- Is not athletic
- Doesn't have an impressive body (at all)
- Is a pretty boring speaker
- Has little charisma
So what was it? Gotta be something right?
I think it's a few things.
He was a big deal on the independent wrestling scene, rather than being a product of WWE so he was already "cool" in the eyes of those hardcore, or wannabe anti-establishment kinda wrestling fans who were booing every generic thing WWE was putting out at the time.
He even carried his original ring name CM Punk with him, which is unusual and the reason why he can legally still use it today. His name isn't owned by WWE.
He was an exciting performer and quite charismatic with the microphone, so i would disagree with your last points there.
His WWE run also started in their revived ECW brand as I recall. ECW was the coolest shit ever in the eyes of old school wrestling fans ...so he got very popular there, before he got too popular and WWE moved him to their main show.
After that I didn't follow his career much. But from what I know he was "cool", girls liked him, and had those "stick it to the Man" attitude, and wasn't a cookie cutter.
Contrast to another WWE champ from the same era, jack swagger, a strong amateur wrestler and physical specimen, pushed to the moon by WWE very fast, he turned out to be a failure because people rejected him, he was cookie cutter and boring in the ring and when talking.
He said he was gonna fight in bellator under his real name Jake Hager and nobody gave a flying fook.