In what was supposedly his final night with the promotion, CM Punk captured the heavyweight championship. And instead of voluntarily dropping the belt, Punk continued to claim himself as the champion, bringing a sense of controversy to wrestling while elevating his own character.

 

Sure, that's what happened in 2011 in WWE, but it also happened in 2005 in Ring of Honor -- and with the exact same wrestler!

 

Kudos to ROH for not only noticing the similarity, but using it as an opportunity to hook in fans that wouldn't normally buy ROH DVD's -- this writer included.

 

The Summer of Punk shows how The Straight Edge Superstar carried himself as a top star in a smaller promotion. The brilliant mic work, charisma and mat skills are already there; the setting and production values are really the only things that are different here.

 

From the moment he wins the ROH title from Austin Aries to his final match in the company against Colt Cabana, each bout is filled with drama and the match quality ranges from good to excellent.

 

Plus you have interactions with everyone from Samoa Joe to Mick Foley and Christopher Daniels to James Gibson, so it's all good. Plus one line in the commentary during the Punk-Aries match stood out for me: "I can see him (Punk) headlining a WrestleMania one day." Wow.

 

I liken this release to The Best of Cactus Jack in ECW, in that a popular wrestler had gone on to bigger fame, but his prior promotion had enough footage to tell a unique story.

 

Having said that..... I have to say that ECW did a far better job with their release. Why? Because Joey Styles narrated the Cactus DVD, explained whom Foley was at that point in time and a little bit about all of his opponents as the story unfolded.

 

Whereas in The Summer Of Punk, you merely have the matches and interview segments, but no one to set things up. It's a small thing (and would have cost ROH next to nothing), but why not have, say, Kevin Kelly or Jim Cornette host the segments and explain how WWE essentially stole ROH's idea?

 

It's not that the material is so hard to follow (and the announcers do a decent job for during-the-match commentary) but there are certain things I still don't completely understand. For example, why was Punk continually reappearing in ROH months after he supposedly quit? Why not leave for WWE (or OVW, I guess) and screw defending the title? I'm sure there was a logical explanation, but I'm still not sure what it was.

 

Another thing I really would have liked to see from a business standpoint is for ROH to exploit what is essentially a once in a lifetime opportunity, in the sense that they are getting attention from mainstream fans.

 

Why not add a bonus match or two to show fans what ROH is like today? It could be as simple as last year's Charlie Haas and Shelton Benjamin versus The Kings of Wrestling, or if they wanted to stay true to the source material, why not Punk versus Bryan Danielson? ROH had a perfect opportunity to sell casual fans and really didn't take advantage of it.

 

But neither of those points really took away from my enjoyment of the source material. Could ROH have done better with this release? Absolutely. But is worth watching? Yes, and while I would certainly recommend it, take note that WWE's Best In The World documentary is far superior (including the coverage of his ROH stint).

 

One last note: As someone who doesn't order DVD's online that much anymore, I was thoroughly impressed by ROH's shipping department in getting my order delivered (and in Canada, no less) so quickly and professionally. I will definitely be back.