Chris Hero vs. CM Punk

[1.0] "Insufferable, self-indulgent, smarkbait garbage. I like both of these men, I like CM Punk... quite a bit as a wrestler, and I have seen enough good Chris Hero matches to call myself a fan of his. But these matches are some of the most insufferable pieces of wrestling I've seen come out of the 2000s indie scene. The worst part is everything boils down to one issue: they are all so goddamn long. If they went an hour once it would be one thing, but they went 45 minutes in a LADDER MATCH. Both Punk and Hero were so young during these years that they absolutely had no clue when and where to have a "epic" match, no sense of self-restraint."

[7.0] "I generally tend to like their matches together and it's clear they helping set the tone for the indie boom of the 00s. But god they really went on too long sometimes."

[2.0] "Of all the most highly rated/regarded rivalries in wrestling, Hero vs Punk has to be the most confusingly overrated I've come across, and I'd actually consider it outright bad. Of their 5 major matches against each other, I found only 1 to be better than just 'mediocre', with half of the remaining ones being purely mediocre and the other half being outright bad. Their best match was their most famous -- the Tables and Ladders match. I'm usually pretty sick of these messy weapon-and-prop matches, but little did I know that allowing both Hero and Punk to utilise so many weapons actually prevented them from falling to their worst habits, as I've find out after watching their later matches that didn't involve any hardcore stipulations. That was because these 2 guys took their matches with each other as the opportunity to be IMMENSELY pretentious, usually making sure that the first 1/2th or even the first 2/3rds of their 60+ minute match was made up of dull grappling work. They clearly intended for it to come off like they were both wrestling 'purists' who were 'writing a love letter to wrestling from the older generations' with these matches or something like that, but instead they just came off as elitists who were ardently trying to indirectly critique other wrestlers and wrestling companies at the time who actually bothered to put in effort into making their matches exciting, and what better way to show what an 'intelligent' wrestler and wrestling fan you were than by recreating a wrestling match that harkens back to the technical and more kayfabed style of the 1950s or however old. Punk has never been a very good in-ring worker, so I wasn't very surprised to see how heavily reliant on rest holds he was, given how naturally clumsy and unathletic he was, but I knew Hero could be good when he wasn't wrestling such a boring style, so it was a shame to see him hide his talents so frequently in these matches with Punk. Conditioning the crowd to never care for the match until it goes past the 45th minute is an awful strategy, and it just made waiting to get to 'the good stuff' very painful. On the most basic level I guess I very, very slightly appreciated some of their grappling work, plus their dedication to working such matches for so long, but I really can't respect them dragging their matches out to such ridiculously long lengths so many times AND making barely 10% of those matches actually exciting. If you are so high on hating flippy spotfests as the worst thing that ever happened to wrestling then you might go all the way round to the other end and love these polar-opposite matches where absolutely nothing except stale grappling happens for the 1st half and then the 2nd half features slightly more energetic but still pretty tame and generic interactions, but for me, the style of match showcased in this rivalry was insomnia-curing."

[10.0] "Punk/Hero is a feud that defined the indies. For three years, both these men proved that independent wrestling can have captivating rivalries. They put on a series of matches that featured moves and spots that couldn't be seen anywhere else. The TLC match in IWA: MS is still of the best matches in indie history. Emotion was ramped through the entire venue. Partly due to this heated feud, both wrestlers were quick to rise among the ranks of pro wrestling."