CM Punk is no stranger to boos or cheers, and the former WWE Champion is a versatile performer who has had notable matches playing a heel and face.
According to Punk, the secret to playing a good heel is making his downfall as important for the audience as it is for the babyface.
"I do think it's dangerous. If your role is to be 'the bad guy,' you have to be this dragon for the good guy to slay," Punk said on "The Rich Eisen Show"recently. "I think where you can maybe falter is thinking 'Oh, there's pockets of people that are cheering me. I want them to cheer me.' When I'm a bad guy, I do not want people to cheer me. I don't."
According to the former AEW World Champion, it's easy for people to get "intoxicated" by the cheers that heels might get from smarter fans, aware of the act, and that there's even a rogueish archetype throughout culture that can make it work.
"Everybody wants to be Jack Burton, Han Solo, Indiana Jones," Punk explained. "He's not completely White Hat but if you know what you're doing, and to me that's the art behind it, is doing that but still maintaining that bad guy slant."
Punk said his time in the Straight Edge Society saw many instances where it would've been easy to get cheered, but that wasn't his intended outcome.
"I can walk into a high school and talk to kids about not doing drugs and I'm a good guy, or I can walk into an arena, sold out, and talk to people about not doing drugs and I'm a bad guy," Punk chuckled. "Preachy, people don't like it. Nobody likes a finger wagged in their face."
