Am I the only person that liked CM Punks 2012/13 heel run?

[ChitownKnight]

I thought it was a good way to keep his title run fresh, and have a heel champion have the title for a year + since we have seen Cena hold the title for over a year 5 years prior. Plus I think Punk played the part of douchey arrogant heel pretty well. My only gripe was that he should of held the title until Wrestlemania and dropped it to Cena.

[The Quintessential Studmuffin]

No.
I didn't know anyone disliked it tbh

[Germansuplex]

He did some good work, but the audience wanted none of it.

[Richard]

Nah, I loved it. Dude is just a natural heel, he plays it perfectly.

The great lengths they would go to try and get him booed was hilariously entertaining, too.

[mizerable]

I disliked it because once they teased it, I felt they were missing an opportunity to keep a fire under Punk.

Look, I know working heel is usually more flattering to a lot of guys. And some might argue that Punk wasn't doing a lot as a face.

However, we had only had Punk as a face for barely a year, and had a lot more shelf life if creative was a little more creative. I don't understand how they kept going back to the straight edge well when he was past that as a character, and booking him second fiddle didn't help either.

So he becomes a dastardly heel again after staying in the gray area when it was obvious where that would lead, and it becomes very clear that people still want to cheer him. So he tries harder and harder and harder to get booed. It's almost comical and how low he would go to get it done. The point being is that really, the fans didn't want it and the booking was defiant to the point of stupidity, much like him taking over Nexxus. Bad bad idea.

[Deleted]

It was too stupid of a move to even evaluate his work during the time clearly.

Punk had one of the most memorable, high-profile, successful face turns I can remember, one that elevated him to the main event level instantly. He was turned heel out of nowhere a year later.

Completely unwarranted. His fan reactions at the time of the turn were strong, and only getting stronger.

It was either obvlivious mismanagement or sabotage. I'm torn on whether I think they were incompetent or just stupid.

[kevin]

It was a great heel run by one of the best heels in the business.

[Dean-o]

Horrible. Fans didn't want it, and Punk's character just did a complete 180. He even had to resort to cheap heat like "(local sports team/pub/city) sucks and I can't wait to get out of (city Raw is in)"

[The Legendary Ring Troll {BLM}]

Surprise heel turns have been done well before. I remember when The Rock turned face and then a few months later turned heel and joined the Corporation. The fans loved the Rock but it was so well done he was easy to hate again. Same with Triple H joined Austin as the Power Trip. Everyone was rabid to cheer him, but the turn was well done and he was hated again.

Punk's turn was not well done. People wanted to continue cheering him. They'd seen enough of heel Punk. No one minded the attack on the Rock, it just shouldn't have led to him being a heel. Same when Ryback turned by attacking Cena. It should have led to character development rather than heel turn.

That said, I don't think Punk should have been turned face in the first place. Shoulda been a tweener who did whatever he wanted.

[Hobby Drifter]

I liked *him* doing the character. But once again the writing didn't make any sense. He was the BEST IN THE WORLD for months and months on end. Nobody could dethrone him. Then suddenly he turns heel and he needs to cheat to win. That doesn't make a lick of sense.

Have him be injured and need to cheat (and turn heel) as a result. Don't just make him lose his mojo out of nowhere with no explanation.

[celticjobber]

I thought it was great. I always preferred Punk as a heel, he was just so natural at it.

[Oh Cry Me a Screwball]

Everyone wanted a lot of more of Punk as the anti-establishment babyface, but they did the turn anyway. I get they wanted Punk as a heel for Rock vs. Punk at the Royal Rumble, but I think they should have just sown the seeds at Raw 1000 and had Punk go heel closer to the end of the year.

Granted, Punk was a great heel and the Heyman pairing was brilliant, but the dude was so popular that threatening heart attack victims and pouring Paul Bearer's remains on the Undertaker couldn't get him a sustained heel reaction.

[WWEedy]

I hated it, it wasn't believable, the crowd were having none of it and he was by proxy the face in most situations due to crowd reactions and resentment towards part timers and Cena as a whole.

[ZERO]

Oct 21, 2014 0:23:04 GMT -5 @lovehater said:

It was either obvlivious mismanagement or sabotage. I'm torn on whether I think they were incompetent or just stupid.

If there was any logic to it, I think they did because they thought he was gonna be heel by default as soon as he went up against The Rock, so they decided to do it properly. It didn't need to be a proper, and would have been a worthwhile feud done as face vs face without fully turning Punk.

As far as I'm concerned Punk was still better than Rock on the mic all the way. It just exposed how stale an act The Rock was to me. And "Cookiepuss" is a lame insult.

[Mighty Attack Tribble]

Loved it, purely for how he basically turned himself into a pantomime villain and the crowd still loved him.

[Ben Wyatt]

It wasn't terrible, but the fact that Ryback was completely derailed (not exactly Punk's fault, but still a result of Punk being heel) and the really tacky Paul Bearer related stuff with Taker really did damage to how it is perceived

[Adam Black]

I thought they were gonna drop it at Summerslam 2012 when he acted face-ish throughout the match despite it being after his apparent heel turn.

[Session Moth is over]

I'm not a big Punk fan anymore but I enjoyed his long title run and his heel phase.

[Deleted]

I stopped watching when he turned heel until the night after Mania (besides the Rumble), but based on past experience plus shows in that vein I've watched since... Yeah, it was pretty awful. Maybe it's just me but I think Punk plays a terrible heel when he's trying to be a serious threat, he just goes so full-on in trying to be evil that he comes off like a cartoon, and not in any sort of entertaining way. I guess you could argue that he's trying not to be entertaining, but I don't applaud that. If you're not entertaining me in one way or another get the hell off my TV.

Oct 21, 2014 6:23:53 GMT -5 ZERO said:

Oct 21, 2014 0:23:04 GMT -5 @lovehater said:

It was either obvlivious mismanagement or sabotage. I'm torn on whether I think they were incompetent or just stupid.

If there was any logic to it, I think they did because they thought he was gonna be heel by default as soon as he went up against The Rock, so they decided to do it properly. It didn't need to be a proper, and would have been a worthwhile feud done as face vs face without fully turning Punk.

As far as I'm concerned Punk was still better than Rock on the mic all the way. It just exposed how stale an act The Rock was to me. And "Cookiepuss" is a lame insult.

He really wasn't, though. The crowd was cheering when he was trading shots with Rock before the turn, they cheered when he laid him out, and a significant chunk was backing him in both of their matches.

[Sephiroth]

Good idea, bad timing. The time to turn Punk heel was when he got stale and needed the boost, but he wasn't. He was still one of, if not the most over guy int on the roster at the time, the audience was just too much in his favor for him to make a full blown heel turn. The lack of a fresh, convincing face for him to feud with hurt a lot too. If he'd had someone over like Ambrose currently is, it probably would have worked a lot better.