101 Shocking Wrestling Plans You Won't Believe Almost Happened
12. CM Punk Is…Deaf?
WWE didn't really like CM Punk initially. Triple H has been open and upfront about his distaste for the outspoken 'Straight Edge Saviour' in interviews since, but they get along better these days. It wasn't just Trips, by the way. Others, like Shawn Michaels and even Vince McMahon himself, wondered why Paul Heyman was frothing at the mouth about how great Punk was.
To them, he was just an indie-riffic ex-ROH World Champ with a lame Pepsi logo tattoo. Reflecting their outlook on his fortunes, Punk seemed destined to suffer through some of the crummiest ideas WWE's creative team could come up with. At one stage, he was going to arrive on the main roster as the first ever fully deaf wrestler under contract.
That would've led to "hilarious" skits involving other stars, and you can imagine how sensitive the promotion would've been about it. Just as Edge had sidestepped the 'deaf mute' gimmick in 1998, Punk managed to avoid this fate. WWE let Heyman have him on the revamped ECW brand, and that proved to be a wonderful career move for CM.
By 2009's heel turn, Punk had shown himself to be one of the better talkers in the business. Imagine he'd been forced to play that deaf character in '06?! The 'Summer Of Punk' promos in 2011 might never have happened, which is unthinkable. WWE badly needed those performances from someone like him, but they nearly booked themselves into a corner that would've been hard to back out of.
What's that? Yes, yes it can always be worse. For example...