While I absolutely love the idea that Punk returns on Raw Monday night in Chicago, I don't see him coming back with the stipulation that he headlines Wrestlemania.
A big part of the "leaked comments" from the argument between Punk, HHH, and Vince (or whoever all was supposedly involved.....anybody else think there's an awful lot of info from this closed-door private meeting that's come to light since it happened?) was that Punk wasn't demanding that he headline Mania, but that 2014 should be Bryan's year and he should at least have been in the Rumble with "an opportunity to headline Mania" (nice mix of kayfabe and reality there....I can't imagine an actual discussion between Punk, HHH, Vince, etc., actually being about a guy being in the Rumble with the "opportunity" to win......maybe the reporters of this particular story think the folks backstage talk kayfabe to each other in closed-door private meetings). Saying that, here would be my thought/dream booking scenario:
HHH and Bryan have an in-ring confrontation on Raw about Bryan's challenge to HHH on last week's Raw. As tensions between the two rev up, HHH denies that Bryan is worthy of wrestling him at Wrestlemania. As the crowd gets more into the argument, Punk's music hits. This being Chicago, the already-pumped crowd completely loses its shit. Punk plays to the crowd before getting a mic and confronting HHH. Maybe he acknowledges that he's been gone because he left over Bryan not being in the title match and somehow forces HHH to insert him into that match, making it a triple threat (this would also fit in with Batista's rather poorly-veiled references to Bryan in his Smackdown promo....not to mention the fact that the Batista character basically underwent a change into a complete heel on Smackdown....you can't have the Mania main event for the WWE Championship (sorry, folks, the WWE Championship match is always a "main event", even if it doesn't go on last) between two heels with no faces involved....they don't like two faces competing for the belt either, which is why they decided to turn Austin heel in 2001 at X-Seven in the course of his title match against the Rock). I figure he also comes out with some comment about Bryan being completely worthy of taking on HHH/The Authority in the ring at Mania....but since Bryan's going to wrestle for the title, HHH couldn't object to facing the "Best in the World" at Wrestlemania.
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