CM Punk debuted in the WWE on the ECW brand starting in July of 2006. He immediately started cutting face style promos about his straight straight edge lifestyle. He also began to claim a Muay Thai background. He made his TV WWE wrestling debut on August 1st, 2006 at the Hammerstein Ballroom. The roof nearly came off of the place as the crowd went absolutely nuts for CM Punk. The journey had begun.
Our straight edge superstar then began a feud with Mike Knox over Knox's (kayfaybe) girlfriend, Kelly Kelly. After that feud, Punk went on to team with Degeneration-X and The Hardy Boyz at Survivor Series 2006, which his team one. At the abysmally awful ECW Pay-Per-View December To Dismember, CM Punk was the first knocked out of the elimination chamber match.
Soon after the PPV, CM Punk started a feud with Hardcore Holly who ended his 6 month singles undefeated streak on January 9th, 2007. He bounced around on ECW feuding with the likes of Matt Striker before qualifying for the 2007 Money in the Bank ladder match at Wrestlemania 23 by defeating Johnny Nitro. In that match CM Punk was knocked off the ladder mere seconds before Mr. Kennedy pulled the briefcase down - highway robbery if you ask me.
From then on CM Punk got involved with a stable named The New Breed, lead by Elijah Burke. He feuded with them for several months, which included a singles match between them at Judgement Day which he won. The feud culminated in a tag match at ECW One Night Stand 2007 that saw Tommy Dreamer, CM Punk & The Sandman defeat The New Breed in a tables match.
When then-ECW champion Bobby Lashley was drafted to RAW, he was forced to vacate the ECW title. A tournament was set up that eventually ended with a match at the Vengeance PPV. The scheduled participants in this match were CM Punk and Chris Benoit, however Benoit no-showed the event due to what the WWE called "personal reasons". Johnny Nitro was substituted for Chris Benoit and won the ECW Title, defeating CM Punk. We would find out a few days later that Chris Benoit had tragically murdered his wife and son, then taken his own life. CM Punk was torn apart as he looked at the opportunity before the PPV as wrestling a hero, and teared up the next night on RAW when they ran a Chris Benoit tribute (before they knew it was a murder-suicice).
Punk started a feud with ECW Champion Johnny Nitro, who now had changed his name to John Morrison. CM Punk failed to capture the ECW Title from John Morrison in their PPV match at Summerslam, but then finally succeeded on September 1st, 2007 on ECW Television.
Punk held on to the title from September 2007 to late January 2008, during which time he defended his title successfully against Elijah Burke, Big Daddy V, The Miz and John Morrison. On January 22nd, 2008 on ECW TV CM Punk finally lost the ECW World Championship to Chavo Guerrero after Edge interfered and speared CM Punk.
And then finally after years of hard work, struggle and dedication, CM Punk went to Wrestlemania 24 on March 30th 2008 and won the Money in the Bank Ladder Match, granting him a title match at any time within the next year for any title he wants. This elevates CM Punk to almost a main event level player, and I imagine that we will soon be seeing the spotlight shining quite a bit brighter on this young star.
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