2. CM Punk Finally Rendered Vince McMahon's Classic Business Model Completely Useless
There's two beliefs that have defined the past 35 years of American-based professional wrestling. Foremost, there's the notion that territorial promoters did not see the larger picture of how media could expand (and destroy) the territorial model. As well, there's the idea that pro wrestlers are money-grubbing independent contractors whose only guiding notion regarding work is that they will work for the man who pays the most money and offers the greatest brand reach. The day CM Punk successfully walked away, he proved all of these classic ideas to be false in the modern era. CM Punk got signed to WWE based off of years of being financially stable as the biggest of fish in in the smallest of ponds. Punk rock dudes don't want to play Madison Square Garden, they'd rather headline your basement. In Vince McMahon and company betting the farm on the punk rock kid for 434 days, it was an idea that was doomed to disprove his classic business model. Punk is the ultimate example of when punk rock goes right. Unlike so many band dudes of the past who sold out, Punk's the antithesis of that. Not willing to gain the world for the price of his soul (as so many forked-tongue WWE veterans - hating WWE until they get that Hall of Fame induction or Legends deal do), he walked away when he likely felt his legacy as a principled man named Phil Brooks sat on the table and was staring back at him.
Besides having been an independent professional wrestling manager for a decade, Marcus Dowling is a Washington, DC-based writer who has contributed to a plethora of online and print magazines and newspapers writing about music and popular culture over the past 15 years.
