (because they don't want to bury him) The Great Khali comes out, Punk gets on the mic and tells him that while he is very tall, they need an actual wrestler, and calls out Zack Ryder. That certainly hurts Khali, he's reportedly on the way out anyway, but it also gives a rub to Ryder and furthers Punk doing things differently. Or when one of the heels tries one of their generic heel tricks, Punk doesn't fall for it, instead kind of breaking the fourth wall and acting like it's ridiculous that anyone falls for that sort of stuff. There's countless little things like that they could have Punk do, while occasionally letting him speak some uncomfortable truths, that would make his babyface-ness different and interesting. Instead, Punk has turned into a generic babyface.

...what? What has changed? John Cena is still being fed title shots, CM Punk still (at least in his character's eyes) has to feel underutilized, guys like Mason Ryan are still getting an absurd amount of TV time while guys like Colt Cabana still can't crack the WWE (he was given a "try out" about a month ago and now the WWE won't take his calls), the amount of actual wrestling on Raw has managed to go down so that Vince's family and/or stooges can put the spotlight on themselves, etc. Pretty much all the stuff Punk rebelled about before hasn't changed, except that Punk has better shirts and he's in the opening to Raw now. edit: Oh, and now F4W is reporting that John Morrison is probably done with the WWE once his contract expires soon. Summer Punk would have had a field day with the WWE driving out a talented and popular wrestler reportedly because they were upset with the woman he happened to be dating. The idea that there's nothing for Punk to rebel against is mind-blowing.

To be honest, that's very obvious. Because this... ...is a laughable amount of spin. I'm not unhappy that the big bad mean Miz and R-Truth are beating up on poor little Punk and why don't they just let him be different because gosh darn I'm different too. I'm unhappy they've taken one of their hottest stars in years and have killed his momentum in order to elevate non-wrestlers in a story a lot of people think is terrible. Somehow, I don't think that's the emotion the WWE is trying to evoke. I would love to be able to shut my brain off and not think things like, "wow, Lauranaitis sure is a terrible actor" or "wasn't Raw more dangerous this week than it was before the walkout" or "well that was incredibly sexist" or "ha, Mason Ryan botched getting into the ring on the hot tag", but I can't. Even with the ridiculous amount of leeway I'm willing to give the WWE, I'm still going to think about the quality of the entertainment they're offering. But I suppose maybe making me unhappy with the quality of their programming is exactly what the WWE is trying to do. Those geniuses!

Again, you're not even bothering to discuss anything I actually said. It's like you've got this stereotype of the IWC in your head, you're applying that to me, and you're just railing against that, relevance to the current discussion be damned. Feel free to continue, but count me out.

Anyway, what the hell's with Mason Ryan continuing to steal Zack Ryder's push? Ryder's a solid worker who managed to get himself over, and now they're sidelining him in order to spotlight a horrible worker who might not get over even with a crazy push behind him. What a bizarre decision. Besides that, my biggest takeaway from tonight was how anti-climactic the returns of Vince, Miz, and Truth were. Seemed like they were building to something more than that. And I really, really don't want to see more of Lauranaitis and less of JR. Or any more of a screeching Kelly Kelly in an ass-backwards story. I did enjoy the opening segment, though, and I'm encouraged that Punk might matter again. But after that opening segment, the show just didn't feel all that fun. A 90-minute span where the fan-friendly moments were supposed to come from a Mason Ryan win and an Eve win seems poorly thought out.

I'm going to be blunt with you, because I think your condescending sarcasm is ridiculous. What you said honestly makes you look like an idiot. What I and many others have been saying is that the WWE inexplicably devalued CM Punk when he their hottest wrestler in years. I'm pretty sure I, nor anyone else ever, said that the WWE will never give Punk a real high-level push again. So you coming in here with all your sarcasm pointing out how it looks like they're positioning Punk to actually win a match again, it makes you look like an idiot who didn't really understand the points people were making, yet decided to go all gung-ho with the condescending sarcasm anyway. I doubt that's what you were going for, so you might want to be a bit more careful in the future.

BJ Penn and Sean Sherk both dropped down to LW after being unsuccessful at WW. Don't get me wrong, I'm not comparing Mark Hominick to BJ Penn, I'm just saying you can't just discredit a guy simply because they've dropped down. Plus, it's worth noting that the reason that Aldo is beating someone like Hominick is because he already absolutely tore through the consensus top of the FW division. I would seriously disagree with this. I think there's no way it's tougher than WW or LHW. One thing I've noticed, though, is people tend to discount a division once it gets sorted out. This is especially prevalent right now with the perception of the LHW division. For a couple years most people agreed that was the deepest division. But now that Jones has come through destroying everyone, suddenly a lot of people are talking about it as being shallow. The same fighters are still there, but because there's now a guy that's clearly at the top, the division gets discounted. I think the LW division is kind of the opposite right now. Since there's so many unresolved matchups, people perceive it to be deep and tough. But I just don't think there's any way Maynard, Melendez, Bendo, Guida, and Miller stack up against Rashad, Machida, Shogun, Rampage, and Hendo or Fitch, Condit, Diaz, Koscheck, and Shields. Yeah, that would be a fun fight. It would also give some much-needed exposure for the FW division, which is probably why Dana is pushing for it.

