CM Punk/Headscratchers

Anyone who saw him wrestle in ROH remembers Punk with spiky blond hair. In WWE, he ~~has~~ had long, black hair. He's been touting his hair as a symbol of purity. So...do hair products not count?
- Arguably Genius Bonus Hypocritical Humor, since Punk's character is known to lie like crazy when it suits him.
- My understanding of Punk's argument is not that he's never put anything on his hair, but that there's never been anything bad inside the hairs themselves. I believe Matt Striker explained this on a Smackdown episode, by saying that drug testing often involves analyzing the inside of a strand of hair, which will have residual traces of drugs if the person being tested has been using any.
Am I the only one who thinks that Punk could make a great face? Hell, he could even keep the Straight Edge Society gimmick - which he should, he's one of the few charismatic wrestlers left - and if he told you to "Eat your vitamins and ~~say your prayers~~ don't do drugs, brother", it'd ring a lot more true since, y'know, he actually is Straight Edge? Beyond the standard heel tricks, he has a pretty decent motivation, and I honestly think that he's not using the Society anymore - he was willing to take a beating from Kane, while his arm was already injured, just to save Serena's reputation - and since the unnamed member of the S.E.S. is probably Joey Mercury (who's been taking heroin since he was fifteen), I'm thinking a Face turn should be done next, but I really doubt WWE management will do that, since, well, they're idiots.
- Not turning the greatest heel they've had in years face would make them idiots? I think not. Stables are generally a heel thing. And Punk getting rid of the hardliner aspect of his gimmick to become a good example of straight-edge discipline is how his ROH face turn came about.
  - Not idiots because they aren't going to turn one of their greatest heels, idiots because I doubt they realize how great of a face he could be, though they are hinting it. And I think the E' needs a good face much more than they need a good heel, (Jack Swagger is fine, even though he's up against the fucking Big Show.) Edge, Chris Jericho and The Miz are all heels, the faces need someone with charisma, and John Cena isn't enough, and he's the charismatic one when compared to Randy Orton.
    - "Jack Swagger is fine" - Credibility dissolved.
  - Also, turning face again solves a major problem when WWE is specifically targeting kids again: the one character that is telling the audience drugs are bad on a consistent basis is enough of an utter jackass to where NO KID wants to heed his advice.
  - Punk was face for a very long time when he first came to the E. They only recently turned him heel. What they need to do is turn Edge and Chris Jericho face. Edge's brief face run after the Royal Rumble was AWESOME (before he was turned back into the boring Heel he's been since '04), and Jericho's gimmick was old within the first three months of his turn.
    - Main reason Jericho's a heel is because Jericho wants to be a heel. He likes playing the bad guy; a lot of wrestlers (like a lot of actors) do.
Okay, so two months go by since Punk's head gets shaved, but he hides it under a mask. Presumably so that he can grow his hair back, and he'll take the mask off when he has hair again. Well, he's finally unmasked...and there isn't even stubble on his scalp. This has bugged a lot of people. I also remember when Kurt Angle got his head shaved, and stayed bald pretty much indefinitely afterwards even though he liked having hair before. Is nobody allowed to grow back lost hair except for Vince McMahon?
- It's so we can see CM Punk look ridiculous. And the Angle thing? I believe he was starting to go bald naturally so he decided to say "Fuck it" and shave the entire thing. All the way bald? Not a great look, but it can be pulled off. Prematurely balding? Pretty much a terrible look.
  - I actually think Kurt looks better without the hair, especially when he puts on a Lex Luthor-style suit.
  - I get that having the hated heel who's ashamed of his shaven head having to display it to everybody is satisfying, and that sometimes there's a real-life excuse for these things (like you said, if you're going to be bald on top it's almost always a better look if you shave the sides as well). I'm just saying that they should have unmasked him sooner, because it makes a lot more sense if a guy still doesn't have any hair on his head after something like a week or two than it does if he hasn't grown any hair back after two months. And based on last week's Smackdown, Punk does seem to be growing it back now that the mask is gone. Perhaps I shouldn't be thinking too hard about this stuff...but it Just Bugs Me all the same.
  - CM Punk was injured in the match and required staples, the real reason he was wearing the mask was to conceal the injury.
