With wrestling fans’ buzzing about the current storyline on Smackdown in which the now World Heavyweight Champion, CM Punk, is on the brink of turning full-blown heel with his “questionable” actions against Jeff Hardy, it totally had me getting flashbacks of Punk’s past role as a killer bad guy in his former home company of Ring of Honor back in 2005. I know that true-blue hardcore wrestling fans may already know about it, but for those who don’t know about it or hell even for those who already experienced it, I just wanted to revisit the multi-week “Punk Heel” saga in great detail and talk about how it may have one of the best sudden heel turns ever done in recent memory.
To start this story off, CM Punk was initially a standard typical smart-ass heel in ROH along with his stable “The Second City Saints” (with Ace Steel and close best friend Colt Cabana). After this group started feuding with some other known heel stables (like Generation Next and The Embassy), Punk slowly and naturally turned into a default face. So in 2005, with an offer to work for the WWE and a strong crowd following (due to his face turn and stellar match outings including his “Match of The Year” candidate against Samoa Joe), Punk went into what was billed as his last night in ROH against his rival Austin Aries for the ROH Championship at “Death Before Dishonor III”. Now the standard procedure for those leaving a company is that they would usually end up going out by putting someone more over by losing to them in a horribly dramatic fashion. So with this thought, one would think that here on Punk’s emotional last night that he would take Aries to the edge by almost taking the belt he long sought after in his “final” match, only to lose barely and then cheered on fans in his goodbye. But unexpectedly and shockingly Punk actually won the match and the belt. So when the fans were standing from the seats cheering their hearts for their longtime favorite, Punk thanked the crowd and then proceeded to cut arguably one of the best heel promos ever:
“This belt, in the hands of any other man, is just a belt. In my hands it becomes power. Just like this microphone, in the hands of any of the boys in the back, is just a microphone. You put it in the hands of a dangerous man like myself and it becomes a pipe bomb. These words that I speak, spoken by anybody else but me are simply words strung together and loosely formed into sentences. What I say I mean and what I mean I say and they become anthems! You see if I could be afforded the time to tell all of you here today a little bit of a story. It’s a parable of sorts.
There was once an old man, walking home from work; he was walking in the snow, and he stumbled upon a snake frozen in the ice. He took that snake and he brought it home and he took care of it and he thawed it out and he nursed it back to health. And as soon as that snake was well enough it bit that old man. And as the old man lay there dying he asked the snake, ‘Why? I took care of you. I loved you. I saved your life.’ And that snake looked that man right in the eye and said, ‘You stupid old man. I’m a snake.’
The greatest thing the devil ever did was make you people that he didn’t exist. And you’re looking at him right now. I am the devil himself! And all of you stupid mindless people fell for it!”
As the crowd slowly realized that Punk was suddenly turning heel, Punk began to claim that he was going to take the ROH belt with him to WWE and Vince McMahon and taunted to the audience heavily that this would be the last time they would see him and the ROH World Title. So as he was leaving, Christopher Daniels (who was in TNA at the time and “returned” to ROH) came to the ring and challenged Punk for the belt right then and there. Punk then proceeded to escape through the crowd as fans looked seriously pissed that Punk was seemingly gone from ROH with the belt in hand. What came after this were two of the best well-booked months I’ve ever seen in a wrestling company that involved Punk’s tight grip on the World Title and everyone’s quest to try and get it from around his waist. Let us cover what happened in these 2 months and why an awesomely villainous Punk made them so good.
At the next major show a couple of weeks later at “Sign of Dishonor”, Punk came out in a horribly evil looking business suit with the ROH World Title in hand to multiple “F@ck You”s from the crowd. The man proceeded to cut yet another seething killer heel promo about how he felt that people like Samoa Joe and Christopher Daniels “abandoned” ROH by also working for TNA and that he was finally going to do the same by taking the ROH belt with him to WWE again on his “last night” with ROH (as he claimed again to the crowd). Punk then did some more heelish things such as “sign” his WWE contact on top of the ROH Title and later on in the main event called out for open challengers by naming (and teasing the crowd with their entrance music) some very popular, but at-the-time out of commission, wrestlers such as Bryan Danielson, Low-Ki, and the Briscoe Brothers. After Mick Foley (yep…strangely enough at a ROH show…Mick Foley) came out and dropped some hilarious and uncharacteristic “F-bombs” on Punk (Regarding Punk’s business suit: “You looked f@cking ridiculous!”), Jay Lethal came out and then sadly lost to Punk in his own attempt to get the belt back. So once AGAIN, this was “Punk’s last night” and he had escaped with the belt. As you will see as a theme in this storyline here, the crowd in attendance and the people watching the ROH DVDs (without reading any spoilers of course) didn’t have a clue when Punk’s actual last night with the company was. Honestly people watched every show not knowing if Punk would get away with taking the belt with him or if one would be able to dethrone him and defend the honor of the ROH World Title. I knew about the storyline from the DVDs from reading about it online, but chose not to read the spoilers so that I could enjoy it more not knowing what happened.
