- It’s a very good run of the mill WWE superstar documentary. It hits all the major beats that all of their bios portray—a childhood dream, paying dues in the dingy indies, solid performances for a smaller competitor, misunderstood WWE beginnings, and eventual breakthrough—but never breaks away to make it feel like a different kind of thing. Even if you don’t know all the details, you know everything that’s going to happen.
- It’s still good, though, and Vince McMahon’s belief that he makes movies only really comes true during these docs. Simply hitting the bullet points of Punk’s career is plenty entertaining. As usual, I’d have loved for more detail in certain areas, and also wish they wouldn’t just whitewash over everything that doesn’t fit the overal theme.
- The most glaring ommission: Punk’s time on commentary in late 2010 all the way through his story with Orton in the spring of 2011. They never mention the Nexus or his miniseries with Cena.
- The most surprising inclusion: Samoa Joe. They don’t mention that Punk was ever in TNA, but they display a highlight reel of Punk vs Joe from ROH for several minutes. After seeing the footage I was a little surprised not to see him pop up as a talking head, like former WWE wrestlers like they did with Joey Mercury, and Lita.
- They brought Colt Cabana in to be a talking head, too. Always a pleasure. I’d love to hear just why—with all of Punk’s supposed power these days—Cabana still isn’t part of the show.
- I think Michael Hayes was the most featured talking head out of everyone outside of Punk himself. What’s interesting is he ends up playing the de facto contrarian, defending the sensibilities of people who didn’t believe in Punk (because someone had to). Hayes references McMahon a few times, but he’s not around for this one.
- Everything felt cursory. They toured Ring of Honor for like, five seconds. They start talking about Punk’s RV, but then jump to another topic without conclusion. They keep cutting to Kofi Kingston, but never explain why. The talking heads mention that Punk wrestles well, but never go into detail about how that is. They brush over the fact that Punk had literally no formal wrestling training. When it feels like they’re going to go into a thing about tattoos, it gets a quick mention. Same goes for punk rock, and Rancid. It was frustrating.
- The doc ends with Punk’s WWE Championship win at Money in the Bank. It’s a fitting place to close down, but wouldn’t Wrestlemania XXVIII have been better? He wins a conclusive match on the biggest show of the year as a defending good guy. But, then, they would have had to cover the fall. Couldn’t they have covered the fall? Once again, they chose to fit the story around the accepted WWE doc formula, and not with any specific time frame.
- Another talking head who leans against Punk is John Cena, who only really has somewhat negative things to say.
- The Miz just utterly gushes about Punk, however, even though Punk badmouths him on multiple occasions. The one thing I specifically learned from this feature was how angry Punk was that the Miz was given the main event slot at Wrestlemania XXVII.
- There’s still something fishy about Money in the Bank, and they do literally nothing to address it in the feature. In fact, they go as far as to say Punk signed a two-day contract to appear at the PPV, where they had him win the WWE Championship, and only after did actual contract negotiations arise. They try to make it seem believable, but any longtime fan should know that there is absolutely no chance McMahon would put the biggest championship on a man on his way out. That would go against every single thing we know about WWE. Watching the doc, it sticks out even more than when it all happened, as its truncated and rushed and they just gloss over how unrealistic that is.
- During Punk’s OVW period, an amusing thing happens. Heyman is trying to push Punk to the upper brass, and every single person they could get fully admits that, hey, nothing against Punk, but they just don’t take Heyman’s suggestions seriously.
- There wasn’t enough Lita, but there’s never enough Lita.
IO
International Object (IO) is a blog about theatre, combat, and politics. International relations, human rights, choreography, and steel chairs to the head.