Why is Punk jobbing to The Big Show on a constant basis? I understand he built a career outside of the WWE but they've given him some pretty good pushes before. Why now is he made to look like a chump? Who benefits by Big Show squashing him every couple weeks?
- The answer to the question of why Punk has jobbed repeatedly to Show along with the entire SES is this: WWE is booked by idiots. The damage done in the past by said idiots can be found on this site and on wrestlecrap.com. That might seem simplistic, but I can't think of any other reason for it. Unless The Undertaker still hasn't forgiven Punk for getting uppity with him.
  - Wait, he got uppity with Taker? Over what? And why the hell is wrestling so factional and filled with hatred?
    - Sorry, I've got a lot of frustration built up. Frustration over not just this, but the way they ended Punk's last World Title reign. As you may recall, it was a HIAC match against Undertaker that had Punk lose to him in under ten minutes. (Which I was outraged over at the time, not knowing that by the same time next year I'd have seen him job to somebody lower on the card in about half as much time.) People wondered why the match didn't go longer and why it was the first match of the night, which was unusual for a World Heavyweight Championship match. It was at this time that stories surfaced of Punk having heat backstage because of something that happened between him and Taker. Prior to the 2009 HIAC pay-per-view, Undertaker thought that Punk wasn't dressed well enough for a World Champion representing WWE, and told him so. Punk's response was something to the effect of "What about John Cena?" Which makes sense; if Cena can walk around in a t-shirt and jeans all the time, why can't Punk do the same? But that was apparently the wrong thing to say, and that was the reason they not only took the title off of Punk, but made it a short match and a curtain jerker to boot. As for why wrestling's so factional and filled with hatred...well, you might have a point that some of the guys who are the recipients of that hatred don't deserve it. But it's easy to assume the worst if you are a smark, because smarks have heard lots of stories about wrestlers engaging in backstage politics to build themselves up and bury other guys. It's well-documented that Hogan has done it, that Nash has done it, that HBK did it a lot during the Attitude Era, that HHH does it, etc. I don't know exactly how much control Taker has backstage, but all signs point to it being a lot. And while it may be true that he's used that power for good sometimes--allegedly, when HBK was refusing to job to Austin in the weeks before Wrestlemania 13, Taker intimidated him into doing so--it's also true that Taker was involved in that "Wrestler's Court" (google it) and that his current wife is the unified Women's Champion who never jobs.
      - I hate to disagree with the above troopers, but that explanation has been jossed. For starters you're getting information from rumour sites, which have been known in the past to post blatantly false stories because there is no real way to verify the real news from the made-up shit (for instance, when Joey Mercury was let go the first story was that he attacked Stephanie, was fired on the spot and would face criminal charges. No such event occured). The simpliest answer is that the company wanted Undertaker to get the belt at the pay-per-view and booked it horribly out of incomptence instead of malice. December to Dismember was not booked to bury the brand, it was because Vince had one idea of how to book the show that didn't really understand the ins and out of it (his arguement for the faces being taken out early in the match would be so the fans would have to cheer for Lashley as the one face, so he'd get a bigger pop when he won it). As for "Wrestler's Court," it's a tongue in cheek thing to deal with wrestlers in a fun manner and to try and defuse things before they get blown out of proprotion. For instance, Mick Foley and Al Snow almost went to Wrestler's Court for leaving Hardcore Holly at the airport to get his own rental car while they went to a amusement park to ride on the rides (they settled out of court by reimbursing him for the cost of the car). The Hardy's went there because they ended up taking Kane's seat on a plane (he was a nice guy about it and went back to coach despite Jeff wanting "to tackle someone to get back to coach" because he felt bad). And even then Bradshaw, who plays the prosecution, took them aside before the "court" and told them that they all knew it was Michael Hayes who got them to move up in class, so they'll just have some fun but make him bear the brunt of the punishment (carrying Kane's bags for a week. The Hardy's just bought him dinner). And I should point out, Taker wasn't the judge because he wanted the power, he's the judge because he's the one guy everyone respects above all else. Bradshaw and Ron Simmons were more of a driving force behind Wrestler's court. TL;DR version, dirt sheets tend to be a mix of fact and fabrication, Taker is well respected by everyone and doesn't play the politic game like others, and has never shied away from putting someone over.
  - Uh, that still doesn't explain why CM Punk was jobbing, I mean, does The Big Show really need a push? Its not like they're doing anything with him. Unless they're just jobbing him out before his move to RAW.
