Finally, after close to one year of being on the air, ECW has a storyline that is worth watching. No, I am not talking about the non-stop back and forth between Vince McMahon and champion Bobby Lashley that hopefully will end next weekend at Backlash, but I am talking about this solid piece of work they are doing with a guy who has deserved a push for sometime – C.M. Punk.
If you don’t watch ECW, or have missed the storyline, it breaks down like this – Punk gets courted by both the ECW Originals and the New Breed for several weeks. In a turn of events, he chooses the New Breed at the end of last weeks show, shunning the fans and the Originals. Then this week in another turn, he doesn’t actually “turn” on the New Breed, but does enough to make you think that once again Punk is a face and will join the Originals soon enough.
It’s a storyline that gives some depth to the Punk character, one that I have been pushing for to get a shot to move to SmackDown for sometime. C.M. has the ability to be a big time star, and now that it looks as if he is out of the WWE doghouse that he was in for awhile, I love the direction that he is going with his character and future.
Look for Punk to keep up the back and forth with his new “friends,” and after he cost New Breed leader Elijah Burke his match this past week with RVD, next week the New Breed will demand for Punk to come out and say he’s sorry, something that I think he will do, but not without a bit of pushing on the part of the New Breed. Then as tensions mount, eventually Punk breaks away from the Breed, and goes on to feud with Burke in a series of matches, one of which should get some consideration for a future PPV.
There has not been much in the past year that you can look at in ECW and say “wow, that’s good,” but I think this recent storyline is among the first. Now they do have to be a bit patient with it and let it have a nice slow build, much like what they are doing with Carlito and Ric Flair on RAW. Don’t rush it, let it have its moments, and when the time is right, give the crowd what it finally has been waiting for. That’s the way to make a storyline memorable.
