10 Greatest Angles In Modern Wrestling History
2. The Pinnacle Hang CM Punk
Jim Ross has divided the AEW fandom since his first day on a job he never seemed to be into all that much.
Moaning about the booking and officiating, he spends more time trying to grasp the action than calling it - but while he may not be as good as he was, on March 2, 2002, he was as good once as he ever was.
The legendary CM Punk Vs. MJF programme had taken an incredible, left-field twist the week prior, when MJF revealed that Punk had acted as his escape from a bullied life of torment in his formative years. Punk could no longer receive MJF as a rival. He was something else, or at least he believed he was somebody else - because he was a good man, or at least he was trying to be.
His goodness was such that it excused him falling for the ruse, but he wasn't such a hand-slapping good guy that it betrayed his edge and his character's evil history. The whole saga was as nuanced as wrestling gets, and when MJF revealed to the old man that he was a snake - and Punk had toiled against inferior competition to convey that MJF was his successor - he got even more over as a heel.
He kicked Punk in the balls, punched open a gash in his head, and, using the dog collar, hanged him over the ropes. A gruesome twist of a heat angle, it was phenomenally effective - Revolution '22 drew at least 165,000 buys - and Ross played it to perfection.
He wasn't histrionic. Measuring the subtle complexity of the story brilliantly, he simply said "Too far, fellas. Way too far."