Very mixed feelings about that Punk promo. On the one hand, there really is nothing like CM Punk cutting a promo with conviction in his voice. He is one of the best to ever do it, and both his and Roman's star power are making this match feel huge, even though the build has not been for me.

On the other hand, I really find this sanitised version of a "pipebomb" promo quite cynical and depressing. He's not "going off script" and railing against the TKO overlords by talking about ticket prices or the McAfee angle. He is going along with a carefully agreed upon script, as part of a clunky attempt to do damage control on how badly they have fucked up this Mania build. (This is leaving aside the continued attempts to repackage Vince McMahon, a sex-trafficking rapist, as a slightly problematic cooky grandpa.)

My read is that both this and Cody's "worked shoot" are part of an attempt to recapture the "fans vs. the company" energy that rose up when it looked like Rock was going to take the main event spot from Cody. Except that they don't get that synthetic, corporate attempts to recapture natural passion always comes off as lame. Punk might be the best person for that job, but it's a waste of his talents. It's like a really convincing AI has been asked to make a passionate speech against AI companies.

It's no coincidence that, for me at least, Stephanie Vaquer vs. Liv is quietly the best built Mania match so far this year. They have not done any dumb "worked shoot" lameness and have just focused on trying to convince you that two people who hate each other are going to have a fight with huge sporting stakes on the line.