Is the Thrill Gone?

Not the best show, but I'm not jumping yet
Photo Credit: WWE.com

They couldn't keep up that pace forever, right? Right? Well, if you ask some people, the string of epic RAW endings ended last week with Punk's allegedly premature return to action. I will still say that it was a right call (admitting that there were several potential right calls in that scenario), but a lot of it was very much dependent on how they followed up this week. In my eyes, they really didn't follow up that well at all.

The angle has been predicated on being cutting edge, or at least on the pretense of such an ideal. We had Punk venting about perceived wrongs, showing up and cuckolding Triple H at ComiCon, showing up at AAW, pulling a Chuck Taylor in Jimmy Kimmel, bolting out the genpop exit at Money in the Bank with the title... and we're reduced to dueling themes and holding up titles in the overrun? Yeah, you'll have to forgive me if I'm not enthralled with that cheese when in the last month, we've gotten nothing but A-list material.

That being said, it is the first time they've faltered on a consensus scale. The rational explanation is that it's impossible to keep up a string of excellence at a 100% clip. This is true. We were meant to get a lull in the action sooner or later. However, time and time again, wrestling fans, especially ones who reside on the Internet, myself included, have a tendency to overreact at times.

Then again, can you blame us? Asking fans of WWE (and even moreso, Impact) to trust the company on a new direction or an exciting storyline is like asking Charlie Brown to keep trying to kick the football even though every time, Lucy pulls it away. The question might then shift to why do we keep trying to kick the ball when we know the result, but hey, no one ever said that wrestling fans were the most rational bunch when it comes to how they allocate their time.

So here we are, back on the ledge. Personally, I've trained myself to be less cynical (and on the flip side, more set up to be disappointed), and yet I can't help but think that they took the thrill out of CM Punk last night. Is it an overreaction? Probably, but that's what we do. We overreact. That being said, they have two more weeks to try and get the thrill back, and given that the angle still contains Punk, they have a damn good chance to do it. Here's the thing about Punk; he's one of the rare talents who overcomes bad circumstance like Michael Jordan made fools look silly on the court in the early '90s. So right there, this angle has something going for it that the Nexus angle, or several other false start angles in the past didn't have going for them.

So yeah, maybe in this one instance, we shouldn't be so quick to jump off the ledge. The thrill may seem like it's gone now, but at the same time, you can never tell when Punk's got the power to turn a microphone into a pipe bomb. Granted, it's looking more and more like Triple H won't be as giving with him as Vince McMahon was with Steve Austin, but you know what? Punk can overcome that. Why? Because he's awesome, that's why.

And as long as CM Punk remains awesome, I'm not sure the thrill will ever go away from professional wrestling as long as he's there.