5 Ups & 4 Downs From WWE Raw (30 Dec - Results & Review)

3. The Other Side Of Punk, Rollins

CM Punk Seth Rollins 2
WWE

Insider references aside, CM Punk and Seth Rollins closed out the last Raw on cable television with a fiery promo battle where they did their level best to sell their hatred as a long-simmering stew that boiled over when Punk returned to WWE last year.

Whether unwittingly or not, Rollins gave credence to Punk’s contention that Seth is a corporate bootlicker: Rollins kept talking about how Punk abandoned WWE (and wanted the place to die), but Seth stayed out of loyalty to fight in the trenches to improve the company. However, Rollins did get a good dig in as he bluntly called Punk a cancer to the company and the industry itself, and he vowed to cut it out next week.

Punk used arrows as a stand-in for the attacks he sustained during his waning days with WWE in 2014, talking about how he had to get far away from the company so he could pull them out, and now he was coming back with the arrows in tow to shove them down Rollins’ throat.

While the wild, all-over-the-arena brawl was a hotter selling point for the feud, Monday’s promo was fine at maintaining the heat and adding a final wrinkle or two to the mix.

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Contributor
Contributor

Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.