this: makes me believe it is a work, it is before the rumble but I highly doubt that much changed after 1 day.
- WrestlingINC.com reports that one of their readers attended CM Punk's Wizard World Q&A in Portland, Oregon this past weekend and said he doesn't think Sting should come to WWE because he doesn't have anything left in the tank and would again take away from the younger Superstars. Punk called Batista a friend but said he didn't feel the time was right for Batista to return because it was so unfair to take away from the other wrestlers who work hard everyday.
- Daily Sports in Japan reports that WWE has offered a contract to Pro Wrestling Noah star KENTA and that Noah will be doing a farewell show for him but that's likely a premature report. We noted before that KENTA was at the WWE Performance Center for a tryout this week.
Source: Wrestling Observer Newsletter
The status of C.M. Punk has become a major talking point in WWE, as he told Vince McMahon about 30 minutes before the start of Raw on 1/27 in Cleveland that he was flying home, and did.
He wasn’t on the show and didn’t appear at the Smackdown tapings the next night. WWE has since pulled him off all shows, although at press time he was still being advertised for Elimination Chamber on 2/23 in Minneapolis. We’re told that he will eventually be pulled off that show as well.
It’s sketchy what happened. Over the last week, ever since Punk’s interview with Ariel Helwani before the Chicago UFC show where he openly brought up that his contract was up in July and didn’t want to say what he was going to do next, several people who know him had noted not to be surprised if he leaves. Two different people said that he was “as good as gone” in July, and one said that they didn’t expect him to even last until July.
There were frustrations with creative and with money, even though he has made great money the last several years. This was not a spur of the moment thing as much as something that had been building. The way we were told was that he couldn’t take it any longer and told McMahon that he was going home. McMahon had been tied up all day since they were rewriting the show, based on what happened the prior night at the Royal Rumble to figure out a way to keep the show under control and not have the audience hijack it again. Punk had been scheduled for an interview on the show to presumably build up a match with Kane on the PPV, which would lead to his planned WrestleMania match with HHH.
Because McMahon was so busy, Punk didn’t see him until 7:30 p.m., when he told him he was leaving. The reason the Kofi Kingston vs. Alberto Del Rio match on Raw went so long is because it came during the period laid out for Punk’s interview and had to go a second segment to cover the time, so the key “money” segments would be in their correct time slots.
The working assumption internally has been for several weeks that Punk was leaving in July and not going to sign a new deal. The belief was that he is not a spender, has saved his money and doesn’t have to work. It was a weird dynamic because he’s one of the few guys on the roster that the company and Vince McMahon knew believed he didn’t need them, and financially, really doesn’t. So they can’t deal with him from the same level as all the other guys who are scared to lose their jobs and spots.
Within the company, the reason was that he came to the realization that he would never be positioned higher than he was. His goal was to main event WrestleMania, as in be in the real main event. He felt that because he didn’t fit the mold of what they think the top star in the company should look like, he would never be the guy and the centerpiece.
It’s not known at press time what caused the situation to get to where it did and what was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Another person close to the situation who was aware it was coming, just didn’t know when, said it was a classic case of being burned out, and noted the dichotomy that he’s never had a job where he’s made anywhere close to the same amount of money, nor ever been as famous, and gotten more out of wrestling than this one. But, he has been miserable at the job for some time, and he was a guy who loved working in pro wrestling when he made nothing or very little. It was noted that he never had the personal connection with Vince McMahon that most of the big stars had, and always knew he was not their kind of guy, didn’t have the look they thought a star should have, and felt he got over in spite of how he was used and not because of how he was used. The feeling was that there was a communication issue and lingering unresolved issues that dated back some time, probably most of the last year, combined with frustration regarding creative going forward and of late.