The Sheamus beatdown never seemed like nearly as big of a deal to me as Sheamus later coming out and thanking HHH for giving him such a thorough ass-kicking.

Between that and Punk gleefully borrowing HHH's blazer, obviously the HHH and friends segment set the entire human race back by multiple decades.

That Punk burial is the single worst thing I've ever seen in wrestling and I really don't think I'm hyperboling. If they had competition, nobody would watch WWE anymore. Akin to the fingerpoke of doom.

The random kick in the nuts of Wade (?) was also terribad.

HHH had been pushing the idea that Axel was a future top guy for a long time.

The time I remember HHH losing to Axel, though, was the time HHH collapsed after a fake concussion or something and Lawler said he might be having a stroke. So it didn't exactly put Axel over.

Are you comparing Punk to Miz? Really?

The difference between Punk/HHH and every other storyline is extraordinary. Punk lit the business on fire. He was bringing in new fans. HHH made him an afterthought by beating him and then concluding "the Summer of Punk" with himself vs. Kevin ****ing Nash. Then there's everything that LKJ mentioned. It's part of the reason Punk and AJ won't ever have kids. This all culminated with Punk leaving the company because HHH wanted the limelight again, but under the guise of losing. Undisputed WOAT.

Not sure why you have a picture of The Rock there (despite him being another reason for Punk's departure).

HHH over Punk was just ridiculous. Agree that it doesn't really get much worse.

Also +1 to LKJ. Sheamus thanking HHH > the beatdown. The beatdown was after Sheamus had injured him so it wasn't too bad.

I don't buy this at all. It doesn't matter how big NJPW gets, it will never be competition to the WWE. NJPW can draw 30K people with a card that doesn't have one name the average WWE audience would know. ROH and TNA basically have no chance of ever getting there. WWE are hiring these indy guys because they made a stack of cash off Punk and Bryan. The only home grown talent that has been able to draw in the past 10 years is Cena and Orton.

The only signing that might give that argument some weight is AJ, Gallows and Anderson because of how many people wear BC shirts at their shows.

edit:

Punk holding the title for a year and a half and then dropping it to Rock so we could have twice in a lifetime is disgusting. Punk should have defended the title(and won) against Rock at WM or lose it Cena in a 3-way with Rock. Instead Punk continued jobbing to the stars for most of 2013. His first PPV that year was in Oct vs Ryback. Just terrible.

looooooool the random kick in the nuts was amazing. totally forgot about that.

Don't care about HHH burying Punk because I never liked the guy.

agree with jimhalpert... triple H really hasn't been burying too much over the last few years. it's obvious he intends to occasionally wrestle, so in order for beating him to mean anything he needs to win at least some of the time. the punk match was really bad though.

It's true about him needing to win sometimes. Chris Jericho jobbing to Fandango still looks absurd in hindsight.

was watching video not too long ago and forgot to link it in here for your guys. was legit hysterical laughing in my computer chair

fast forward to 1:50 for nash's entrance to the ring for the fingerpoke of doom match. the amount of pyro (especially considering the match that's about to happen) is hilarious. typical wcw.

Not in any way comparing Punk to Miz, I'm just comparing worst moments in wrestling.

Rock going over Punk at RR, having a part-timer that only showed up to talk about twitter going over your year-long champion and future of the company with a a sob story and an elbow, is still the worst thing I've ever seen.

Miz/Cena I Quit was just a terrible, terrible moment too. Admittedly it didn't cause anywhere near as much damage, but it just never should have been on TV.

I guess I just don't hold any contempt for Vince trying to make the most money possible with Rock vs. Cena II. Should it have been Punk vs. Cena? Probably. I also feel like when The Rock beats you, it's not really a burial. Punk still got to work with Taker that year and then got Brock Lesnar after that. Hardly a burial.

The whole punk situation was just so weird. A year long reign at the top bookended by jobbing to part timers and followed up further by jobbing to part timers just leaves the everyday roster looking like garbage. Lose to HHH -> year long reign -> lose to rock/taker/brock -> have vince wondering why nobody on the current roster reaches for the brass ring and gets a good crowd reactions. You spend your big shows every year reminding us everyday wrestlers are beneath the part timers, why WOULD we give a **** etc.

Losing to Rock, Taker and Brock is not getting buried but it was literally one after the other. They spent 2 years getting Punk up to Cena's level and then gave him a losing streak.

It would've been interesting to see what they did with Punk after WM XXX. I've been mulling it over for the past five minutes and have nothing.

Punk was set to beat HHH. Bryan's moment doesn't happen and who knows where he goes after WM. Brock still beats Taker. 99% sure Brock still goes to SummerSlam to defeat Batista for the gold.

Punk was a face when he left, right? I just don't see anything for him. An Orton feud? Seems like a huge step down after defeating HHH but Brock's getting the megapush, not Punk.

I only mention because after the losing streak, he could have the real redemption storyline that Cena had in 2012. That would begin with HHH @ 30.

He also put over the Shield very strongly, reforming Evolution only to have it lose in consecutive PPVs, including losing 3 to 0 in an elimination match.

It no longer seems like HHH is putting himself over just to make sure he's over, since he's clearly being used to put Roman over just like he was used to put Bryan over in 2014.

Could be evidence of a potential double turn but I've actually gotten the sense that HHH is trying to be over with the fans during his current feud with reigns with all the crotch chops and other crap he's been doing.

On last Monday's beat down I especially got a kick out of him continuing to smash Romans head into the table despite the audience counting along with each smash. Like if you're trying to get reigns and not yourself over, stop bashing his head into the table once you realize the audience is cheering louder and louder each time you do it. Iirc he didn't even stop at 10 either!

Also hilarious was when he mocked reins arm pump thing. HHH is smart enough to realize the audience is gonna eat all that stuff up, so I'm wondering why he's continuing with that stuff

I think people are reading too much into his arm cock into crotch chop last week. He was mocking Roman. Heels do that. Faces do too, so you can't really say he was trying to be the face in that encounter. But you also can't automatically assume he's not a heel because he mocked Roman.

The way I see it is that we know they are going to extreme lengths to get Reigns cheered or at the very least not booed, it just doesn't make sense to me for HHH to go out of his way to create situations that amplify the crowd's hatred of the guy. Kevin Owens making fun of big show or making Ziggler look weak is different than having your top baby face get obliterated for no reason and booed so loudly that you have to take him off TV 4 weeks before wrestlemania. I understand they are going the sympathy/insurmountable odds route but we've seen with Cena and bryan and others that you can go that route without the face looking like a complete idiot

Punk title run felt like maybe the first time WWE started consciously putting on almost two different shows -- one to appeal to internet smarks, and another for their "general audience."

Except face punk was atrocious as a character. Just terrible

Punk sums up just how out of touch Vince is with the whole good guy/bad guy dichotomy. Heel punk was must see television and easily the best performer on the show. Face punk was just this whitewashed childish character that proves the John Cena model only works for John Cena. Internet smarks don't want to see the best bad guy ever standing in the ring making gag noises

Punk's promos in his feud with the Rock were among my favorite ever and his promo after he stole paul bearer's urn was unbelievable

WWE had a program that appealed both to the internet smarks and the general audience simultaneously in 2000 (despite their biggest draw being hurt much of the year), but they decided that swerves and wacky stuff was more important than actually putting in effort to make sure the storylines and characters made sense because it is 'just wrestling'.

Christ.

He won because chances were HHH was having a stroke? Laughable.

Yeah...this is ...great.