Professional wrestling is a business. Sure, it can be magical, like CM Punk's return to WWE at Survivor Series, funny, like Booker T's time as King Booker, or tragic, like the oh so many performers who passed too soon outside of the ring or even in the ring, but at its core, wrestling is about making money for the workers, the promoters, the sponsors, and the television networks.
Does Seth Rollins like CM Punk? No, probably not, but as Booker T noted on his Hall of Fame podcast, that doesn't mean they can't do business and draw money, as the former's outburst at Survivor Series proved that he might just be willing to work an angle that puts them both over in a big way.
“I'm not going to try to create an angle or anything like that, or try to predict what the route will be. Seth Rollins is trying to go, because Seth Rollins is a businessman. Seth Rollins has been nothing but business since day one. Talked about Seth Rollins over this last almost four-year run that Roman has had. He could have been a guy that could have complained. He could have been a guy that said, ‘Man, let me get the hell up out of here, man. I ain't got time for this because they ain't getting no shot.' But Seth Rollins knows the big picture. He's smart. I give him a lot of credit for that,” Booker T said via EWrestling News.
“As far as trying to keep this game real, I think we're in a place here in WWE where all of our angles could be somewhat close to real as they possibly can be. Of course, we're going to have our entertainment segments and whatnot, but as far as guys going out and having real issues with each other as opposed to ‘It was great to share the ring with him tonight, and I'll see you at the Waffle House. We'll sign some autographs together.' I wish those days would go the hell away, you know what I mean? I wish for more guys like Seth Rollins and Punk. That makes this thing a lot more real to me. As far as guys in the locker rooms who are having issues, the reason I say that is because I don't have a lot of friends in the business, because the guys in the locker room were guys that I was competing with to be at the top of the card. Bottom line. So I was going to go out and outperform you. It's the reason why Chris Jericho and I, we're really, really good friends now. It's because we weren't friends at all when we were working. We were competing against each other.”
Can performers who don't like each other actually do business together? Yes, Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels, favorites of CM Punk and Rollins, respectively, famously hated each other and yet worked some of the best matches of their era of professional wrestling. Still, for Rollins to get down to business, he has to do some despite knowing he's also putting over someone he doesn't like, which is easier said than done.
Booker T believes that CM Punk is actually happy to be in WWE.
Elsewhere on his Hall of Fame podcast, Booker T was asked if he genuinely believes that CM Punk is happy to be a part of WWE, as he suggested in his (re)introductory promo on RAW.
While Booker has noted he hasn't exactly been best friends with Punk in the past, he does believe that the “Best in the World” might have realized that, with the right work, he can succeed in WWE.
“You remember the quote CM Punk made when he was talking about younger guys maybe thinking about going to the other side? And he said that the grass is not greener on the other side,” Booker T said. “The grass is greener where you water it. But in certain places like in Arizona, you can water that d**n grass all day long, and it ain't going to turn green. Do you understand what I'm saying? Do you feel me, where I'm coming from? And maybe Punk figured that out after a minute. Being in, working with certain guys. Say, for instance, when I went to TNA, I wouldn't necessarily say I thought the grass was greener on the other side. But I thought we could get some synthetic in there, and we could make this thing work. But for me, it never worked out. It never panned out. And in a couple of years, boom, I was out of there. And maybe Punk, as I say, felt that ‘Maybe this ship can't be righted. And let me get the hell out of here and try to get back into WWE.' So, I get it. I get it 100%.”
Can CM Punk make it work in WWE? Well, considering fans now have to wait until SmackDown to find out, it's safe to say the topic will remain hotly discussed among fans in the online wrestling community.
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