Saturday 31 January 2015

CM Punk v Mark Henry (RAW, 4/2/12)

Henry was pretty much God in this. His in-match shit talking is all-time level great and it was spectacular here. "Is that all you got?" "I OWN YOU, BOY. I OWN YOU!" "I ain't tell you to move. YOU MOVE WHEN I TELL YOU TO!" Awesome. Thought he was pretty much the perfect monster in this. He sold with the right amount of vulnerability when he needed to in order to make it look like he could be taken down, but still came across as a total fucking destroyer of worlds. Which is really what you want in a guy like that. I don't think Punk is a terribly good striker in general, but his ratio of good to not good strikes was alright in this. Henry sold every one of them perfectly (seriously, this was like Fujiwara selling shit for Takada or Yamazaki), plus a few looked super stiff and teeth-looseny.Henry's cut-offs were also great. The timing was always spot on, and they all looked like they'd hurt like a bastard, even the one where he just catches Punk coming off the top rope by sort of double clubbing him in the neck. Then he'd follow up with more shit talking. I knew this didn't have a proper finish so I wasn't disappointed when it came, but it's hard not to imagine an extra few minutes and an actual finish not sending it up another level. Henry made the bulldog over the top look killer as well, btw. It was like a guy picked up another guy and threw him away without the other guy cooperating, which probably sounds redundant since that's how its supposed to look, but you'll often get the person receiving it flinging themselves/jumping into it. Punk didn't need to here becauseHenry could fling a couch through a tree house. This is the good TV wrestling.