Now with people like James Gibson (aka Jamie Noble in WWE), Christopher Daniels, and Samoa Joe gunning for Punk and the title, Punk continued to act like he was the shit and continuously talked major shit to every crowd he saw. At “Escape From New York”, Punk came out in “supervillian-fashion” to the crowd via a darken arena, a spotlight, and calls of “CM Pussy!!!” to claim that he wasn’t defending the title that night due to “unprofessional” behavior being shown, Foley came out again and convinced Punk to put the belt on line by hanging him off of a balcony, and Punk defeated Roderick Strong with a simple roll-up to AGAIN escape with the ROH Title on his “last night”. Then during “Fate Of An Angel”, Punk again got the crowd into a mini-frenzy, took out his main event opponent James Gibson (Punk came back yet ANOTHER night for revenge against him) with a steel chain early on in the night, and then later on defeated him in a great match to…guess what…once again “leave” the ROH with the belt in hand. When the next show entitled “The Homecoming” came up and it was announced that Punk would be back again to defend the belt against Christopher Daniels, the man who first challenged Punk for the belt as soon as he won it, the fans (and myself) pretty much thought that the Fallen Angel would be the one to finally take the strap from Punk. So after a horribly close match that went all the way to the stated 60-minute time limit (that I and I’m sure others didn’t see coming), Punk barely kept the belt after time ran out. After weeks of being it being billed by announcers (and Punk himself) as Punk’s “last night”, it may have seemed like this was the case. But then it was finally announced that Punk would be gone after two shows with the next one being “Redemption”.
At this event, Punk had to defend his title in a Four-Way Elimination match against his long-standing foes in the last few weeks in Daniels, Gibson, and Samoa Joe, the person who didn’t get an one-on-one against Punk for the belt and was thought to be the one to possibly beat Punk in this match. After an excellent back and forth match (easily the best of this World Title series), James Gibson (again aka Jamie Noble…the guy who used to be the WWE Cruiserweight Champion and “lived in a trailer park” per his storyline) surprised everyone and make a dramatic comeback to finally dethrone Punk and win his first ROH Championship. Even through everyone was getting emotional about Gibson’s big win, the fans didn’t forgot to turn right around and start thanking Punk for the match and prepping for his last night with the company. Then, now seriously, on his last night at the now properly titled “Punk: The Final Chapter”, CM Punk totally pulled a 360 and automatically went face again when he came out to the ring to one of the most emotional scenes I’ve ever seen in wrestling with the fans yelling Punk’s name throwing a sick amount of steamers in the ring and Punk being shown vividly crying cause of it. After a 2 out of 3 falls match against his real-life best friend, Colt Cabana, Punk was greeted by the locker room in the back and cheered goodbye by the fans. So after weeks of seriously pissing off and angering fans with his super-heelish antics, it was a great sight to see the same people give him a proper send-off for all of the great work he’d done in ROH with his stay.
If you are highly looking forward to a heel turn by Punk in the next few weeks in the WWE and haven’t seen this run here, please do yourself a favor and watch them today. Hell, even if you already had, you should watch it again to relive the memories. The incredible amount of heat created in the few mere weeks that Punk was a heel is something that some other wrestlers only wish of doing throughout their whole entire careers. To convincingly go from the biggest face in the world with fans cheering for your “last match” to an ultimate mega-heel in a manner of minutes is true mad skill. I’ve never seen such a huge heel turn go so successfully without a real hitch. Wish that I could’ve found some video to show here to give justice to what Punk did as a sick heel, but seriously if you haven’t seen it yet, please go out and watch every single one of these shows. Here’s hoping that Punk’s latest turn is at least as good or even better than this one.
