In 2011 the WWE audience and the WWE roster were at a disconnect. More than ever when you watched WWE in the early part of this decade it felt like watching actors in a scripted drama. The emotional connection was gone, we were no longer with the performer, we were just there watching them. CM Punk came along and changed all of that. His promos felt real, he talked to us, he connected. It wasn't just on the microphone, Punk was also a keen tweeter and clearly just said what he wanted even when it was a controversial opinion of his own employer. As such we connected with Punk, we felt like we knew him as a person rather than just knowing a WWE character. It empowered us as fans because we finally had a wrestler we could watch and say "yes, this guy represents me." The result of Punk bringing back the WWE audience emotionally is far reaching. We have now transferred that connection to Daniel Bryan, with the roots of the YES movement arguably starting in CM Punk's empowerment of the audience as a voice that mattered.
