Interview: CM Punk on Possible Return to Wrestling, WWE’s Third Party Ban, Unions in Wrestling

A recent episode of Oral Sessions podcast had CM Punk as the guest. Some of the topics discussed included if he’d be interested in returning to wrestling and if it would be for WWE or AEW, his thoughts on WWE’s third party services ban for their talent, and the possibility of a union forming in wrestling.

On the topic of if he’s interested in making a return to wrestling in the future, Punk stated:

“Well, I think the landscape is currently much different than when I left, right? You could play the game where you’re like, ‘Oh, if AEW was an option, you would have gone right after you left WWE.’ If you’re gonna play that game, there’s no way they would have handled it the way they handled it with suspending me for two months and nobody contacting me and then, the next thing I know, I get release papers on my wedding day. That wouldn’t have happened if there was an AEW because then they probably would’ve approached me and been like, ‘Hey, your suspension’s up. Ready to come back to work? Like let’s work this out,’ you know? Or handle it like any other sports organization would’ve handled star pitcher f*cking going home. They’re not just gonna let him leave the team, they’re not gonna let him go to a rival organization. What would it take? Oh gosh. Without wanting to insult anybody on either side of the fence, any WWE talent, AEW talent, it would take, above all, an interesting scenario. A story that would be fun to tell. Also, just the stupidest amount of money. But they could save themselves a whole lot of money if they just presented a fun storyline. Now what that is? I don’t know. I’m a pretty picky guy, especially at this point. I think there’s more interesting people on the AEW side of things for me to wrestle but that’s just because I’ve never wrestled them before. Young Bucks, Kenny Omega, talking about your husband [Jon Moxley], I look at that and I go, ‘Well I wrestled him already, so it’s just less interesting than something new’ and on the WWE side of things, I don’t know that there’s anybody there currently that I haven’t wrestled that I’d be interested in wrestling.”

On the topic of WWE’s outside third party services ban for their talent, Punk stated:

“They would literally take every single request that came through and they would funnel it to the one person that they wanted to be the face of the company. I went — this is awesome. I went on a — it was a bachelor party for my buddy Jensen. We went to Pinball Factory here in Chicago, where they make a lot of the pinball games and a lot of people don’t know that Midway — is it Midway? Maybe, I don’t know. But anyway, so we were there and so the guy giving us the tour, the guy who owned the factory and all these pinball machines and this company, he was like, ‘Yeah, we wanted you on our WrestleMania-WWE pinball machine. They said no,’ and I was like, ‘What do you mean they said no?’ They were like, ‘No, don’t put him on that. We want this guy on it’ and we were like, ‘Oh whatever and we just did it.’ Still to this day, I’ll hear stuff like that, where people will be like, ‘Well we reached out. We had this offer for you,’ and they either never get back — it was like when THQ wanted me on the cover of the video game. I was forwarded the emails where they said, ‘No, no, no. Sheamus, Miz or John Cena.’ To their credit, Bryce [Yang], who is their head of all that stuff, he was like, ‘No, no, no. We want CM Punk. He’s like literally the guy right now and that might change in six months but we don’t care. He’s the popular guy.’ So, you know…”

On the topic of a union being possible in wrestling, Punk stated:

“There’s no such thing as ‘the boys.’ It’s a trope. Once you’re out of the bubble, you don’t hear from anyone anymore. There will always be a handful of people that will undercut everyone just to get ahead. There are people who, by nature, are bootlickers and they love the taste. You’re supposed to lick the boot, not eat the entire thing.”

Transcript: FW4Online.com, Fightful.com