10 Greatest Promos In Modern Wrestling History
4. CM Punk Flashes His Teeth
CM Punk cut the expected, phenomenal promos in his brief, immortal AEW run.
Much of the time, he was happy to be there, which is heavily ironic now. He played heartfelt, impassioned. He was never better however when threatening to unleash the dormant heel within. In Long Island or smugly undermining Eddie Kingston, Punk was so f*cking great as the above-it-all ar*ehole. It's a travesty that we won't see the full turn. On August 17, 2022, he got as close as he may ever get in the promotion.
Even here, ahead of his ill-fated Dynamite show-down with Jon Moxley, he remonstrated with himself. He wanted to put his game face on, but the crowd just melted him into a smile.
It stayed on his face, but with an unbearable smugness.
After calling out Hangman Page - how naive were those three-way All Out match predictions in retrospect? - Punk aimed at other targets. He called Jon Moxley the third best guy in the Blackpool Combat Club and said it was a recurring theme in his career. With that line, the atmosphere shifted. Everybody in the arena sensed his foul mood. Punk revelled in his foul mood. This was Punk, the bass in his voice powering his conviction, jerking off his own deep-rooted narcissism.
Obnoxiously complex wordplay is the preserve of an absolute d*ckhead - and Punk knows how to be one better than most. He continued to relegate beloved fan favourites by burying Eddie Kingston as the second-best "Kingston" he's ever shared a locker room with. "These people aren't number one at anything!" was so vicious. Punk wasn't just killing people here; he was pissing on their graves.
"Moxley isn't the first Jon I'm gonna beat in Chicago for a championship belt."
He couldn't even bring himself to call WWE's biggest prize a World title!
Even in the subtext, this was Punk at his prickly - hell, c*nty - best.