This has to be the most rediculous discussion I've ever seen. How anyone can deem someone who has done more in three years than most wrestlers ever will in their lifetimes as a failure is completely assinine. BigWill hides behind his caveat that "if all you can say is he wasn't booked properly than you don't have a case". Well we in fact have a pretty good damn case for that.
Punk was the only thing worth watching on ECW and then WWE made the completely wrong decision to drop the title to Chavo in a match of no consequence. That was the moment that solidified the fact that ECW was the bastard stepchild of WWE. If they don't give a damn about the title, why should the fans? That's not a failrue on his part, it's a failure by a creative department that doesn't have a clue how a wrestling show should run. They are the ones who should be labelled as failures.
His tag title reign was very much the same. He and Kofi clicked well in the ring but they were just kind of thrown together with little rhyme or reason and given the belts not because creative had a good idea for them but because it would mean a momentary boost in interest as title changes usually draw higher ratings.
His World Title reign was doomed from the start because they didn't put him over cleanly. It didn't hurt him to cash in after Edge had fought with Batista because that's a taste of Edge's own medicine so it makes sense to do that. But from that moment on, the penholder seemed determined to make him a joke. In fact, the segment with Punk and JBL doing the drinking contest was the only time they used his character to it's potential in WWE so far.
Also, throwing him in there with Batista right off the bat was the death knell. Why would you split the audience with a new champion by putting him up against an established babyface. You can get away with that when the two stars are already well established, but when you're trying to get somebody over, you do it right. And it leads me to believe that one of two things occurred. Either a)Vince listens to his ex-sitcom writers more than he does the actual wrestling veterans who likely all would have known that it was a stupid move to make(if you've heard Steve Corino's story about writing for ECW you know how likely this one is to be true) or b)somebody wanted him to fail. Those can be the only two options in my mind because the systematic emasculation of a wrestling companies top champion done with that kind of tenacity had to be for political reasons.
With his IC title reign, his feud with Regal was brilliant and still had a lot of legs. Again, it made no sense to take the belt off of him and was a booking problem, not a problem with the performer himself.
Now, on to a few other points I've noticed.
Sure, he has a few vocal fans who have probably been with him since his allegedly great days in Ring of Honor, but he has attracted hardly any fans that are unaware of independent promotions in America (however, the few fans he does have are overzealous, so it seems like he has more supporters than he actually does).
I'll go out on a limb here and say that he has considerably more than a small group of "overzealous" fans. The guy is over. Maybe not to the level of Cena or Triple H but there is definately more than a smattering of Punk fans. I don't even begin to see where one would come to that conclusion that he failed to capture support. It's an entirely speculative claim because there's loads of video evidence that show that he had plenty of support.
Austin was poorly booked. But when he was given the smallest piece, he made something special. Rock, Triple H, Mick Foley, Cena, ... guys that took the smallest opportunity and made something big with it.
While that is true, one major thing that's different is that in the attitude era, Vince trusted his talent to come up with their own characters and didn't script their interviews. They had more creative freedom in general. These days, everything you see on television is the product of tv writers who want to script every single word the guys say(again, youtube the Steve Corino story about his tryout with WWE and you'll see what I mean). Austin didn't have the former script supervisor from "Two Guys, a Girl, and A Pizza Place" scripting his "Austin 3:16" promo, that was all him.
Anyone who has seen Punk's promos from the past knows that the guy can get serious heat(be it babyface or heel).
I don't know...just some stuff that was bothering me. But I go off on tangents. Whether anyone likes it or not, Punk's gonna be around for a while because he's a positive role model in a time when WWE sorely needs one, he sells an buttload of merchandise, and he's over, in spite of horrible booking.
Punk will always have his detractors and his defenders. As the old saying goes "opinions are like a**holes. everyone's got 'em and most of them stink."
One thing I'll leave you with is a quote from Jim Cornette on the subject. "Good writing cannot overcome bad talent. Good talent cannot overcome bad writing...but it is easier."
One thing I can say with absolute certainty is that Punk entire WWE run for the most part has most definately not been good writing. Not from a wrestling perspective and not even from a simple narrative perspective. I'll leave you with one final thing to say. As both someone who does a great deal of writing and a wrestling fan, I feel comfortable placing the blame where it belongs. The writers working for WWE right now, likely got there because they weren't very good to begin with.
Now keep in mind after all this, that I'm not a big Punk fan. I think he's definately a potential star, and most importantly he's something different. He's not a bodybuilder with a roided out physique, a lumbering giant, or a human catchphrase machine. He's a guy who has a gimmick that can get over as both a face or heel, who can put on good matches and who puts out a positive image from WWE for once(I for one have grown very tired of sleazy tv).
But that's just my opinion.
