I feel like Punk did do/say some slightly heelish things in the past few months that it made me think if that was their plan with him, but then they backed off of it a bit when the Owen Cup stuff started. But maybe that was just part of the overall story. I think if that's the route they go, it could work out pretty well. Just invert the program with a heel champ in Punk and then Hangman as the chasing face. One way to prolong it a bit but giving them some real meat to work with in terms of a feud.
If one of the end goals is to make Eddie a champ, that's one route to go down in time as well.
I also feel like we'll get some real Njpw surprises as they'll want to really build towards forbidden door right away.