CM Punk has been praised by Paul Heyman for being “trend-setting” and “ground-breaking.”
Heyman was discussing which wrestlers have been best in terms of cutting a promotion.
“I think John Cena has been on top for over 10 years because he understands how to convey his message to his audience. I think ”Stone Cold“ Steve Austin has revolutionized the way in which a character on a wrestling program can speak. I think that when Vince McMahon was opposed against Stone Cold Steve Austin, there were things that he said and things that he did that were absolutely brilliant and ground-breaking and changed the sculpt of the villain in professional wrestling,” Heyman told Complex magazine.
“So there are a lot of people that I watched—hey, The Rock is one of the biggest movie stars of the past decade. There’s a reason for it: He understands how to convey his message. And he learned that in front of a live audience in WWE, so how could you not include him on that list? There are others that are coming up—I thought the work that Punk did as Champion was simply brilliant and ground-breaking and trend setting, so I would be remiss not to include him on this list as well.”
Meanwhile, Punk’s wife AJ Lee lost to Paige at WWE’s SummerSlam on Sunday night [full SummerSlam results and highlights here].
Paige countered an attempt by AJ to tap her out near the end of the fight, and got her in a final pin. After the fight was over, Paige picked up her opponent and kissed her on the cheek.
And both Punk and Lee recently participated in the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, a challenge where people dump ice water over their heads to raise awareness about and money for research into ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis). ALS is known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
The disease affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord, slowly degrading them until “they can no longer send impulses to the muscle fibers that normally result in muscle movement,” according to the ALS Association.
“Early symptoms of ALS often include increasing muscle weakness, especially involving the arms and legs, speech, swallowing or breathing. When muscles no longer receive the messages from the motor neurons that they require to function, the muscles begin to atrophy (become smaller). Limbs begin to look ’thinner' as muscle tissue atrophies.”
