Let me know if you've heard this one before: Drew McIntyre did something good on a WWE Premium Live Event and looked primed to have a major come-up in his professional wrestling career, only for CM Punk to come out and ruin it.
A tale as old as time, right? Or at least since earlier this year, but much like a really good pop song or the works of The Bard, when a formula works, why change it? People still buy coke, still eat at McDonald's, and will tune in to watch WWE programming three, four, sometimes five times a week and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future, as if it ain't broke, don't fit it.
For fans who didn't catch the PLE, here's how things shook out; Seth Rollins and Damian Priest exchanged blows back and forth in the middle match on the five-bout Money in the Bank card, but just when it looked like the former had pinned the latter – he did actually, the ref hit the 1-2-3 without Priest kicking out – McIntyre marched to the ring to insert himself into the match and turn the one-on-one effort in a triple threat where, crucially, there are no DQs.
From there, the match played out exactly how you would expect; Punk came out just when it looked like McIntyre was about to have his moment, and after beating down on his rival, he set him up to take the pin, adding the “Scottish Warrior” to the failed Money in the Bank cash-in fraternity and adding even more drama to the feud between two of the most controversial Superstars in the WWE Universe.
Did WWE thread the needle in this match? Debatable; normally, Money in the Bank cash-ins happen after the pin instead of mid-match, as Michael Cole pointed out on commentary, and Priest's blunder will go down as his second-straight major goof on a PLE. Still, if the goal was to keep the strap on Priest, add fuel to the fire between Punk and McIntyre, and get Rollins upset with the “Best in the World” too, well, mission accomplished, as this effort certainly didn't light the wrestling world ablaze like John Cena's retirement a few minutes earlier.
Drew McIntyre's pre-MitB comments look silly in hindsight
After thoroughly beating the bricks off of CM Punk in his hometown of Chicago, leaving the “Second City Saint” with a one-way trip from the arena to a local Chicagoland area hospital, Drew McIntyre showed up on RAW with a devilish smile on his face and a lot to say, getting in the ring to run a victory lap on his fallen foe.
“I prayed for this, and the big man made it happen. Me. And each and every one of you that have been chanting Punl's name for months now, I am done with you,” Drew McIntyre declared to the crowd on RAW. “When you chant his name, it's just in memory of (him) now, you've spent months listening to me tell you what kind of person he is, you've watched what he's done to me at WrestleMania, Clash at the Castle; screwed me over in front of my family, my friends, my country. I promised my wife, my sick wife, the world title, and he prevented that, and you still chant his d**n name! As far as I'm concerned (if) you're chanting his name, you're dead to me, so now you all don't exist!”
Now at the time, McIntyre was correct in his feelings, as Punk was out of the way and his path to Money in the Bank was more or less set, but as has been the case at every single step of this journey, just when the “Scottish Warrior” thought he would be free to do what he wanted to do, his rival was there to mess things up, just like at WrestleMania 40 and Clash at the Castle a few weeks later.
Is this storyline getting a little old? Sure, you'd be hard-pressed to find a fan who didn't expect to see McIntyre secure a Ladder match victory at Money in the Bank or to see the “Best in the World” show up during his cash-in attempt to ruin it, as the “Scottish Warrior' pretty well telegraphed his intentions before the show. Still, just because something is predictable doesn't mean it's necessarily bad, as after all of this back-and-forth bitterness, it's safe to say the SummerSlam match between McIntyre and Punker will be one of the most brutal matches around, with no belt involved to choreograph the outcome either way. Buckle up, folks; this has the potential to be a very bloody affair.
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