WWE: CM Punk on His “Punkanomics” Rap & Didn’t Want To Deliver “Pipebomb 2” For His Promo at 6/27 SmackDown Show, Kiana James Makes In-Ring Return at 7/18 WWE Main Event Taping, More on NXT July 15, 2025 Viewership, More News

Jul 19, 2025

CM Punk Comments on Putting His “Punkanomics” Rap Together & Didn’t Want To Deliver A “Pipebomb” 2 For His Promo at June 27th WWE SmackDown Show

The June 27th WWE SmackDown show in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia was notable for CM Punk coming out dressed up similar to John Cena’s old Thuagnomics persona. Punk gave a “Punkanomics” style promo in reference to Cena’s old gimmick during his promo segment with Cena on the show.

Comic Book Nation held a recent interview with CM Punk. One of the topics discussed included Punk’s thoughts about the process of how his “Punkanomics” rap promo and character came together for the show.

“It was a lot of research. I watched a lot of John’s delivery. His cadence and how he talks. A good friend of mine by the name of Jensen Karp, who is, to me, a battle rap master. That is what he does. It’s his lane. I definitely leaned on him. ‘This is what we’re doing.’ I could do this myself, but it was really his wheelhouse, so I kind of handed the ball to him. He helped me greatly, along with another friend of ours, Rone. The genesis of the idea was, everybody is expecting this pipebomb 2 from me. I’m not into delivering sequels to stuff that don’t need sequels. For 14 years people have been chasing this moment and trying to replicate it, duplicate it, talk like me, sit like me. I’m not so much into doing the same thing. I couldn’t have even followed myself. How is that for a supremely egotistical comment? Everyone is expecting me to zig, so I zag. That was the idea with it. Really, just having fun. That entire week was pretty emotional for me, being the last time I was going to get to share a ring with John Cena. I wanted to make it special and memorable. I find that when I challenge myself and put myself outside my comfort zone, that’s when the best stuff happens. People are going to remember that, whether it’s because of the delivery, the content, the way I was dressed, the atmosphere. I think it was a hell of a moment.”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com

Kiana James Makes In-Ring Return from Injury at 7/18 WWE Main Event Taping

As noted before, Kiana James has been out of action for WWE since this past September due to a leg injury.

James made her in-ring return at WWE’s Main Event taping on Friday that was held prior to that night’s SmackDown show in San Antonio, Texas. James competed in a singles match against Michin on the show.

Kiana James returned to WWE in her first match in over a year, facing Michin on a taping of Main Event before today’s #SmackDown. pic.twitter.com/p1uBCvnxhk
— Pro Wrestling & MMA News (@PWMMANews) July 19, 2025

Besides Main Event, James also made a surprise appearance during that night’s SmackDown show. James was seen in the background during Charlotte Flair and Alexa Bliss’ backstage promo segment.

"I got us a Tag Team Title Match at SummerSlam."

But you guys aren’t friends? 🤨 @MsCharlotteWWE @AlexaBliss_WWE pic.twitter.com/N4L3Sfe5m4
— WWE (@WWE) July 19, 2025

More on WWE NXT July 15, 2025 Viewership

The July 15th episode of WWE NXT saw NXT suffer a very large decrease in overall viewership and a small decline in key demographic ratings.

NXT drew 586,000 viewers and a 0.12 key demographic rating on The CW.

Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that the main reasons for NXT’s declines this week was due to a combination of the very stiff sports competition from the MLB All-Star game and the large declines from their Over 50 demographic viewership and older key demographic viewership groups, which its percentages were not given. This offset the large increase from their younger key demographic viewership group, which was up 10.7% compared to last week’s show.

In terms of head-to-head competition, the 2025 MLB All-Star game drew 7,185,000 viewers on FOX, the WNBA game of Indiana Fever vs. Connecticut Sun drew 1,683,000 viewers on ESPN, The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch drew 862,000 viewers on History Channel, The Valley drew 447,000 viewers on BRAVO, Love & Hip Hop Atlanta drew 334,000 viewers on MTV, My Big Fat Fabulous Life drew 558,000 viewers on TLC, and Chopped drew 375,000 viewers on Food Network.

