1. CM Punk's Exhaustion
WWE.com
Wikipedia defines exhaustion as the following: a subjective feeling of tiredness which is distinct from weakness, and has a gradual onset. Unlike weakness, fatigue can be alleviated by periods of rest. Fatigue can have physical or mental causes. Physical fatigue is the transient inability of a muscle to maintain optimal physical performance, and is made more severe by intense physical exercise. CM Punk isn't going to be wrestling for an extremely long time (or ever again) because he's exhausted and needs to rest. For probably the better part of the past 20 years, CM Punk has eat, slept, lived and breathed pro wrestling. This started with Punk promoting and wrestling on lucrative backyard shows, getting trained at the Steel Dominion school and hitting the road most every week and weekend, worldwide, as a globally-respected independent performer for five years. That was just his first decade. In his second decade he worked for World Wrestling Entertainment as a top performer during a transition period wherein the company both expanded their global and digital live event and marketing brands, a move that given that Punk was a six-time heavyweight champion, two-time Money in the Bank briefcase holder, Tag Team and Intercontinental Champion in that period, meant that he was oftentimes a key piece of all company marketing and branding decisions. As well, let's add onto that that Punk is an iconoclast and known free-thinker working in a company still within it's first decade of being a corporation in an era where corporate disruption slowly began to run rampant. Thus, the idea of a heavily-tattooed World Champion made sense on multiple levels, from being a top in-ring talent to fulfilling a progressive corporate profile for WWE. Thus, from having his own touring bus, full merchandising line and growing political stroke backstage, his job was certainly ideal, but also likely quite stressful. Couple his stress level with the idea that he was not being pushed as a top contributor, the company felt the need to push a returning Dave Batista as a more major player and the fact that his Wrestlemania payout was likely to take a hit from the announcement of the WWE Network, and it likely was altogether too much to handle. How does WWE stop Punk's burnout? There actually may be no answer to this situation. Giving Punk a vacation and then bringing in Batista to fill his spot on the card would have likely been the best move. However, when one looks at exhaustion as a clinical condition, there's absolutely no way to tell if that could work, or if a longer-term solution would be necessary for Punk's case.