7 Ups & 3 Downs From WWE Raw (3 Mar - Results & Review)

1. Punk’s Personal Festivus

11 years ago to the day Monday, CM Punk walked out of WWE before Raw after seeing his WrestleMania main event plans dashed.

While the situations were vastly different then and now, Punk had a lot of grievances to air back then and again on Monday night. The difference here was that he showed up this week and cut loose on the mic.

Punk opened Raw by storming out to the ring, grabbing a mic and standing on the announce desk, saying that he might get WWE canceled from Netflix. He then proceeded to unleash a torrent of fire that can’t be adequately recapped. Go watch the entire opening to get a clear picture.

In part, Punk unloaded on “Dwayne”, calling The Rock a bald fraud who thinks he’s immune from criticism because he’s on the TKO board of directors. He mocked Rock’s goosebumps arm slap, calling it “bulls**t”, pretending to care about the fans. Then he took aim at the People’s Championship, noting that he’d never be so delusional to wear a fake title (the less said about the “Real” AEW World Championship, the better).

Then Punk said he’d never be so desperate as to sell his soul, targeting John Cena. He said everyone could now see through him. He looked down the lens and yelled, “Hustle, loyalty, respect for 20-plus years, and now everybody sees what I've been telling them all along, that you've been selling all these people and all these kids bulls**t.”

Just like that, CM Punk went from looking like an outsider on the main event scene to being right in the thick of the conversation, even if it was for only one week.