There was nothing unconvincing about Aldo last night. He handled Florian. He outstruck him, with more power, and stuffed 18 of 19 takedown attempts according to FightMetric. It was unspectacular, but certainly not unconvincing. The Hominick fight wasn't really unconvincing, either. It's just that Aldo gassed in the fifth, which he claims was because of illness, and that allowed Hominick to finish the fight strong. But let's not forget when the fight was over, Hominick looked like this: http://www.totalprosports.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/mark-hominick-head-595x542.jpg And yet that was Aldo's worst performance in years. Think about that. Look at that picture of Hominick and realize that that's the work of Aldo on an off-night. Edgar being smaller than his opponents counts for something, but I'm not sure it counts for more than the speed advantage Edgar has over LWs because he's smaller than them or the cardio advantage because he doesn't cut much, if any, weight. You can't have your cake and eat it, too. And all this is not even factoring in Cruz, who's been doing the same thing as Edgar, beating guys with relatively soft, precise striking through speed and footwork, except Cruz has looked a lot more dominant doing it. Don't get me wrong, I like Edgar. I just think the case could probably be made after these last two fights that he's the weakest current UFC champion. Dramatic come-from-behind wins are exciting and fun, but the very best champions tend to not put themselves into situations where they need to come from behind.

I'm finding it harder and harder to watch ROH on TV because of the time slot. The UFC and a lot of college football is a bigger priority for me, and probably many others, which makes Saturday nights impractical. I think they'd have a lot more success if they moved the show to Fridays at the same time. That's not much better of a time slot, but it has the benefit of having less competition for the eyeballs of males age 18-34, and there's already a lot of wrestling fans watching TV that night for Smackdown.

That's the dumbest thing ever. If that first round wasn't a 10-8, what the hell is? Even Edgar's cornermen were conceding a 10-8 that round. Damn MMA judges. Most of these guys can't even get the simple stuff right.

I think it's hard to put Frankie ahead of Aldo right now. They've both (mostly) been edging out decisions in the UFC thanks to their superior striking but the major difference has been Aldo hasn't been getting himself pummeled silly for a round in each of his fights. For me, my top six would be GSP, Silva, Bones, Aldo, and Edgar in that order. Edgar certainly is a step closer to overtaking Aldo after tonight, but it'll take more than one TKO in over four years to make me put him ahead of Aldo, even if Aldo seems more and more content to just cruise to decisions with his skills. Oh crap, I forgot about Cruz. I think I'd put Cruz fifth and Edgar sixth. Cruz has been handling his opponents easier than Edgar in a very similar fashion. I wouldn't put either ahead of Aldo, though, because I don't think Aldo's really even been tested yet, while both Cruz and Edgar have had guys get real close to their level lately.

On the one hand, I was really hoping for them to split rounds four and five for another draw. That would have been hilarious. On the other hand, I'll take an Edgar KO. What a crazy night. Frankie Edgar gets KO of the Night, Chael Sonnen (probably) gets Submission of the Night, and Leonard Garcia is on the proper end of a 29-28 decision. Not even Nostradamus could have predicted all that to happen on the same night.

lol. Sonnen just dropped a pipe bomb. That was thoroughly entertaining.

Punk said that the WWE will be better off when Vince McMahon is dead and he called Vince out on how much of a hypocrite Vince is with his anti-bullying campaign. Those two things are far, far more serious than any lame "your wife wears the pants in the family" line. And HHH didn't get any pops? At one point, he got the crowd to pop in support of Vince McMahon, and that pop was louder than anything Punk had gotten that segment. You literally just summed up nearly every single highlight Punk has had in the past three months. In three months, the highlights for CM Punk, the hottest wrestler in years, have included getting the pin in a tag team main event on a single Raw, getting a hot-tag in a match on Raw, and (you forgot to mention) getting a laughably crooked pinfall on Cena at SS moments before dropping his title to ADR because of Nash's interference, two guys Punk has yet to get any amount of retribution on. And people are honestly trying to say Punk hasn't been devalued since MitB? Seriously? Seriously? When you have to mention when a guy gets a hot-tag, I mean, come on, that's ridiculous. A hot-tag!

