10 Wrestlers Who Had Electric Chemistry (But WWE Did Nothing With It)

3. CM Punk And Mickie James

Before they made it to WWE, CM Punk and Mickie James were just two kids on the indie circuit trying to make names for themselves. They managed to score bookings for TNA in 2003 where they showed moments of wonderful chemistry together, considering how young they were and how new to the business they were at the time. Mickie went under the name ‘Alexis Laree’ then and CM Punk only had a few tattoos on his flesh.

They were paired up together to work as part of ‘The Gathering’ led by Raven. It was reminiscent of Raven’s Nest in ECW and his Flock in WCW. Punk and Laree worked well in the scenes they had together on screen, likely because they shared the same hunger to make it big in pro wrestling. So much so that when both of them were signed to WWE they were initially booked to quickly debut together on the main roster.

Laree accompanied Punk to the ring as his manager/valet for a match taped for Sunday Night Heat in 2005. WWE management for unknown reasons hastily scrapped the pairing as soon as they walked back through the curtain though, going so far as to not even air the match. Punk would have to spend a whole year in developmental after this before Paul Heyman brought him up to the new ECW.

When a picture of Mickie and Punk from that Heat taping made its way online a few years ago, Mickie tweeted ‘This was when @CMPunk & I “officially-unofficially” debuted. I’ve often wondered how our careers would have been different had they gone forward with this pairing and entrance into the @WWE’.