Guess who I sorta owe an apology, to?

Faulerro.


Thats who.


Why, you may ask?


For me defending the WWE's current direction and plans for CM Punk, when I was clearly wrong.

Exactly as Chris predicted, and I didn't want to believe, Punk is reduced to working a match with Kevin Nash. Past-his-prime (and never that good of a wrestler IN his prime, to boot) over-the-hill Kevin Nash hitting the ring.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see Nash remain a mainstay in the WWE, but much like Bret Hart, I expect to see Kevin Nash as a perminant out of the ring role. Last thing I want to see is him wrestle a main event, and especially not against Punk.

Sure, Punk could probably make a broomstick look good, but Kevin Nash wrestling against CM Punk is not putting my ass anywhere near a seat, whether it be a live seat or one in my home in front of this PPV.


And to Mr. Chris Tout, i'm sorry for doubting you.

I was in half-denial and I didn't want to believe this was the route that WWE was going in.

It was, it is, and you were right.

WWE had me, and it lost me.

The match with Nash is only a temporary stop-gap as part of the larger feud with HHH and WWE management. It's actually a sign that the WWE are high on Punk and have big plans for him.

You can't always have perfect fantasy booking, but look at it this way -Punk is still the main focus of the show. The WWE title is playing 2nd fiddle.

Punk v Nash may not be a great match, but it makes a lot of sense in the wider storyline and in the context of pushing Punk to superstar status.

Basically, don't think of this as the final destination- just a waypoint on the journey.

Speaking of waypoints...

I'm going to play a certain video game, now.

Oh, by the way, I see that some cooler head in WWE prevailed and made the match CM Punk vs Triple H.

That only slightly salvages it, though. But it does make it markedly better.

First and foremost, don't apologise for wanting things to work out for the best, Mike. We all want this business to make sense and give us the best possible programming, so there's nothing wrong with being optimistic. So no need to be like that, dude. S'all good.

Now for me, this whole thing has had the wind taken from its sails since the end of Summerslam. The Nash return and potential feud took away a hell of a lot of Punk's momentum and the story with Triple H has been that run-of-the-mill WWE soap opera nonsense. It's not interesting, and it's just retread of what they've done before. After the exciting stuff they were doing before, it's just such a letdown.

Onto last night's RAW, after having a big set-up for Punk vs Nash on the show, with Nash laying out Punk AGAIN... they just pull the rug out from under all that build and just had "Oh by the way it's against Triple H now". Talk about hotshotting the hell out of that one. If they had no choice but to cancel the match between Nash and Punk (which I was dreading seeing anyway), couldn't they have just done that in the opener of the show? Nonsensical booking if you ask me.

I thought Raw was great and would have loved to see Nash back in the ring. (it wouldnt have been the main event....cena vs del rio would have, wwe championsip and all) I think it would have been an interesting match. would it be a technical masterpiece? nah, of course not. But i still think it would have told the story well. If Punk is as good as everyone says he is, he could still make nash look good.

the change at the end to make it verse hhh was weird after everything, but something tells me its not over yet. NOC is still a week or two away, i think, and it could change again. but regardless, you know theres going to be interference by somebody at the ppv to keep this going.

imo, i still am really liking the wwe right now. Somebody said it was soap opera nonsense.....but when has it ever not been soap opera nonsense? Its soap opera non sense for men. the supershows (where both shows collide i.e: no draft split) was awesome and the pace was great.

im still highly entertained by the wwe and cant wait to see what happens next.

I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't go three way, with the tension between Nash and Trips.

xXAwesomeOneXx wrote:

Somebody said it was soap opera nonsense.....but when has it ever not been soap opera nonsense? Its soap opera non sense for men.

Allow me to clarify; I'm well aware that WWE and wrestling in general has that soap opera element to it. However, my problem is with the quality of this storyline, in that after the far-more-interesting stuff between Punk and Cena which re-ignited a lot of interest in fans because of how fresh and different it was from usual, they've gone to this silly "Nash got a text, but who sent the text? Ooooh it's a mystery" fare. It's just a sad change of pace from the much higher quality writing that we had before.

As for RAW in general, I enjoyed the wrestling but so much of the booking on the show left me groaning. The whole Vickie Guerrero/Dolph Ziggler/Jack Swagger storyline is terrible.

