You don’t seem to get the point in much at all. Of course, Summerslam 2011 disappointed in terms of PPV buys. The CM Punk angle jumped the shark almost immediately after MITB and they only had four matches on the card with a week to go. As we can keep labouring, that whole period in WWE was a complete mess booking wise. Everyone’s push was either completely botched or sabotaged. The Rock could stay over by staying as far away from WWE as possible for 11 months of the year.
How can you blame the WWE champion for underwhelming PPV buyrates when the WWE Champion, and the title itself, was treated as a midcard attraction? It was John Cena who was booked as the main event during that period, just go through each and every PPV card. I was one of the fans who lost patience and stopped watching during that period. The Summer of Punk period was completely botched with Kevin Nash’s, HHH’s and Laurinaitis’s involvement. Then once they put the title on Punk for his record reign, the entire focus of the WWE was still on John Cena with Punk in the midcard – despite him being the top champion? We literally had John Cena vs Kane, John Cena vs Big Show, John Cena vs John Laurinaitis, and John Cena vs Dolph Ziggler all as PPV main events in 2012, with Punk defending the WWE Championship in the midcard or not at all. Despite not being champion for a minute in 2012, Cena still dominated the main event scene and is widely regarded as having one of the worst years of his career with some god awful matches.
Why would anyone other than the habitual buyer have become invested in ordering WWE PPVs during that time? Punk and his reign were treated as an afterthough, Cena was in horrendous storylines against terrible opponents, and the whole company was just going through the motions between Cena v Rock matches.
it gets so freaking political in wrestling.
