Sometimes, when wrestlers are cutting promos on someone, you can just tell when their words of anger have crossed over from "what I'm supposed to say in the storyline" into "this is how I really feel about this person". There's just a palpable sense of anger and hostility, and you can sense when someone is truly disliked. The tales of John Laurinaitis are legendary in the wrestling business. The list of people who don't exactly have the nicest of things to say about the man is seemingly endless. The stories are mostly the same... the man formerly known as Johnny Ace is a glad-handing, kiss-ass "yes man" that doesn't have a mind for his own, and only serves to brown nose the McMahon family. With Punk's initial "Pipe Bomb" promo, he revealed all of that to the world, ripping Laurinaitis apart. If you have someone like a John Laurinaitis at your job, no matter what it is you do for a living, there's a pretty good chance that you and every single one of your co-workers can't stand him or her. Many times, this person knows how much they're hated, but don't seem to care. That was the case with Laurinaitis. If you go back and watch the promo battles between he and Punk, not only did he always have anger on his face that simply cannot be faked or acted, there was actually a time when he would say, off-mic, that Punk had gone far enough, as if there was a line previously agreed to and Punk had just stepped over it. Of all the people Punk feuded with during his career, it seemed like he got the most joy out of taking shots (many of them of the personal variety) at Johnny Ace, and that provided plenty of entertainment for the fans.
Columnist/Podcaster/Director at LordsOfPain.net for nearly seven years, with nearly 2000 total columns written. Interviewed and/or involved in interviewing the likes of Tyler Black/Seth Rollins (twice), Diamond Dallas Page, Jimmy Jacobs, Christopher Daniels, Uhaa Nation and more.
