“The reason I’m leaving is you people, because after I’m gone you’re still going to pour money into this company. I’m just a spoke on the wheel. The wheel’s gonna keep turning. And I understand that.” — CM Punk during the “Pipe bomb” promo on June 27, 2011

Cult of Personality hits … CM Punk walks out … he yells, “It’s clobbering time!” and heads down to the ring.

At some point in the future, be it next Monday night or years down the line, that series of events is almost definitely going to happen. And when it does, I, like millions of others, will be MARKING OUT, BRO pumped. If Punk returns to help/to attack/to help then immediately after helping attack Daniel Bryan (or someone else), it’ll be a great moment.

Punk’s last appearance with WWE was the Royal Rumble in January, and we still don’t know why, exactly, he decided to leave. Was he burnt out? Injured? Unhappy with his Wrestlemania plans? People were even saying he had a dispute with Vince McMahon/HHH over how wrestlers were going to be paid as a result of the move away from PPV due to the start of the WWE Network. However, since then, we’ve heard little. Punk’s last tweet came the day after the Royal Rumble, McMahon said during a conference call with share holders that Punk was on “sabbatical,” and the only time Punk has been mentioned on air was when Paul Heyman came out at the beginning of “Hijack RAW” in Chicago.

When and if Punk returns, the ready-made feud is clearly Punk vs. Bryan. For three reasons:

1) Bryan got to main event a Wrestlemania, and Punk never has. On the “Best In The World” DVD that WWE put out about Punk (it is great), he brings up the fact that the Miz main eventing Wrestlemania 27 was something that pissed him off (although, to be fair, plenty seems to piss Punk off). Then, the next two years — while Punk was the most popular he’ll likely ever be as a pro wrestler — the Mania main event was Rock/Cena (“Once in a Lifetime” at Wrestlemania 28 and “We lied about that whole Once in a Lifetime deal” at Wrestlemania 29). While I’m fairly certain Punk holds Bryan in higher regard than Miz/the Rock, it wouldn’t be hard to believe that could cause him to be jealous.

2) Bryan got to complete what Punk started with the Pipe bomb promo. The first part of that promo dealt with Cena and how he wasn’t the best — Punk was the best. And, at Money in the Bank and Summerslam that year, Punk defeated Cena to back up those words. But the second part of that promo took aim at the McMahon family: Vince, his “idiotic daughter and his doofus son-in-law” (Stephanie McMahon and HHH). Stephanie and HHH would eventually become The Authority, and Bryan, not Punk, was the one to defeat them at Mania on his way to winning the title.

3) Those people Punk so lovingly describes in the quote at the top of this story. After Punk left, there were plenty of “CM PUNK!” chants at WWE events. There was the attempt to “Hijack RAW” in Chicago which featured … a few more “CM PUNK!” chants than usual. Wrestlemania 30 came and went, and the thing that pissed most people off wasn’t the lack of Punk, it was Brock Lesnar ending The Streak.

And while the crowd will still chant “CM PUNK!” on occasion, what they cheer far, far more is “Yes!”

WWE — the wheel — keeps turning.

— Brian Cougar