Better In-Ring Performer: Punk or Bryan

["Gizzark" Mike Wronglevenay]

Oct 8, 2014 11:23:22 GMT -5 Surfer Sandman said:

Hard choice for me.

But, to be honest, I enjoyed Bryan more. He's so amazing in the ring and that has shortened his in-ring career by a bit.

I'd question whether that makes him that great a wrestler in the grand scheme. Someone like Hogan or Duggan, for example, wrestles/wrestled for 100 years while doing nothing and still getting huge reactions.

[Surfer Sandman]

I didn't say anything about legends.

[repomark]

I think Punk said it best on his DVD when talking about Bryan: "If there is anyone better than me, it is him."

Love both, but Bryan edges it as an in ring performer. Punk is leagues ahead on the mic though, but that is for another thread.

[Wolfman Rose]

I love the Punk/Flair, Bryan/Steamboat comparison. I mean, that is the answer here. Bryan is phenomenal in the ring. Consistently. Punk, yeah, he's gonna go through purple patches (his series with Cena, Mysterio, Hardy) but overall the guy is a talker. He'd sell snow to an eskimo. Bryan is just flat-out, 10/10, every time. His match with Triple H at WrestleMania was, without doubt, H's best match in years, possibly in a decade. Sure, the Taker matches had an amazing storyline, but from a pure wrestling stance, Bryan/H is a winner, because in the end, HHH/Taker needed bells and whistles to sell it as a MOTY. Then there's Bryan/Cena, where D-Bry showed that he can bring an amazing in-ring story, he doesn't need to cut a 10 minute promo, he just goes out there, kicks ass, and lets that do the talking for him. So Bryan, by a mile.

[Abdullah]

Another metric is TV matches.

Bryan has always been consistently good at those, even if it happened to be a filler match on a nothing show. While Punk used to be awesome on a weekly basis, by 2011, for the most part, his TV matches were nothing to brag about and were sometimes downright ugly. He still delivered on PPV though.

[Deleted]

For me Bryan is better in ring, Punk on the mic by a mile.

[Boo!]

I don't like Punk that much but I can't believe he isn't ahead. His storytelling/narrative in the ring is obscenely better than Bryan's. Punk can wrestle any type of match you want - fast, technical, aeiral, slow/psychological etc. He's a consummate heel and face performer. I don't think you can say that about many people in the history of WWE.

The guy may be a dick but a hell of a worker. I think a lot of his poll is the "i like him best" factor. Bryan might become a better in ring worker than Punk but for the the best in-ring worker of the last 15 years to be trailing by close to 100 votes is absurd.

[Abdullah]

Oct 10, 2014 5:44:41 GMT -5 Boo! said:

I don't like Punk that much but I can't believe he isn't ahead. His storytelling/narrative in the ring is obscenely better than Bryan's. Punk can wrestle any type of match you want - fast, technical, aeiral, slow/psychological etc. He's a consummate heel and face performer. I don't think you can say that about many people in the history of WWE.

The guy may be a dick but a hell of a worker. I think a lot of his poll is the "i like him best" factor. Bryan might become a better in ring worker than Punk but for the the best in-ring worker of the last 15 years to be trailing by close to 100 votes is absurd.

I feel like I'm one of the few on this board that's even mildly annoyed by Punk's misanthropic outbursts. A lot go out of their way to defend it. I don't think his real life attitude is a factor at all.

[Mozenrath]

Both are very good and guys I enjoy. Bryan gets the edge for me, and Punk would probably say without hesitation Bryan was better, too. He holds him in very high esteem, and has for many years.

[Oh Cry Me a Screwball]

I think the big advantage that Bryan has over Punk is the fact that by the time Punk really got the spotlight, it's likely he was already on his mental and physical decline. The dude was already planning on checking-out in 2011, and ended up stumbling on the biggest break of his life on the way out through airing his grievances with the company on live TV. He carried the show for over a year with no time off, and then took a very short sabbatical where it seemed like he didn't take enough time to rest up, and then got CARELESSNESSed by Ryback a couple months later. It's why I really can't blame the dude for bailing on his contract early.

I wonder how much better Punk's run could have been if he had gotten all that momentum a couple years earlier, back when he and Jeff Hardy were lighting up Smackdown during one of the show's best periods.

[Baldobomb-22-OH-MAN!!!]

Bryan and that's not a slight on Punk, who was still one of the top 5 in the company, even when he was getting lazy towards the end.