#champunk

[purplehairsecretlair]

Why do they keep calling Punk the 'Real Worlds Champion'? I swear I heard it like three times tonight. Is that his official title? Is that how he gets around Max's claim to the title in the graphics?

[purplehairsecretlair]

Also: Punk holding a belt that was retrieved, a belt that was taken out of the wrestling industry, out of its wrestling company, non-traditionally, because of backstage issues.  Max having replaced that belt with a new one, built on the foundation of the old one, but with his own embellishments on it, his own personal twist, and saying THAT was the real belt now - saying he’d replaced the old one, and they didn’t need that old one anymore, this one was better.

Them possibly going into a storyline about how there can’t be two belts, there can only be one, one of them has to go.

Thoughts thoughts thoughts thoughts thoughts

[purplehairsecretlair]

Imagine if Punk wins the Owen Hart belt, then goes and wins the International belt, and then the TNT belt, and just collects every belt in the company besides the world belt and Max is just sat there sweating.

[purplehairsecretlair]

ALSO GENIUS: Punk claiming to still have the world championship belt.  Not just because of the inherent issue and tension it gives him with MJF, not just because MJF’s own habit of replacing championship belts with his own personalised version has come back to bite him, but also because they seem to be picking up a few storylines where they left off last year, when Punk started getting injured - CMFTR, Bret Hart stuff, people talking about the ‘Summer of Punk’ again.

But he was the world champion last year, which gave him extra swag, extra potential confidence.  Now he’s not.

Except with the debate over belts, he can just claim he is - he can have his own “I’m the champ” storyline and promos, while Max is having his own world championship run, and they can just have BOTH STORYLINES TOGETHER, without even necessarily acknowledging each other or each storyline - in their own special CMJF way.  Until the time comes to have the storyline where they clash over who the real champ is.

I mean I’m still hoping they get to that part like tomorrow (or Sunday, come out when he’s tired and sweaty and exhausted, pleeease), but even if they don’t it’s given them some room to run with things if they want to, and if that’s where it’s going I do think it’s genius.

[purplehairsecretlair]

Further to this - Max has sacrificed all those relationships.  All the ones he had, all the ones he could have had.  A lot of people come out of a big feud with respect for their opponent, even if they were beaten - that’s never going to happen with Max, with the way he talks to people, with the way he beats them.

He’s given up those relationships, as he himself has said, to become champion - because he thinks that’s what you need to become champion, that’s what it takes, that’s what he thought he had to do to become champion, and that’s what he did.

And now Punk is - even if he’s not outright challenging Max, he’s saying Max isn’t the real champion.  Undermining his achievement - and the sacrifices that went with it.  And he’s coming at Max with Max’s old friends at his side, while Max has no-one.  And he has to either risk the belt - everything he’s sacrificed for - to put an end to it - or he has to do nothing and let someone, someone pretty important to him whether he wants to admit that or not, go around telling everyone his belt isn’t real, him being champion isn’t real.

And what does it mean if he faces off with Punk again?  What does it mean if he gets into it with him again?  What does it mean if he beats him?  What does it mean if he loses to him?

[purplehairsecretlair]

Punk saying that he never lost the World belt when the only reason he had the belt was that he (ARGUABLY, KAYFABE) threw himself so hard at Jon Moxley he got an 8-month injury out of it, and maybe if he hadn’t done that he wouldn’t have won, and wouldn’t have been the champion, and it would have been Max versus Mox anyway.

All the things involved in this situation, all the things the two of them can do with it.  All the things I trust them to do with it.