    - And if that was what they were doing, then it makes the trade for Edge look lopsided. Either way, it's stupid booking on their part.
      - No doubt. Him jobbing to Show was to keep Show over and because they had no idea what they were going to do next with him at the time.
        He was being jobbed out because he was traded to Raw for Edge, there was no point keeping him strong on Smackdown when the creative there knew he would be moved to Raw. Since he's been on Raw, he's been kept strong throughout his time there having high profile feuds with both Cena and Orton and leading the new Nexus.
    - You all forget that the incident with take ralso involved the creative people thinking Punk legitimately had an ego & thought he was a bigger star than Cena which unfortunatley isn't true. That heat became one of many things in his time as a heel that kept him from getting his well deserved spot. The other obstacle came in the form of a little whiner by the name of Rey Mysterio, Jr.. He whines to the higher ups in WWE for his injuries for the Intercontinental & World Heavyweight Titles. Unlike the other more well known face of the company (Cena) he isn't a company guy, he constantly cries for the creative team to re-book his title matches & for the higher ups to let him take time off. He also had the creative guys change the outcome of the matches in his feud with Punk because he didn't want to change anything about his character & he wanted to be lazy but karma came back around because of the fact they brought Sin Cara in (who I might add is more dynamic & less whiny so he is already way better than Rey)& the fact being that Rey's character became more stale. Punk was going to have Rey join the SES originally (that mask wasn't originally intended for Punk because if they wanted punk to shave his head then he would have another type of cover for his head). Rey will be a lot better off if he didn't cry about whatever he was given. This was the reason for Punk being in his current spot because it was a way for the creative team to appologize for having to demote him but the damage to the SES was done already.
    - You got a source there buddy? Because that sounds like another bullshit rumour we all hear so often. Mysterio's well liked and respected by his co-workers, the mask was made to cover up the fact that he got staples in his head. This sounds liek the rumour a month or two back that he was retiring because Sin Cara was coming, yet that got Jossed pretty quickly. So in short, less bitching about Mysterio, more proven evidence.
    - Well just google with these words & you will find it "Rey Mysterio news time off world heavyweight title intercontinental re book match cm punk" & a few pages from a year ago will pop up
    - Which isn't proof. Hell a guy over at the Spoony Experiment created a rumour a few years back that a Japanese star was passed over by Vince McMahon because he was "Too Asian" and the IWC quickly ate it up as fact. I mean give us a link of someone who was actually in the company saying that Mysterio buried people backstage. Because a rumour on a website is just that; a rumour. Most of them are bullshit, but get spread around as if they're the Word of God.
Any other IRL Straight Edgers annoyed/offended by the way the lifestyle is portrayed as a cult instead of just a lifestyle? I know it's just a character (and Punk is fucking brilliant in any role, I think), but if this is someone's first taste of Straight Edge, they're getting a horribly warped view of what is generally a positive thing, and to me, that just really sucks.
- Well, he has done a (much more normal of course) straight edge character as a face, so expect to see a good example of straight edge soon, and keep in mind that as much as WWE tries to portray itself as kid friendly and moral, it really isn't, they are very backwards, and while WWE is loads better than TNA (See Orlando Jordan for starters) they are not progressive, at all, name a gay face, or a woman portrayed as the equal to a man, or a black wrestler whose character isn't based on being black and has a title, or a member of a clique that isn't portrayed as a freak to be gawked at (Jeff Hardy doesn't count, Daffney doesn't count) or a woman who has a place beyond Fan Service? There are bigger issues than straight edge being portrayed badly, but it's still an issue.
- Straight-Edge itself isn't portrayed as a bad thing: just the zealous version of it Punk follows.
- Yep. If you pay attention, you'll realize that Punk being straight-edge is only a big deal because he makes it so. The people he feuds with usually don't comment on it, instead focusing on the more important aspect of his character : He's an enormous asshole.
- Case and point: Rey Mysterio actually once owned him in a promo by lampshading this after telling Punk to shave his own head and be an example to straightedge… only for Punk to take the bait and preach his superiority to everyone again.
