10 Things WWE Stole From The Indies
3. The Summer Of Punk
Ask a pool of WWE fans about their favourite modern wrestling angles and most will mention the Summer Of Punk. It ended in Triple H-induced infamy, but the program's genesis felt like a real paradigm shift, with the protagonist's legendary 'Pipe Bomb' living on as one of wrestling's most memorable worked shoots. The Money In The Bank 2011 main event is a certified classic, and it's tragic that WWE decided to slay the angle with 'The Game' and Kevin Nash.
It felt fresh, new, and revolutionary, but it wasn't. The Summer Of Punk was not a unique storyline, but a retread of one that had already played out in Ring Of Honor six years prior, with WWE aping everything from the name to the overarching theme.
Much like the WWE version, the ROH story had Punk threatening to bring the promotion's top championship with him when he left the company. He spent weeks mocking his employers, and even went so far as to sign his WWE contract on the physical belt, and the company eventually brought Mick Foley in to show Punk the error of his ways.
The key difference is that Punk didn't actually leave with the ROH World Title, and instead dropped it to James Gibson on his way out. Still, WWE's version was the sequel, not the original.