Can CM Punk/Brock Lesnar Work?

June 20, 2013 Patrick Hickey Jr. Professional Wrestling, TV 0

The question on the minds of millions of wrestling fans after this week’s Monday night RAW is an easy one.

Can CM Punk and Brock Lesnar have an effective angle together?

The answer is far from an easy one.

In the ring, there’s little doubt the two won’t have effective matches, but creatively, it’s an iffy endeavor. In the end, it has more to do with Paul Heyman than Lesnar. Never to be trusted, Heyman stabbed his prized pupil in the back after Punk said he wasn’t in need of Heyman’s services anymore. With Lesnar doing Heyman’s dirty work and crushing Punk with the F-5 on RAW, this angle needs to be more about Heyman and Punk. Anything else won’t work.

While it appears that Punk has his eyes on the World title after a count out win over Alberto Del Rio on Monday, the WWE may have their eyes on a title match between Lesnar and Punk at Summerslam or Survivor Series if the angle develops over time. While it will definitely make money and fans should be excited about it, it’s not going to be epic. Far from it.

Even though the star power is there, something just doesn’t feel right about it all. It could be that Lesnar’s part-time status has made him far less imposing than Punk. It could also be the fact that Lesnar is recognized as a legitimate MMA performer and his role in the WWE is a farce at best, even in a universe that is one. Hell, it’s hard to suspend disbelief when you know Lesnar is capable of destroying anyone he’s in the ring with.

As far as Punk goes, seeing him as a face isn’t as fun as his anti-hero badass self. While it’s great that the days of him and Heyman are over and he won’t weasel out of matches anymore, it seems like his character is missing some of his edge. For this to work, Punk is going to have to carry Lesnar and even Heyman on the microphone and make sure the action can maintain the standard fans expect. As his matches with Triple H have shown us, Lesnar is still über stiff and in order to wrestle a 20 -minute match with Punk, he’s going to sharpen up. Punk is also going to have to sell, a lot. Finding chemistry won’t be easy.

With Lesnar’s lack of a real emotional element in the angle and Punk’s new good guy persona, this feud is more tricky than anyone would have expected.

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About Patrick Hickey Jr. 14267 Articles
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports. Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders. His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023. Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief. Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale. Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.

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