CM Punk Takes The Title In Chicago - July 19, 2011

Welcome to the "CM Punk plus Chicago equals one of the all time greatest WWE moments" edition of The Wrestling List.

Sunday night was the Money In The Bank PPV and this lived up to every bit of the hype and hope on it. I said it was going to be a big time home field advantage kind of response and it was. CM Punk had chants going for him all night long in anticipation. During the Big Show injury angle, there was a CM Punk chant going as officials checked on Show. The match was set to take place and there was a HUGE CM Punk chant before his music hit. His music and the crowd pops like crazy. Punk had a new shirt on that said "the best in the world" including the date and city on it. This was sold at the show and sold out halfway through the night. Punk just got that crowd in a frenzy every time that he did anything. He would just raise his arms during his entrance and the crowd level would go way up. Just a monster pop. Punk signs all over the crowd. Sitting in the front row was Colt Cabana and Ace Steele. A Colt Cabana chant did break out during the night too. Gotta love that. Chicago is a Ring Of Honor town and has been for a long time. You have that combo in along with fans from all over the country flying in to see this match. It was something special and fans knew that it was going to be that. So, John Cena's music hits and boos just rain in from the crowd. Cena did not even do his normal saluting the crowd as he walked out. There were Cena fans in the house but they were in an up hill battle against this very pro-CM Punk crowd. The crowd atmosphere of this match was just amazing. Off the charts amazing. The finish had Cena hooking on the STF and Vince McMahon along with John Lauranitis made their way to the ring. Vince wanted Lauranitis to ring the bell and I thought, not Montreal AGAIN. LOL. He was stopped and Cena made it clear to Vince that he did not want to win the match that way. When he turned around, he landed right into a GTS from Punk. Punk gets the clean finish and is the new WWE champion. The Chicago crowd goes absolutely crazy. Vince is of course furious and looks completely rattled as his nightmare has come true. Punk is leaving with the title. Vince gets on the headset and demands for Albert Del Rio to come to the ring and cash in the Money In The Bank that he won earlier in the night. Del Rio runs to the ring and Punk knocks him to the mat immediately. Bell never rang to start the match. Punk rolls out with the title, sits on the barrier, and blows a kiss to Vince McMahon. Punk leaves through the crowd with the title as the show goes off the air. Just awesome, awesome stuff. This is the most positive response that I have seen in a very long time for a show and angle. People are just loving the ending of this show and I did too. How many people actually thought that Punk would get the win and take the title? I had thought that Punk might win and then would lose to a Money In The Bank winner.

So, what has happened with CM Punk since then? Well, he has been posting on Twitter. He posted at midnight a picture of the WWE title sitting in his refrigerator. Last night during Raw, he posted pictures of himself at Wrigley Field at the Cubs game. One included the belt laying on top of the Cubs logo while another had him posing with a player along with the championship belt. On Raw, they announced that the tournament was being held to crown a new champion. Punk posted pondering how there could be a new champion "when the champ is here" and had the picture of the belt at Wrigley. So, what is up with Punk? Nobody seems to know. Everything I've heard has him not signing any new agreement. Maybe he'll sign an extension? He has been doing interviews saying that he definitely has no intent of resigning with the company. He has talked about just taking time off. Regardless of what he does, what a way to go out and it has everyone talking. Lots of fans that have quit watching have come back to check out this angle. All of us fans that love CM Punk have just loved how this angle played out. It's almost this feeling of vindication for us as fans who believed in this guy and now we're seeing what we knew he was capable of and what Punk himself knew that he was capable of. Just great stuff.

Good stuff with the Money In The Bank PPV all around. Many saying it was easily the best PPV of the year topping WrestleMania. Del Rio was the Raw MITB winner. Daniel Bryan was the surprise Smackdown MITB winner. Christian won the World title after a DQ finish with Randy Orton. The DQ stip on the match had Christian getting Orton so mad that he nailed the low blow causing the DQ awarding Christian the title.

So, that gets us to last night's Raw. Lots of excitement to see where things went from Money In The Bank. Vince McMahon opens the show saying that he doesn't ever want to hear Punk's name again, that there would be a championship tournament, and that Cena would now be facing the repercussions of last night's defeat. I guess I'll stick with the McMahon thing. The ending of the show had him and Cena with their confrontation. Cena talked of how he did things his way and was not going to be put in the same position as Shawn was put in with Bret. He told him to go ahead and find the next John Cena and he would move including him saying that he would go on to another show, brother. Clear reference at TNA there. Triple H made his way out and cooled things off. Cena left the ring after things turned to a more serious tone. The story is that there was a board of directors meeting and that Vince had been removed from power cause of concerns about the current product. He regrettably told him that the person now in charge was himself. So, now Triple H is in control. He apologized to him and Vince was in tears. Triple H walked away leaving Vince in the ring. Let's move on to the tournament. Solid action. First round had Miz defeating Alex Riley, R Truth defeating Jack Swagger, Kofi Kingston defeating Alberto Del Rio, and Rey Mysterio defeating Dolph Ziggler. The second round had Miz over Kofi and then Rey over Truth. That sets up a tournament final of Miz vs. Rey which did not happen cause of the Vince/Cena deal at the end of the show.

Other notes from Raw. Did you catch Vince accidentally say the words "WWF champion" in the last segment? Whoops! LOL. Even Vince messes up on that. I'm sure TNA appreciated the reference last night. They've got to be thinking after all of these years of taking shots at them, they finally referenced us on TV. Congrats TNA. Now, concentrate on your own product. LOL. WWE has referenced them a few years ago. I do realize that. I really thought that Del Rio was going to cash in MITB on whoever won the tournament final giving Del Rio basically two shots at the title in the same tournament. I still could see that happening.

Anyway, that is it for this week. Wishing you all a great week! Take care and God bless!!