>>12456348>hot for 2 years tops and that was over a decade agoWhile this is true it misses that he literally left WWE in his prime. He'd had that long WWE title run, then got cycled out for Rock/Cena when fans were still very behind Punk. If Punk didn't leave, Bryan might never have got the top spot (although I tend to think they always planned on him doing a Benoit/Jericho hybrid booking at WM30 and were working smarks). He certainly wouldn't have been as big, Seth would have had a guy ahead of him, the fans were 500% behind Punk in 2014 still and him leaving left a huge stew of anger.
It's not really comparable to anything that's happened before, Austin was broke down when he retired, Rock had been winding down towards Hollywood, Brock was the guy but not as over that first run, Cena stuck around until he was beyond stale, Batista was never as fanatically popular, Hogan jumped ship, HBK was more over with the office than the crowd. He quit wrestling entirely when he was top 3 arguably number 1 most popular guy in wrestling, did nothing for over 7 years, then his AEW run started okay and ended as a shitfest which has added another layer of buzz to his WWE return.
Punk returning to WWE is a legitimately huge moment and I say it thinking he's been shit for the past 2 years and will probably break down and get injured and not even make it to Mania.
