For a wrestling noob I'd just show him some matches/promos that standout to me and that should get the job done. Not much reason to do others with a noob as it's pretty logical to assume he's unfamiliar with his body of work and seeing first hand is superior to hearing second hand. Well, as long as you're not talking about crap that is. Anyway, I'm really going to take this thread as an opportunity to explain (in excessive detail, as I always do) why my current favorite is my current favorite; which isn't really the same as what's being asked but the same points will still come across.
So, who is my current favorite? Well, if you look to left then you'll see it's CM Punk. Okay, actually it's Dean Ambrose right now but I'm inexperienced when it comes to him so I'm just going to go with Punk who's my solid second at the moment.
I'm going to start off with what is probably the first thing that comes to mind when they think of Punk's greatest strength's and that is his mic skills. Yes, they are really great, especially when hits his stride. My two favorite era's of Punk are his heel turn in 09 and the Summer Of Punk. For the former one, and this has quite a bit to do with Punk's mic work, I loved that he didn't actually turn heel until about two months after the event that caused it. Instead of a classic 180 character turn, we got about two months of character development that lead to Punk eventually going full heel. Which is why that is my favorite heel turn. Obviously, I don't need to discuss the Summer of Punk when it comes to mic work. I will say this though, for me the storyline stayed great up until the Raw after Night Of Champions. The only really terrible thing that could have came out of that would be if Nash revealed that he sent the text during the build of Night Of Champions because that was stupid and so anti-climatic. But I think that happened after Night Of Champions, I can't remember. Back to the mic skills though, Punk really shined here, his historic promo alone was the reason I got back into wrestling.
However let's not get confused here, Punk's mic skills aren't perfect and he has more than his share of faults in that category. You know, I often feel like I go against the grain when I say, "I don't prefer this guy as a heel" and I'm postive I'm going against the grain when I say I don't prefer Punk as a heel, as a matter of fact, I think he's at his worst when he's a heel. Mainly because he is so damn repetitive when he's a heel. Back when he was doing the Straight Edge Society, it was like me and Punk were in the lovey-dovey stage of our relationships because I was finishing all he sentences. The saddest part of that was that Jericho was even worse in this respect at the time. As for his most recent heel turn, for what I saw (which is the first three weeks then random segments online), I also disliked for completely different reasons. His character did the classic 180 character turn, although strangely he only did this half the time. For example, him whining about the triple threat was absolutely ridiculous because he had two in his reigns previously, being a TLC, and he stated in the build during at least one that he was excited for the match. Back to the promos though, yeah I didn't stick around long enough to see if he got/remained repetitive but I wouldn't surprise if he was still talking about Respect and being the Best In The World for most of the promos like he was for those few weeks. From the segments I've saw after I stopped watching, it didn't really seem he did but maybe that's because Paul Heyman joined him and started sharing mic time with Punk.
I've got four more things to address in concerns to that last paragraph. I) Yes, The Best In The World thing was around way before his most recent heel turn but the difference was that during his tweener/face run that was just a signature line of his. From the beginning of his heel run that, along with respect, was the center of his promos. The meat of it came from those two places for the three or so weeks I watched for, which was not the case before. II) I understand why he did go the repetitive route in his SES time and possibly his current heel run. You'll get a more negative reaction if you're spouting out the stuff week-in week-out. That's why Jericho kept calling us hypocrites every week, heck it's why some many people turned against Cena due to his wrestling matches normally being the shit week-in week-out. I get that, but for me, and I'm sure others, it's just another reason to change the channel because I'm not missing anything I haven't seen. III) This is not to say that his mic work only faults come from his heel runs either. He sometimes stumbles over lines but I can forgive that just about 99% of the time but I figured I'd throw it out there. Also, sometimes he said or did lame things during his face run, like calling John L. (not spelling his last name out) a toolbox or the whole fake vomiting thing he did during the Trips/Nash segment. Those were few and far between though, so I don't really considering them huge deals. There minor. IV) That's also not to say that his mic work sucks as a heel. One of my favorite promos of his is his one against Raven from England I believe (it was pre-WWE, obviously). And he's had other great promos in the WWE when he's heel, like the one during Rey's daughters birthday was great and his promo on the 900th Raw wasn't only the only good thing about that show, it's one of my favorite Punk promos. Heck, individually there was nothing bad about most of the SES promos, it was just that after the first one, I pretty much seen all of them. It felt like very little new if any were being inserted into them, and before they disbanded I gave up. Now, some may say well if you didn't see all the promos you can't judge all for being the same. I stayed for months and the fact of the matter was during those months Punk, who was about the only thing really getting me to watch, was pretty much doing the same thing every promo and due to that I stopped. If they got better, then great, I'll youtube later maybe but that doesn't change the fact that they still lead me to stop watching and face Punk and definitely tweener Punk have never done that.