- What the one troper was saying about "if this is someone's first impression of straight edge", well I fully agree with that. Of course if you ask me all WWE had to do was put some more emphasis on the particular type of straight edge that punk truly is: Militant Straight Edge (look up straight edge on Wikipedia; they have a section about it). That nerd Matt Striker could have easily explained to the viewers the difference between that, and what normal straight edge is.
One aimed more at Phillip Jack Brooks, not the character he plays on TV: in real life, he is straight edge. However, he has a Pepsi tattoo, the reasoning being that he likes Pepsi. Caffeine is a drug.
- There are different degrees of Straight Edge, with the lightest and most common being no smoking, drinking, drug use, and not using medication if it's not prescription. Caffeine's fine, especially since it can be pretty hard to avoid it.
  - Yeah, the whole caffeine is a drug arguement is more of a smart ass shot against Straight Edgers when they don't actually believe in that. When someone says "I don't do drugs" they're not talking about caffiene, medication, etc., they're talking about the recreational and hardcore drugs.
  - Not to mention that he's against substance abuse too and only an idiot thinks that means he's against drinking water a lot
- He's got a perfectly good - and rather hysterical - reasoning for it: when he was in college, all of the other guys were getting tattoos of their favorite beer's logo. Being Straight Edge back then too, he said "Alright, I'll get a tattoo of my favorite vice... Soda."
Speaking of, I distinctly recall CM Punk drinking a beer on a three hour Raw few years back; Stone Cold closed the show with a beer bash and Punk was one of the first people he tossed one to, and it very clearly showed Punk drinking it. Did that ever come up at all?
- Youtube link please, since Punk is very legitimately straight edge to the point that it's a beserk button if he gets accused of doing drugs.
  - Punk's drunk beer. While he was feuding with Raven back on the independents, Sandman came out, tied Punk to the ring ropes and poured beer down his throat. Punk doesn't drink, but he will pour some beer over his face if a storyline required it.
    - Do we know for sure it's beer though? If someone has a legit issue with something they could have just swapped it out for something similar looking enough. It's not like anyone is going to be able to tell the difference between a can of beer and a can of root beer or some other non-alcoholic beverage.
    - I'm trying to remember the date; three hour Raw...I want to say an anniversary show, not too long after Punk had to forfeit the title from getting kicked in the head. Thing is this was casual, no attention drawn to it, no one mentioned it. Stone Cold got tossed a beer, he started handing them out to the wrestlers who were coming out to the ring, with Punk being one of the first. Got up on the turnbuckle to toast the audience and everything.
- It was a can of Pepsi. Mentioned in passing around that time by either Punk himself or a magazine interview.
Why do tropers on this page and minor sarcastic quips in WWE make understanding straight edge comparable to performing brain surgery? I find it really hard to believe that you could honestly debate weather or not hair products and caffeine have any place in a debate for what straight edge people will and won’t do. Seriously people, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that straight edge revolves around all the things that teenagers typically sneak out to go experience because their parents and other people would look down on them for having a part of. Drugs, cigarettes, alcohol, and sometimes it includes promiscuous sex (likely not in Punk’s case though). Other peoples’ opinions generally don't have anything to do with why they decided to be straight edge, but nonetheless factors into it. Example: when Scott Stanford jokingly asked Punk if someone who’s straight edge can still eat cocoa puffs, sure it wasn’t meant to be taken seriously, but it feels like a comment like that is a perfect interpretation of some of the tropers on this page who don't realize how simple straight edge really is. It basically means you don't do all the stereotypical "bad vices" of the world, and the average person knows what those are. If you’re honestly confusing the moral ambiguity of illegal drugs and alcohol with hair dye and soda, that is sad.
- I see your point, but complaining won't do much. There are a lot of nitpicks on the Headscratchers pages, many which don't even merit an honest response in my opinion, but that's what these pages are for, discussing what some see as inconsistencies. Bottome line: Straight edge is different for every person, but the basics are not drinking, not smoking, not doing drugs. Using chemicals is almost impossible in this day and age, but the intent is not to give in to harmful substances.
- Drugs, alcohol and cigarettes is what defines straight edge. People can say that they dont do other stuff like use hair products or drink sugary drinks and that its part of being straight edge because it falls under the category of chemicals and/or addictive substances, but it really doesn't matter. look up straight edge on wikipedia for anyone who happens to be confused and you will see that being straight edge revolves around "morals" even more so then the concept of "not harming your body"