It's December, and you know what that means: Since Kris and David took the week off, we're bringing you the annual holiday selection of a past Patreon deep dive show a few weeks early. This time, we're bringing you our July 2021 show looking at 2011's "Summer of Punk" in WWE, which ended up being surprisingly topical since news of Punk going to AEW broke around when the show came out. For more than eight years' worth of shows like this, you need to sign up for our Patreon at Patreon.com/BetwenTheSheets.

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We’re back to look at something that we knew we couldn’t do justice to on a regular show: 2011’s Summer of Punk storyline. Starting with the announcement that CM Punk’s contract was up  soon and the “pipe bomb” promo, and going through the week that the storyline completely fell apart when Punk returned after just one week off of TV, this is an in-depth look at a wild period in recent wrestling history. Topics include:

• The angle’s effects (or lack thereof) on various business metrics.
• Punk calling an Australian heckler a “homo” and the resulting fallout.
• The WWE creative team completely botching trying to keep John Cena from looking like an asshole.
• Just how different the Nielsen ratings for Raw and its competition looked ten years ago.
• Punk’s interviews with G.Q. and Bill Simmons.
• Alberto del Rio repeatedly losing out on promised world title reigns.

...and much more. Enjoy!

Timestamps:

0:00:00 May-June 2011

0:52:13 Weeks of July 4 & July 11, 2011

2:05:43 Weeks of July 18 & July 25, 2011

3:33:16 Week of August 1, 2011

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