Was discussing this with the breh @
luckyse7enz in that Rusev lost thread. Still believe they should have pulled the audible with Ryback at HIAC 2012 and had him win. I guess for me I was interested in that story, more than Skip himself. That was an incredible opportunity to do something really unexpected and fresh. I remember this board was divided down the middle. You have 4 months to do a little test run before ultimately deciding to drop it back to Punk (ie: debut of Shield at SS for instance), or just do a 3-way with Rock at RR if all goes well. Those couple pops he got against Punk, along with having the kiddos getting behind him quickly was enough reason to try, in my opinion. Regardless if he was green or was a last minute sub for Cena's arm injury, I think it wouldn't have hurt to do (other than minimizing Punk's title reign by 30 to 120 days or whatever - which is moot now regardless.) They should have just put Punk against someone else altogether then.
Instead they opt for that ball shot by Maddox finish - when most were expecting probably a Brock appearance. That Maddox storyline led to nowhere; and the following months are him being powerbombed into the bushes by The Shield/eliminated at RR (humorously by Cena I might add) as final two/squashed (literally) by Mizzark at WM.
I do think he should have taken the Goldberg chants on with stride, and started doing the spear + jackhammer continuously. The trolling alone would have been entertaining.
That suggestion of him going against Rusev would actually be solid. Beats anything he is doing now with Axel anyway. Poor Skip, that cell literally and figuratively was a pigeon-hole.
