Brent Albright vs. CM Punk

[7.0] "Good first big match for CM Punk at OVW. His style is already a little different from what he was doing at ROH. It's more WWE-style, which makes sense because at that time OVW was WWE's training ground. I really liked it."

[7.0] "This was actually a pretty good match. CM Punk made it no secret that went he signed with WWE, he was not happy about being relegated OVW, which was the developmental territory for WWE at the time. But he turned what saw as a negative and made it into a positive by working with Paul Heyman and working behind the scenes at the shows. The benefit of CM Punk being in OVW is that he helped everyone he worked with while was there and Brent Albright was one of those people. I think Brent Albright came to WWE at the wrong time, he was a good talent no doubt, but in 2005, WWE was stacked with tons of great talent up and down the card. Had he come along in the early to mid 2010's he would have had more of a shot. He did go on to win the NWA championship though. This match took place right after Eddie Guerrero's death, as shown with Punk having Eddie's name written on his hand wrappings, and even using some of his moves. Of course Punk worked a couple of matches with Eddie back in 2002. It was slow to start, but then it slowly built and built and by the end of things, it was getting pretty good. Curious to note that Punk acted like a tweener. He wasn't a full on babyface, as he showed heel tendencies, but then he would work sometimes like he was a face. The finish had Ken Doane interfere and hit Albright in the head with a chair, then after Punk won, he hit Punk with the same chair. It was nice to see CM Punk work well in OVW with some talent I haven't seen him wrestle before. ***3/4"