Ring Of Honor

Initially, Punk joined Ring of Honor (ROH) as a crowd favorite, but quickly became a villain in a feud with Raven that featured numerous variants of no disqualification matches. Their rivalry lasted most of 2003 and was considered one of ROH's top feuds of the year, and was based around Punk's straight-edge lifestyle, with him likening Raven to his alcoholic father. Their rivalry was settled at The Conclusion in November 2003, where Punk defeated Raven in a Steel Cage match. At the same time, Punk joined the wrestling promotion NWA Total Nonstop Action (TNA), in which he was paired with Julio Dinero as members of Raven's TNA alliance The Gathering.

Punk started climbing the ranks of ROH, including coming in second at the Second Anniversary Show during the tournament to crown the first ROH Pure Champion, losing to A.J. Styles in the finals and winning the ROH Tag Team Championship twice with Colt Cabana as the Second City Saints. Both times Punk and Cabana defeated the Briscoe Brothers to win the championship. Circa October 2003, Punk was hired as the first head trainer of the Ring of Honor wrestling school, having previously been a trainer for the Steel Domain and Primetime Wrestling.
Shortly before a TNA show on February 25, 2004, Punk had a physical scuffle with Teddy Hart outside of a restaurant that was broken up by Sabu. The scuffle reportedly stemmed from an ROH show in which Hart performed three unplanned spots putting several other wrestlers in danger of injury. Around the time of the scuffle, Punk and Dinero stopped appearing on TNA shows, leading to speculation he was fired for the incident. Punk, however, has stated that the scuffle had no bearing on his TNA career. He said the reason he and Dinero stopped appearing on TNA pay-per-views was that TNA officials believed that he and Dinero had not connected with the fans as villains, having turned against the popular Raven and instead formed a villainous tag team managed by James Mitchell. The officials decided that as the teams as villains was not working decided to put the storyline on hold indefinitely, and thus had no work for Punk or Dinero. Punk officially quit TNA in March 2004 during the Rob Feinstein controversy, after having a dispute with the TNA offices over his ability to compete in ROH following a TNA order that their contracted wrestlers were to no longer wrestle in ROH.

No comments:

Post a Comment