7 Ups & 3 Downs From Last Night's WWE Backstage (Nov 19)
"Look in my eyes, what do you see? A Backstage Personality."
CM Punk CM Punk CM Punk CM Punk. Get what you came for?
WWE will hope viewers did - the ratings for the first episode proper of the largely enjoyable Backstage were so wretched that the emergency glass they broke required a hammer bigger than Triple H's - the 'Straight Edge Superstar' is back on the fringes of an organisation he grew to despise. It's wild.
But 'The Voice Of The Voiceless' lending his...voice to this new WWE/Fox co-production wasn't greeted with unanimous excitement. Far from it in fact - in the five years since he angrily jumped off the juggernaut, many fans have tied themselves in knots fantasy booking his eventual return, set to the chats that haven't ever left since he did in 2014. '"Analyst on shoulder programming" hadn't filled many Reddit threads.
Neither WWE nor Fox will give a toss at the moment. He was the draw for this week's edition of Backstage as much as he was the lightning rod for online attention last week. His first wrestling-related tweet baited Tony Khan and resulted in the AEW owner having a hilarious Twitter war with Randy Orton. He'd godfathered that in just 280 characters. What drama could he cause with the rotating cast WWE calls a roster?