World Heavyweight Champion CM Punk has been a babyface ever since he returned to WWE in November 2023. But he has a lot of wiggle room to play around with that alignment today on Raw when he defends the gold against Finn Balor, who will be the fan favorite challenging for the title in his home country of Ireland. Punk doesn’t have any other lingering feuds going on at the moment after he seemingly finished his business with The Vision a couple weeks ago. Punk also might not be a factor at this month’s Royal Rumble event, where he doesn’t need to compete in the Rumble match itself, and there aren’t many spots left to book his championship on the card. In other words, CM is probably free to work this match like a heel if he wants to, before resetting for whatever angles WWE has lined up for him once the road to WrestleMania begins.

If it sounds like I’m dismissing Finn’s chances of winning today, that’s because I am. He doesn’t have a zero percent chance to pull off the upset, of course, but it’s probably something a lot closer to zero than 50 percent. I’ll have to consult Professor Scott Steiner later for the exact probabilities. The reason why Finn’s chance to win is so low is because he hasn’t been booked like a serious threat to win the world championship in at least one year, if not much longer, and this title match was booked out of thin air. One minute Finn is playing video games backstage, the next minute he gets a world title match because Raw is in Ireland. If WWE booked Finn stronger over the last few months, then the outcome of this fight would be a lot more intriguing. That being said, a stellar performance from Balor can still prove to the world why he belongs in main event title matches like this going forward, and it will still be interesting to see him and heelish Punk mix it up in front of a hot home country crowd for the challenger.