Imagine the worst possible thing that could wrong before a life changing time in your career and its sod’s law that it usually will. WWE’s main attraction, the man who has carried it through the year with his head held high is out for who knows how long?
C.M Punk has had to undergo emergency knee surgery just eleven days before his TLC Match with Ryback. This couldn’t have come at a worse time for WWE or Punk, just one months before his epic feud with the Rock is due to begin. At the moment there’s no word on how long it will take Punk to recover his one bad wheel or whether he’ll even be fit to face the Rock at Royal Rumble as promised. If the injury and recovery time is serious though, then sadly Punk will have to be stripped of the WWE Championship.
Surpassing Randy Savage, JBL and John Cena’s mammoth Championship reigns, C.M Punk would have walked into the Royal Rumble with his Championship reign surpassing four hundred plus days. That would have been an achievement for any wrestler in the modern era of WWE especially in a time when things change so much in Vince McMahon’s mind.
All is not lost yet though, because at the time of writing this WWE haven’t stripped Punk of the gold which means they must be expecting him to make a full recovery or at least a partial one for the Royal Rumble. I do expect Punk to be back on WWE television in a few weeks time possibly being wheeled around in wheel chair by Paul Heyman or the Shield. WWE need Punk on television to promote his encounter with the Rock, so the less Punk has to do physically in the coming weeks the better.
Of course this is what happens when you push a talent so hard for so long. Eventually something has to give. It’s just dumb luck that it had to be Punk’s knee. This could have been avoided by WWE had they been a little less harsh on Punk’s booking dates and only used him in the ring when necessary. If WWE had have had him booked to give promos on house shows instead of wrestle and only wrestle twice a month on Raw and once on pay per view, Punk’s knee and physical condition would have been far better than it is today. You would have thought that WWE would have learned their mistakes from pushing Triple H so hard in 2001 when muscle ripped from the bone, but no, WWE are in that minority that don’t learn from history and just repeat it. Over and over again.
Punk’s condition throws up another question for WWE. You see by WWE’s own law, each WWE Championship has to be defended at least every thirty days. Punk won’t be able to be active until Royal Rumble in January which means the WWE Championship will have transpired its allocated thirty days before ‘The Second City Saviour’ rolls into the Rumble. Do WWE choose to ignore their own rules and allow Punk to hang onto the gold or do they take another route and explain that before his knee surgery Punk did defend the WWE Championship on a house show at the end of last week?
Acknowledging Punk’s defence on a house show against Ryback would also necessitate WWE admitting that Ryback has only beaten Punk on house shows by disqualification and on the rare occasion been pinned cleanly in the ring by the Champion. I can’t see WWE allowing themselves this much freedom because the truth would do Ryback more harm that he’s already done himself. Which means WWE will choose to ignore the thirty day rule. Mind you, I would rather they ignored the rule completely than stripped Punk of the gold.
Considering the state of Punk’s knee, I now foresee the Rock defeating Punk at Royal Rumble for the gold to allow Philip Brooks to leave WWE to recuperate the knee, ready for another WWE Championship reign sometime in 2013. I just hope this serves as a wake up call for WWE and changes its mind when it even considers the possibility of pushing the next WWE Champion as hard as they have their current one.
Onwards and upwards...
