The last back and forth between CM Punk and Roman Reigns got back to their first encounter. What do I mean by that? Glad you asked. It stripped both men of their facades. It was all about raw emotion\u2014pun intended\u2014and honesty. Better yet, it expanded on what was obvious then and even more obvious over the course of what feels like six months: These two hate each other because they envy what the other has. Better yet, that deadly sin is rooted in character.<\/p>\n
Punk envies that Roman was \u201cborn on third with a silver spoon in his mouth\u201d while also envying the amount of work it took to hold the championship for 1,316 days. I loved that moment particularly. Punk simultaneously respects Roman for holding the title that long but envies that he got the chance to do so. Punk, for all his complications and hypocrisy, is consistently petty. His envy bleeds right into that because everything he cited are things he resents. He loves the idea of finding his family in back alleys and on the independent scene. He loves being a guy who worked hard for everything he currently has because no one even thought about giving him anything close to a leg up. He hates that there are people who didn\u2019t work as hard but got twice as many rewards.<\/p>\n
What makes the Roman thing more complicated is he recognizes it\u2019s more than just nepotism at work there; Roman is dope at what he does.<\/p>\n
As far as Roman, it always goes back to his insecurity. Despite all the accolades, the money, the easy schedule, the WrestleMania main events, and the royal family, he still needs acknowledgment. He envies that the crowd has always and will always acknowledge Punk. The man left WWE for a decade and they never forgot him. Pick a city in any country on any month over the past few years, and you\u2019ll more than likely find a crowd that went nuts for a guy who had no intentions of ever coming back until he did. Audiences clamored for Punk in a way that Roman isn\u2019t sure they\u2019ll clamor for him.<\/p>\n
Punk\u2019s biggest issue is that chip on his shoulder the size of a golden nugget. Roman\u2019s is his fear of being forgotten. They hate each other because one has something the other wants. Punk wants that easy lifestyle despite using his background as a selling point. Roman wants the affirmation Punk gets on a regular basis, despite walking around like he owns every arena in the world. Fittingly, Punk entered the ring through the crowd, illustrating just why Roman hates him so much. He wasn\u2019t quite at \u201cflames at the side of his face\u201d level, but he might there.<\/p>\n
Obviously I dug this. They got little touches right, like the aforementioned moment of Punk coming through the audience, or Roman warning Punk not to get in the ring only for Punk to slowly make his way into the ring after disarming the Tribal Chief with a sincere apology for mentioning his father\u2019s name in vain. The championship is important, as Roman noted the business will boom again with him on top, but it feels small compared to the emotional stakes. Like another feud I\u2019ll get to later, sometimes simple goes a long way.<\/p>\n
This was a proper go home show. The Oba Femi segment, and Punk vs. Roman in the end put it over the top for me. They kept everything moving with a nice bit of momentum leading into Friday. I\u2019m still not high on Mania as a whole but this gave me hope that the actual execution may turn it into something memorable.<\/p>\n
What say you, Cagesiders? Should Oba get the rocket strapped to his back?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The last back and forth between CM Punk and Roman Reigns got back to their first encounter. What…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":529950,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[96,59,56,54,55,9482,32635,183589],"class_list":{"0":"post-529949","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-gb","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom","13":"tag-wwe","14":"tag-wwe-raw","15":"tag-wwe-raw-results-reactions"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=529949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529949\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/529950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=529949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=529949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=529949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}