Why was CM Punk kept off RAW this week?

This week’s RAW was a cracker of a show despite the absence of top wrestlers like Triple H, Brock Lesnar and The Rock. Though their absence wasn’t felt much, there was this one wrestler that the whole of the crowd wanted to see, and it was none other than CM Punk.

Everyone was expecting Punk to come out and speak about Undertaker‘s win at WrestleMania, but unfortunately it didn’t happen. There are two different reasons circulating around as to why Punk could not make it to RAW this week.

One of the reasons state Punk’s injury. It was quite visible during his match with Undertaker at WrestleMania that Punk could not properly connect an elbow from the top rope onto the Spanish announce table. Punk missed Undertaker by a few inches and this caused his knees to land hard on the table which failed to break. According to PWInsider via wrestlinginc.com:

“CM Punk was backstage at Monday’s Raw but was having a lot of trouble walking. Word at Raw was that Punk would be getting his knees examined this week as he really hurt it on the table elbow drop at WrestleMania 29.”

It was surprising to see Punk still carry on with the match after such a horrific fall and with such an injury. The sportsmanship of Punk needs to be appreciated here. Getting back to the news, Punk previously had mentioned taking time off WWE for a while in order to recuperate from his injuries and get some rest from a long schedule that he has been into the previous year. But looking at this injury, it looks like Punk will indeed take a long break from wrestling now.

Another news that recently came in regarding Punk’s absence on RAW is that Punk was kept backstage to make sure that he did not receive a huge pop from the vocal crowd at New Jersey this week. Apparently, the WWE didn’t want Punk to be given a babyface cheer on an episode where he was supposed to sell Undertaker’s victory at WrestleMania.

It was posted on PWInsider via wrestlinginc.com:

“As noted before, CM Punk was kept off Monday’s Raw to sell The Undertaker’s win at WrestleMania 29. Another reason WWE officials kept him off Raw is because they didn’t want him to receive a massive pop from the post-WrestleMania crowd that was at Monday’s show. At one point, there were plans for Punk to come out and cut a promo but they nixed it.”

If this news is indeed true, then we have to feel nothing but ashamed of what the WWE has done. It is extremely sad to see Punk being kept away from fans who would genuinely want to cheer him for the efforts he put in to make his match against Taker the best match at Mania. If not for this match, WrestleMania would have failed miserably, and the WWE should have shown some courtesy to Punk and the fans at the IZOD center.

However, Punk had great support from the crowd this week, as even the mentioning of his name got huge cheers, and the crowd would have blown off the roof had CM Punk made his entry. On the whole, I just feel that this is politics from WWE, as they are denying the fans the right to support their favourite wrestler.