In terms of key demographic viewership, NXT had 157,000 viewers. Meltzer reported that NXT’s male/female viewership skew was 70.8% in favor of males.

In terms of yearly comparisons, NXT was down 3.9% in overall viewership and down 39.6% in key demographic viewership.

WWE News & Notes

The Prudential Center recently announced that musician Jelly Roll will be making an appearance at WWE’s SmackDown show on August 1st at their venue in Newark, New Jersey.

WWE reportedly drew an attendance of “nearly 12,000” for their July 12th Saturday Night’s Main Event show in Atlanta, 768 for their July 12th NXT Great American Bash 2025 event in Atlanta, and 8,303 for their July 13th Evolution 2 event in Atlanta, Georgia, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter. Dave Meltzer reported that WWE’s Evolution 2 event had a significant amount of late “papering” in order to reach over 8,000 in tickets for it.

Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that his sources stated that the reason why the planned tag team match involving John Cena & Travis Scott did not take place at this past June’s Money in the Bank 2025 event was due to Scott “doesn’t like to commit to anything. He goes half-in, and tries other projects at the same time. And since he’s a personal client of Ari, everyone tried to accommodate until it just became too much to deal with.”

WWE recently released one new video for their on-going Top 25 SummerSlam matches of all-time countdown. The #14 spot was the WWE Intercontinental Championship Ladder match of Triple H vs. The Rock (c) from SummerSlam 1998. The #13 spot was the Undisputed WWE Championship match of John Cena vs. CM Punk (c) from SummerSlam 2011.

WWE also recently released one new match for their WCW Vault channel on YouTube. This new video was a WCW World Heavyweight Championship match of Sid Vicious vs. Hulk Hogan (c) from the July 19, 1999 episode of WCW Nitro.

WWE also recently released three new matches to their WWE Vault channel on YouTube. The first new video was a WWE Hardcore Championship Ladder match of Rob Van Dam vs. Jeff Hardy (c) from WWE SummerSlam 2001. The second new video was a WWE Championship Triple Threat match of Triple H vs. Kurt Angle vs. The Rock (c) from WWE SummerSlam 2000. The third new video was a “Unseen Randy Savage vs. Jerry Lawler match unearthed.”

In a recent interview with the My Mom’s Basement with Robbie Fox podcast, CM Punk revealed that WWE producer Michael Hayes is currently absent from WWE due to him recently underwent knee surgery. Punk stated “I feel like there’s so many people (that contribute to making the show go smoothly at WWE) … There’s so many chefs in the kitchen, in a good way, that if you took one person out — I mean, and it kind of happens on a weekly basis. Michael Hayes just went down, got a knee surgery so, Freebird’s gone for a while and I really do feel the impact of him not being around. Now, you can text him. But, he’s at home and him not being there, his presence is missed.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)

In a recent episode of the Nikki & Brie Show podcast, WWE Hall of Famers The Bella Twins’ Nikki & Brie Bella gave their thoughts about them being hopeful that WWE makes their all-women’s Evolution event a yearly thing. Brie stated “Hopefully, it becomes a yearly thing.” Nikki responded stating “It becomes a yearly thing not because it’s about history making. It’s just that it’s fun and different for a PLE. How we have the Royal Rumble, SummerSlam, Hell in a Cell, Survivor Series. A lot of our PLEs have themes, so why not one of the themes be all women? We don’t always have to make it about history-making and all this. Just, ‘how cool.’ Evolution every year. I think it’s fun to put it in the summer. Put it before SummerSlam.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)

In a recent interview with PWInsider, Jordynne Grace gave her thoughts about why she prefers WWE to hold a new Evolution event once every few years instead of being a potential yearly event. Grace stated “I think it makes it a little bit more special if it’s just when it’s needed… but I wouldn’t mind if it was every two or three years. I think seven years is kind of a long time.“