This one is complicated you see - he had an amazing run in 2011 in particular and had great matches dotted through out his entire WWE career - he was the edge that had people flocking back to the product briefly during its most sanatized period but outside of that I don’t have that many fond memories of him. The Straight Edge society was great but ended abruptly.
This is more due to poor booking than anything but he’s no Austin/Bret and since he left many other superior in-ring workers have surfaced.
I’ll say a 3.5 rounded up to a 4 seems fair on balance (he deserves more than a 3) the cult of personality schtick grew kinda grating towards the end. He deffo benefited being in the roster he was in at the time - that roster was so bad.
Lighting in a bottle - as proved every other time they’d try to replicate it with Punk since
But it was the most exciting thin to happen the last decade outside of Bryans title win
Along with AJ Lee, probably the best thing on WWE when I was watching. Was given good angles, gave an excellent promo and was one of the more watchable of that era in the ring. Probably wasn’t treated right given his popularity and the way part timers picked up all the top spots, but showed himself to be a diva in the way he threw his toys out the pram and a prick over the Colt Cabana stuff.
Hope it’s true that he’s mellowed out a lot in recent years, because all that anger and bitterness can do awful things to a person. There’d be money in another run, but I don’t want to see it unless his heart’s there.
I’m not worried about me, I’m worried about you guys. The world is delicious and you only have one life to taste it.
Of course everything is subjective and if this was any other topic and someone else was saying what I’m saying I’d be saying what you’re saying. Wrestling really does it for me though, don’t know why. Probably something I need to explore in therapy. Thanks for helping me come to this realisation! x