I just want to highlight some of what bookerman said. Well, zero payoff for Punk. It's doing quite well to elevate HHH, Miz, Truth, and John Laurinaitis. Yep, Nash cost him his title, a #1 contender match, and his match against HHH, and Punk has got absolutely zero retribution for that with none in sight as their feud has seemingly died. This is what I was mentioning earlier about Vince putting Punk over. Punk said much harsher things to Vince and Vince took them, because Vince was more concerned with getting Punk over than himself. Anything of substance Punk said to HHH was instantly met with a pretty reasonable retort which was usually designed to pop the crowd in HHH's favor. Punk said some solid stuff to HHH, but Trips just never really sold it, not nearly like Vince did, and it hurt Punk. And the usual response to this is, "Well, Punk had to lose because of the COO stipulation." That's dumb. The WWE shouldn't have backed themselves into that corner in the first place, especially because the COO stipulation meant nothing since HHH was so new. The stipulation essentially only served to tell us who would win the match. While Cena gets to kick a little Mexican ass outside the cage before being locked out, thereby almost entirely protecting him in the loss. That tells you where the WWE's priorities are, as does... Sheamus getting the hero treatment in this match. To be honest, to me, in my opinion, it seems like a couple people here are just desperately spinning things for whatever reason. It's like they're trying to tell me not to believe my lying eyes. We can argue about Punk's future, or about what heights Punk could have gone to immediately after MitB. But there should be no debate about the fact that Punk has been devalued, to some notable degree, either intentionally or not, since MitB. There just can't be debate about that.

Did you watch their feud? Because that didn't happen. In fact, you pretty much described what happened with the Punk/Vince feud. Punk spoke a bunch of truth, Vince never knew how to respond, and Punk won the title and "left the company" with it showing everyone that Vince couldn't touch Punk. Looking back, it's even more remarkable how well Vince put over Punk considering what happened when HHH "tried". In theory, Punk should be able to feud with HHH like he feuded with Vince. But that's just not how it actually happened. Punk was given terrible material in a terrible story and HHH was more concerned with getting pops than actually putting Punk over.

Rashad's ducking Jones lolzlolololozlolol!!1!!!11! Seriously, though, all the stuff surrounding the Jones/Rashad fight is just comical at this point.

And wreck UFC 140 in Toronto? Seriously, there is no other feasible main event for that card. And a PPV in a market as big as Toronto is kind of a big deal.

So, to be clear, you think Jones is ducking Rashad because instead of sitting out (which is an option he may not even have been given), he's fighting a consensus top 5 LHW, a guy that knocked out the guy he's supposedly ducking. That's...an interesting opinion.

From what I read, Rashad hurt his hand in the Tito fight and it's messing up the timing of a Jones/Rashad fight, so the UFC is giving Jones another fight instead of having him wait.

Crazy. Rashad's saga continues. I think Jones beats Machida pretty easily. If Machida couldn't handle Rua's striking, I don't think he'll have any success against Jones, whose kicks and straights will be longer and quicker. Plus, Machida won't be able to get Jones down, and he doesn't have big one-punch KO power to present a relatively reliable threat with that. I wonder if Rashad comes in the cage again after the fight.

I wonder what happened to Riley. They aired a hype video for him on Raw just a couple weeks ago, but then nothing since then. It seems like that 6th face spot in the main-ish event on Raw last week would have made more sense for Riley.

I think he would have been a lot better off that where he is today. In fact, I think Punk feuding with pretty much anybody but Triple H would have left Punk better off. I just don't understand the idea that the Triple H feud has kept Punk elevated. The thing that has kept Punk elevated is Punk. The WWE has done everything they could reasonably do to slow Punk down short of Morrisoning him or taking him off TV. I mean, they took the title off him, they threw him into a bad feud where he played the role of douche to Triple H's badass moral babyface, then they had Punk get pinned a couple times to close out PPVs before shifting the main storyline in the WWE totally away from him. That might be Triple H's idea of elevating a guy, but I don't think it should be anyone else's. The fact that Punk is still going reasonably strong is a credit solely to the speed he was going at before they started slowing him down.

Three straight PPVs if you include ADR cashing in on him to end SummerSlam. And not just three straight PPV losses, but three straight losses that involved him getting pinned to essentially close the show. I agree with you about Punk/ADR or Punk/Miz for the title at WM. I'd also throw in Punk/Ziggler if Dolph wins the Royal Rumble. Those feuds would all be golden, and a great way to elevate those guys and continue building their stars on a PPV guaranteed to be huge because of Cena/Rock.

I was just reading something today from PWI I think that mentioned the WWE is leaning towards slowly building Sheamus to go for the title at WrestleMania. There's also rumblings from sources within the WWE that now that Punk has become the top seller of merch both in the arenas and online, the WWE is looking at giving him a major push, including potentially putting the WWE title on him in a few months and letting him go into WrestleMania as the champion, and let the Cena/Rock match not have the belt on the line. I really, reaaly hope they do that because it makes total sense in every possible way.