Now I understand I've really accentuated the negative in concerns to his mic skills but that's because it's something that isn't really brought up all too often I find. I don't think it's Punk's best quality, I don't even think he's the best in the company (that's Paul Heyman) with mic skills but don't get me wrong I do love his promos most of the time. The times I haven't mentioned. It's time for the inverse of that because I'm really going to praise him when it comes to the other side of the coin, his wrestling.
Do I think he's the best in the world? No, I haven't watched much wrestling outside of WWE. I've seen a bunch of TNA too and few indy shows but I can't say it due to being ignorant of the other companies. Best in the WWE though? Yes! Now I know what you're thinking, "Um Mustafar, Daniel Bryan hasn't been fired" and you'd be right but personally I think just by wrestling ability (as really, best wrestler in the world includes mic skills), Punk is better. Now wrestling, at least in the WWE, is not now, nor ever has been simply about technical wrestling and being able to chain a bunch of moves together seamlessly. It's always been about telling a story, a story that get's you invested, that gets you to react and that normally plays off the feud going into it. When it comes to that, I think Punk is better. For example, Punk's match at Extreme Rules with Jericho actually got a pretty big reaction out of me, and that doesn't happen a lot for me. And yes, it ties into other stuff, like the angle going into it (which in fairness, Bryan haven't had as much) and prior investment level which does tie into mic skills which Punk is definitely better in my opinion (thus why I said best wrestler includes both), so it's not exactly fair to Bryan.
Now let's get more fair to Bryan, and just talk pure technical wrestling. Who do I think is better? Punk. Let me explain something, when it comes to technical wrestling I think often times people just focus on the offensive. On not botching a move, and like I said earlier being able to chain a bunch of moves together seamlessly. However, technical wrestling has just as much to do with that as it does with selling. That's why whenever I'm asked who's the best technical wrestler of all-time, I'll say Chris Benoit because he was a much better seller than either Bret or Kurt. When it comes to selling, I think Punk is the best in the company. And again, I know what you're thinking, "Um Reginald, Dolph Ziggler is still in the company" however selling is two-fold. On a move per move basis, Ziggler is the best, no doubt. However the other part of selling, the most important part in my opinion is long-term selling. CM Punk, in pretty much all the big title matches in his reign that I've seen, by the end of the bout the dude looks as though he's just been through a war. His Street fight match against Jericho springs to mind, the guy looked as he's been through a war. And it's not just the hair by the way. Bryan selling is good and all, I'm not trying to take his great wrestling ability away from him, but on selling basis move per move and long-term I don't think he's the best, and I don't think he's better than Punk in either category too, especially not long-term.
Finally, yes this is almost over, I have to address the elephant in the room, Punk's sloppiness in compared to Bryan. I remember we had one member who wouldn't stop talking about it in like most of his posts. First the fact that he botches his GTS . . . unless it was against Cena or that one time against Kane, I haven't really noticed. I even youtube videos and again, if it wasn't Cena it was that one time with Kane. At best, I figured it was a minor botch that doesn't effect the flow of the match and at most doesn't look as effective as it should. But in that case it . . . it still looks effective just less then it should so I don't have a problem. However, I have noticed botches in other areas like in the street fight with Jericho, I know he slips on the rope when climbing the turnbuckle for a second and I believe when he does the springboard clothesline he slips on the rope. I'm positive that the second one happens, I'm not positive if it's in that match specifically. And most botches he does are those kind of botches. Which are minor ones at best (as they just delay or still connect) but here's the thing, I like that those happen. This is where fridge brilliance kicks in. Let's say that springboard clothesline slip was in the match (I'm 83% sure it was too), during the match he took quite some damage so realistically speaking he wouldn't be able to perform that move perfectly. This goes hand and hand with story building, if you can hit all moves near the end of the match or halfway through the match, then really, what has the opponent accomplished? He hasn't hurt you enough that it actually effects your moves. The effective of someones moves should decrease the more hurt he is. You're not going to be able to throw a ball as far as you could unhurt if you just spent fifteen minutes getting your ass kicked. Especially not if the arm was targeted. So even though it was a botch, it helped the story of the match, and when instances like that happen, I can't consider it a con of the match. And I really don't recall too many botches he's performed that I can't say that it wasn't like that. Yeah, of course there were, and I'm sure somewhere along the line Bryan botched something (though I certainly haven't seen it) but still overall, it's not present enough for it to be a big a con for me. It's more of a, "everybody botches" kind of thing.
Okay, finally I'm done. I've made my case for why Punk normally is my favorite. And for those wondering how long I've been making my point, I just plugged this into word counter and it was about 2226 words long . . . I think I need to learn how to shut up.
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