I'm willing to see how this whole HHH/Nash/Punk thing goes, because obviously Nash is going to be pissed at HHH for taking his chance to get a Punk away, Punk still thinks HHH and Nash are in cahoots, HHH is wondering who might be plotting against him. For me it remains an interesting storyline. I'll agree with Chris that it doesn't feel as fresh as the Punk/Cena stuff, but I still think this might be a longer run thing so I'm willing to see where it goes.

I do wonder how the brand split ending will change things. Hopefully, for a start, the flickering embers of a revived tag team division might be fanned into a flame, and there are a few other potential things in the works which are promising.

Yes, I'd love to see all the booking worked in the same style as the recent CM Punk stuff, and I'll readily admit that before it happened I was on the verge of abandoning WWE. But for me they haven't screwed things up anywhere near badly enough in recent weeks to sour me on them again.

BTW Chris, are we ever going to see the conclusion of Chio Reto's story post-reunion show?

Some time soon, with luck. I've been awfully sidetracked, I'm afraid. Sorry about the massive delay.

I think the punk/cena thing was so huge because of all the aspects going into it like punk leaving with the title and the shoot on cena of course the bandwagon of cena haters making it even more big.

But what else could top that?

Punk cant shoot a thousand times because after awhile the shoot idea loses its steam. He doesnt need the world title because the dude was a heel turned face by the fans. thats overness right there.

I just think nothing would have been as cool and as fresh as punk vs cena because that was top level cool and completely 100% fresh and compared to that, nothing can reach that level.

I know, for instance that I would have vastly preferred for CM Punk to feud for the title against Alberto Del Rio, or at the very least be going against the top, young guys in great matches. Something he deserves more than what he's doing now.

eh....

I think Punk would look good where ever he was doing.

but this storyline with hhh is like wwe's biggest story at the moment, even above the wwe title and the things cena is doing. he may be going against old names like HHH and Nash but its the focal point, the main scenario, and I think thats where Punk should be. The focal point, the main scenario.

I can already see one very obviuous direction that it's probably going.

First off, there are rumors of X-Pac returning, soon.

My guess is that X-Pac is going to run out and CM Punk is going to turn heel and join with Kevin Nash against Triple H as sort of a new nWo.

They're doing this obviously as a way to send a message to TNA that "we can do Immortal better than you"

WWE and WWE.com are already doing everything they can to tip off the new nWo (beginning with the nWo music for Nash, the shirt he wore that was the same one he wore before the nWo was formed and the other major things they've done, like making sure all the kids reading WWE.com are brought up to speed with what the nWo was, recently.)

But the joining of CM Punk is going to be the "shock" moment of the new group, and then, my guess is that it will probably transfer off into nWo versus John Cena with Cena kicking their asses every time.

It'll probably be some bullshit like CM Punk was the one who wrote the text telling Nash to attack him, (Typical nWo swerve) and make Triple H look bad and lose face, and that they were the ones acting and masterminding the whole thing, to rail against Triple H's regime as replacement COO, because they saw the weakness of Vince's absence and grabbed the opportunity just like before.

And if they really have to resort to bringing back the nWo yet again, and having John Cena being the guy standing up to the New World Order of CM Punk, Kevin Nash, and X-Pac, I will seriously quit watching.

okay yeah, i totally hope your wrong on that one.

Cena to swerve, turn heel, and join the nWo, Hogan-style.

I can't see that happening, but it'd be nice if it did. (It's the ONLY way it could ever have the impact that the original had, if Cena turned heel.)

But seriously, in all honestly, I just see them wanting to work harder to put Cena over more than he needs to be, by having him take on "one of the most legendary heel stables ever" that he can go SuperCena on.

Which will make me rage so hard if that happens.

In fact, honestly... I never need to see the nWo again. They were great in WCW.

Then they devolved into nWo Hollywood and nWo Wolfpac and buried it into the ground.

Then they pulled out WCW's nWo 2000 with Jeff Jarret which was a huge bomb.

Then the WWF's nWo as the "Poison to kill the WWF" which was interesting for a while, and was the LAST reboot the faction ever needed. It should have stayed dead forever, then.

But then it turned into Booker T, X-Pac, Golddust and The Big Show being in the nWo and it was deader than shit at that point.


And then TNA really fucked it up with "Immortal"...

The last thing I ever want to see is WWE in this day and age revive the spectre of the nWo one more time.

nWo should stay in wrestling history's past and to be honest, I don't ever want to see it happen again.