And my point is that those compelling storylines meant very little as far as truly turning Punk into a draw. The part that built him up was that his opponent was John Cena. If Randy Orton or Rey Mysterio was the figurehead face of WWE he was raging against, and the storyline was otherwise entirely the same, the whole thing falls apart. It's built off of Cena's drawing power, and Punk became a bigger star than ever before because he beat John Cena and because the company finally started treating him like a main-eventer (off and on). They used John Cena to create a star in CM Punk. The great storyline expedited the process, sure, I'll grant you that, but even mediocre storytelling could have accomplished the same goal as long as they booked Punk that strongly in the end still.
Ehhhhh I'm not so sure about this. I think it was more based on Vince (and later HHH) being the implied opponent and Cena just being Vince's stand-in. Punk got over because he rebelled against authority. Cena wasn't the authority, he was just the authority's muscle. Saying that Punk got over because of Cena is like saying that Austin in 98 got over because of Dude Love or Kane or whoever <_<
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