The wrestling world has been abuzz this week over an incident that happened at the end of the latest edition of World Wrestling Entertainment’s flagship show, WWE Monday Night RAW. C.M. Punk, a top WWE performer for the past few years, came out on the ramp to cut what people might have initially expected to be a “standard” heel wrestling “promo”–the colorful diatribe pro wrestlers are known for. Instead, though, he started ripping on the politics of the company, owner Vince McMahon’s conception of what wrestling should be, the (lack of) leadership his daughter and son-in-law would provide if something happened to Vince, and the head of talent relations backstage at WWE, who he called “a douchebag.” And so on, until the audio to his microphone was cut and the show just went off the air.

Discussion afterward questioned whether Punk’s rant was a shoot, the term wrestling fans call for when a performer goes off script and real life plays out. The storyline had set the stage well, after all: it’s become common knowledge to wrestling fans that Punk is frustrated with the company and had decided to leave. Those rumors were so widespread that WWE had already turned it into the storyline, with Punk announcing he was leaving and saying that, if he won the championship belt in the main event of the next pay-per-view event, he would take the title with him when he left. Many fans were left asking, “Was this for real?”

Longtime wrestling fans saw the signs that it wasn’t exactly “real.” Punk’s mic could have been cut a little quicker, after all. And Punk still wove in references to the upcoming PPV and his claim that he’d win the title and take it with him when he left. But the strong dose of reality in the script, and the little touches with the way his diatribe was handled, has brought new life to what is often a summer doldrums in the wrestling business. Now, whether that will translate to big $$$, I don’t know, but it’s certainly generated deeper engagement from wrestling fans, drawn the interest of many former fans, and gotten WWE plenty of buzz over the week…as Punk’s Twitter trending can attest.

Ultimately, what WWE has accomplished is a brave move. No, these kinds of edgy “playing with real life” storylines is nothing new, as I have written about in the past. After all, Vince is a character in his own show, hated by fans. And wrestling has, at times in the past, gotten way too faddish with trying to weave every backstage rumor into on-screen happenings, to the point that casual wrestling fans have occasionally found themselves dumbfounded to even figure out what anyone’s talking about on-screen if they don’t read the “dirt sheets,” as wrestlers like to call newsletters that publish industry news and rumors.

Instead, it’s brave because WWE is allowing a performer to give voice to the complaints some dedicated wrestling fans have about World Wrestling Entertainment. That it’s too much entertainment and not enough wrestling. That it’s warped by the personal tastes of the sometimes brilliant, sometimes way-off-base McMahon. That it’s too political and run by people who act as yes men to McMahon. Vince is no stranger to building storylines that paint him in a negative light, but rarely has he given voice to these kinds of complaint: that he doesn’t do “real” wrestling.